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HOMEBREW Digest #0073
HOMEBREW Digest #73 Fri 10 February 1989
FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
Rob Gardner, Digest Coordinator
Contents:
What's wrong with plastic? (Dick Dunn)
dry-hopping and infecting beer (Dick Dunn)
Re: Very High Terminal Gravity (Peter Klausler)
Re: mthvax.miami.edu (a.e.mossberg)
Champagne Yeast and More ??? on dry hopping (Michael Bergman)
Wyeast #2042 (Danish lager) (Pete Soper)
Pale Ale recipe (David Baer)
re: Dry Hopping (ROTH)
2 copies. . . (David Carter)
bittering hops (Pete Soper)
Send submissions to homebrew%hpfcmr@hplabs.hp.com
Send requests to homebrew-request%hpfcmr@hplabs.hp.com
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 10 Feb 89 01:33:54 MST (Fri)
From: hplabs!utah-cs!cs.utexas.edu!raven!rcd (Dick Dunn)
Subject: What's wrong with plastic?
I'm not quite convinced that bottling homebrew in plastic is a Bad Thing.
I admit that my first reaction was the same as many other folks, namely
that plastic (clearly one of the True Devils of modern society) was likely
to cause problems in the beer. But why should that be? It shouldn't
really be that hard to find a food-grade plastic that doesn't interact with
the stuff in beer. At the least, it shouldn't be hard to test whether a
given plastic causes some bad interactions. I've seen a couple of decent
British beers (Watney's was one) packaged in plastic bottles, and I suspect
they care a bit about their beer. If I had to make a random guess, I'd
guess they're PET. You ought to be able to re-use these bottles at least a
few times, and they have some obvious advantages:
- greater pressure tolerance
- more graceful failure under pressure (i.e., messy but not
hazardous)
- large
- lightweight
I think I'd limit the number of re-uses of the bottle, because it's going
to pick up scratches and it's not going to be trivial to clean.
---
Dick Dunn {ncar;ico;stcvax}!raven!rcd (303)494-0965
------------------------------
Date: 10 Feb 89 01:43:05 MST (Fri)
From: hplabs!utah-cs!cs.utexas.edu!raven!rcd (Dick Dunn)
Subject: dry-hopping and infecting beer
I've done near-dry-hopping a handful of times with good results. I don't
think there are any inherent problems with it.
As for the bacteria &c which might live on the hops: They may exist, but
it seems reasonable to guess that the critters that find hops hospitable
are unlikely to be the same as those that find wort tasty.
If you're trying to think of ways to sterilize the hops before you use
them, consider that you don't want to use a lot of heat, because heat will
destroy or dissipate the same aromatics you're trying to retain by dry-
hopping!
My near-dry-hopping procedure is to put the hops in the primary fermenter
and transfer the wort onto them after I've boiled it and I'm ready to cool
it. This seems to retain good hop character without problems. However,
note that I use a wide-top primary; if you hop with whole-leaf hops and use
a carboy for a primary, you run the risk of clogging the blowoff with hops.
As for whole-leaf vs pellets, there really isn't any reason to prefer one
to the other for reasons of cleanliness or risk of infection. Pellets are
made by squishing leaf hops; there's no cleaning or sterilizing along the
way.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 10 Feb 89 09:34:45 CST
From: pmk@bedlam.cray.com (Peter Klausler)
Subject: Re: Very High Terminal Gravity
Len Reed's description sounds exactly like my first mashed beer (made 3 weeks
ago with my wonderful new Corona mill). Mash temp too high, final gravity
around 1.020.
I bottled after 1 week quiet fermentation, and began aging at 50 degrees after
1 week of conditioning at room temperature. After 1 week of aging now, it's
pretty flat -- but it has a great bouquet and a pleasant malty flavor.
I like it.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 10 Feb 89 9:17:42 EDT
From: a.e.mossberg <aem@mthvax.miami.edu>
Subject: Re: mthvax.miami.edu
|From: "V70NPT::LENO" <leno%v70npt.decnet@nusc.ARPA>
|Subject: Re: mthvax.miami.edu
| In digest #69 a.e.mossberg mentioned that the digests have
| been archived at mthvax.miami.edu.
| Our host table doesn't have an entry for it. Could he please
| post the Internet node numbers for this machine. Hopefully
| I'm the only one with this problem.
