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HOMEBREW Digest #0178
HOMEBREW Digest #178 Fri 16 June 1989
FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
Rob Gardner, Digest Coordinator
Contents:
Re: Fruit Beers (dw)
Dextrinous Porter (Peter Klausler)
re: bad smell while making lager (Darryl Richman)
Spices in mead (mhalley)
A Page From The Brewing Journal (pri=8 Marc San Soucie ms 019-890 x76723)
Send submissions to homebrew%hpfcmr@hplabs.hp.com
Send requests to homebrew-request%hpfcmr@hplabs.hp.com
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Date: 15 Jun 89 08:21:09 EDT (Thursday)
From: dw <Wegeng.Henr@Xerox.COM>
Subject: Re: Fruit Beers
Here's a question for all of you fruit beer lovers. Last year I made a
blueberry flavored beer, following a recipe that I saw in Zymurgy. The
result has wonderful flavor, aroma, and carbonation, but no head. I've of
similar experiences from other homebrewers, so one might assume that there
is something about using fruit that can affect head formation.
Would anyone care to comment on what is causing this problem? I'm thinking
about adding some crystal malt to my next batch of blueberry brew, to see
if that will help.
/Don
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Date: Thu, 15 Jun 89 09:34:54 CDT
From: pmk@bedlam.cray.com (Peter Klausler)
Subject: Dextrinous Porter
I brewed a Porter last weekend from
8 lbs. Munton & Fison 2-row pale malt
1.5 lbs. crystal malt
0.25 lb. chocolate malt
0.25 lb. black malt
0.5 lb. flaked barley
in the mash. Unfortunately, my mash temp was too high, as I misjudged the
quantity of strike liquor, and the mash spent a lot of time in the 160-170 deg F
range before I brought it down to 154. Conversion was good (OG 1.048 for 5 gal.)
but now, after fermentation with Edme dry ale yeast has settled down to a
1-bubble per 2 minute rate in my carboy, the gravity is 1.024. It is not very
bitter (1 oz. Willamette and 0.5 oz Cascade in 90 min. boil, with 0.5 oz Cascade
dry-hopped in the fermenter after foam fell); it's sweet, as I feared.
I suspect that there's nothing I can do now to turn this sweet stuff into the
dry Porter I intended, so my question to this (wonderful!) mailing list is
not "How do I fix it?" but rather, "Is this some obscure style that I can claim
I intended to brew in the first place?" I guess I need some level of "plausible
brewability"!
Rob: 400 subscribers? Congratulations! This is a really valuable service; it's
fun reading, and has improved my brew immensely. Thanks!
Finally, a novice lager-brewing question. I don't have a spare fridge or cool
basement to lager in. Is it possible to lager in the bottle in a refrigerator,
after a warm primary fermentation? I've tried it once, and got some nasty
off-smells. I'm willing to try again if I get some reassurance that it's not
a completely lame idea.
-Peter Klausler @ Cray Research compiler development / St. Paul, Minn. "071i30"
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 15 Jun 89 07:57:33 PDT
From: Darryl Richman <darryl@ism780c.isc.com>
Subject: re: bad smell while making lager
From: dwc@olivey.ATC.Olivetti.Com (Dan Crocker)
"A friend
"of mine and I have made about four batches of pretty standard looking
"lagers. While they were fermenting, they smelled alot like rotten garbage
"(a really offensive smell anyway). However, the ales I have made don't
"smell anything like that. I heard that this meant that the fermentation
"temperature of the lager was too high. The funny thing is that it
"doesn't seem to affect the taste to any great degree.
Because ale ferments are carried on at higher temperatures, they are
more vigorous. The physical action of the ferment can blow off a
variety of by products that you don't want in your beer (in large
quantities), especially dimethyl sulfide (DMS). This is the cooked
vegetable aroma that is often a part of lager beers. In varying
degrees of concentration, DMS can smell like cooked corn, cabbage, or
even celery. This aroma will tend to be more noticable with the slower
ferments of a lager since great quantities of CO2 and various esters
are not being created to dilute and mask the DMS. Michael Jackson
claims that DMS was a common and desirable part of American Premium
lagers 50 years ago, but now is considered a defect. Perhaps that is
why AB uses a relatively high primary fermentation temperature for
Budweiser.
--Darryl Richman
------------------------------
Date: 15 Jun 89 13:47 -0330
From: mhalley%leif.mun.ca@CORNELLC.cit.cornell.edu
Subject: Spices in mead
Hi!
It's me again. Since my strong suit is metheglyn (spiced
mead), I feel qualified to speak to the question of which
spices to add. Roger says: "Cinnamon might be a bit harsh...
clove, nutmeg, or the other sweeter spices might do better."
In my experience, both clove and nutmeg are quite easy to
OVERdo, and the result can be disastrous and may not even
be rectified by LONG aging. I have shipped my (prize-
winning) recipe to this network before. Believe me, it's
good, and