Gee, your system administrator must be rather lax. We've been listed for
at least a year! :-)
Our internet address is: 129.171.32.5
We will soon be back on SPAN... If anyone needs that address, please
query via email.
aem
--
a.e.mossberg aem@mthvax.miami.edu MIAVAX::AEM (Span) aem@umiami.BITNET (soon)
Average fine in Barvaria, West Germany for calling a traffic officer a damischer
Bulle: $1,710. For calling a traffic officer a Stinkstiefel: $51
- Harper's Index 9/88
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 10 Feb 89 11:08:06 est
From: Michael Bergman <bergman%odin.m2c.org@RELAY.CS.NET>
Subject: Champagne Yeast and More ??? on dry hopping
>>First , an apology to Dr. Andrews. I didn't make sure my brain was
>>engaged prior to releasing my hands to reply about the yeast issue.
>>Oh well. But while on the subject, I mentioned I bottled a kit of
>>root beer about 4 weeks back. Well to see if I had any 12oz. time
>>bombs lurking in my cellar, I opened one to see where the carbonation
>>had gotten to. Well it hasn't gotten far at all in this time. There
>>was perceivable carbonation just starting, but *just* preceivable.
>>Therefore I would hazard a guess that the champagne yeast is not as
>>vigorous as _beer_ yeast.(there I got it right this time) So I think
>>using champagne yeast for these applications appears to be a better
>>bet.
If the cellar is cool, the "problem" might be that champagne yeast
likes it warmer than beer yeast.
--mike
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 10 Feb 89 10:20:39 est
From: Pete Soper <soper@maxzilla.encore.com>
Subject: Wyeast #2042 (Danish lager)
Len Reed writes about a high terminal gravity with his beer made
with Wyeast Danish lager yeast. I have had a similar experience.
With a steam beer recipe that I've made about 6 times with very
little variation, switching from #2035 (don't remember it's name)
to #2042 with no other changes gave me a terminal gravity of 1.018
instead of 1.013. I think of this batch as "Danish Steam Syrup".
The data I have from Wyeast claims attenuation of 4-5% less with
2042 as compared to 2035 but I didn't realize the implication of
this at the time. Since then my supplier has confirmed that 2042
just doesn't munch as much of the sugars.
So it is possible the 160 degree mash is another red herring, although I
realize that all the popular literature says 160 should give a large
fraction of dextrins. Perhaps an experiment with a starter and some
dry malt extract with known characteristics might clear things up.
Speaking of Wyeast, I just pitched some #1098 ("Whitbread", a newly
released strain) into a starter. I sure hope it is better than #1028.
That stuff got pulled by Wyeast and I had the misfortune to discover
why - it didn't flocculate properly! Another bit of disillusionment,
this Wyeast. But #2007 is great stuff! Old reliable!
--Pete
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 10 Feb 89 09:22:30 PST
From: dsbaer@Sun.COM (David Baer)
Subject: Pale Ale recipe
Joseph Palladino states in his Feb 9th article:
>>A month or so ago I asked for advice and recipes for Pale Ales.
>>I received exactly NO responses.
here you go joe:
This is a Pale Ale recipe I used for my
class. I used M&F PALE Extract and
the grains are more for demonstration than
flavor. I suggest doubling the quantites
of grain to get more from the grains. Also
you should be able to cut the whole recipe in
half for a 5 gallon batch.
THE DRIVE PALE ALE
(for 10 gallons of beer!)
6.6lbs LIGHT, UNHOPPED Malt Extract (two cans)
5.0 lbs Light Dry Malt Extract
2 cups Corn Sugar
3/4 cups Medium Roast Crystal Malt (1 cup= ~1/4 lbs)
1/4 cups Black Patent Malt (1 cup= ~1/4 lbs)
3.8 oz (105gr)Cascades pelletized Hops (bittering acid 4.4)
1.5oz (40gr) Willamette pelletized Hops (aromatic acid ~4.0)
2 oz Whitebread Dry Ale Yeast (Great Fermentations)
11 gal Clean clear crisp cool refreshing water(deionized/purified)
Original Gravity: 1.047
Terminal Gravity: 1.010
Rich rusty color with well balanced but noticeable hop flavor
I used the infusion method with the flavor grains:
steeped the grains in a mesh bag, until
the water reached boiling then removed the grains
and started the standard extract brew process.
I boiled the wort in an 8 gallon pot and added
4 gallons of cold water. Pitched yeast at 80-85 degrees.
Fermented in 20 gallon open container for 4 days.
Then put in glass carboys at about 60 degrees F
for 24 days. Will bottle on Feb 21.
Note this recipe is used to teach a class the basics of
brewing from extract. I like to use different ingredients
to show the wide range of choices available.
there you go joe,
Dave Baer
------------------------------
Date: Fri 10 Feb 89 10:38:57-PDT
From: ROTH@SALK-SCI.SDSC.EDU
Subject: re: Dry Hopping
In Digest #69, Len Reed writes:
>I quit dry hopping when I lost a batch of beer to infection.
>Withing 48 hours of adding the hops, the beer had a raging bacterial
>or wild yeast infection....
>I discarded it a couple of days later.
As a novice homebrewer, I immediately asked myself "how did he know that
an infection was present?" As curiosity got the better of basic shyness,
I decided to (finally) pose that question to you experienced brewers.
Specifically, my SO dry-hopped our last batch the night before I began
seeing all the bad press here! We just strained it into the secondary
fermenter last night and it *tastes* ok. So, how do we know if it's
infected?
(Sure hope it's not... we only have 1 secondary w/airlock and only 7-8
magnums of our last batch left... all that lost time :-)
lcr
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 10 Feb 89 14:09:44 EST
From: davidc@northstar11.Dartmouth.EDU (David Carter)
Subject: 2 copies. . .
You posted a message earlier stating that you were working on fixing
the problem of people getting two copies of homebrew digest. Thought
you might like to know that I'm still getting two.
I love the forum; it's very informative and entertaining. Thanks.
Dave Carter
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 10 Feb 89 17:35:36 est
From: Pete Soper <soper@maxzilla.encore.com>
Subject: bittering hops
A while back I asked if any flavor or aroma was contributed by hops
boiled for 90 minutes or more. Here is a summary of what I I've learned.
Byron Burch's "Brewing Quality Beers" (p 28):
Only mentions bitter flavor from boil
Dave Line's "The Big Book of Brewing" (p 70):
90% of aroma lost with boil, no mention of flavor effects
Greg Noonan's "Brewing Lager Beer" (p 60):
[essential] oils dissipated by boiling
Fred Eckhardt's "Treatise on Lager Beers (p 10):
The hop oils, on the other hand are responsible for the
flavor, and these are often vaporized with the steam during
the boiling of the wort. Fort his reason we use the cheaper
or older hops, or even hop extract during the boiling of
the wort, and add the loose finishing hops at the very end
of the boiling process, for their flavor.
Dr. Terence Foster in "Best of Beer and Brewing" (p 34):
However, they also are quite reactive compounds, and can
be oxidized during boiling to less volatile compounds.
This suggest that even bittering hops may contribute to
beer hop character.
Len Reed in Digest #64:
Yes, the isomerized alpha acid is the *main* result of a long
boil, but the boil hops affect flavor as well. . . Your
conclusions are valid for bitter, dark beers. But I used nothing
but Saaz in my Pilsner. Experiments with Eroica (a high alpha
acid variety) were unsatisfactory.
So there appear to be subtle flavor effects and perhaps even aroma
effects from hops involved in a long boil and this is relevant
for delicate beer styles. When making highly hopped or dark styles where
a little extra dab of flavor or aroma would be buried under strong hop
or grain flavors, hop selection for a long boil is not critical.
--Pete
------------------------------
End of HOMEBREW Digest
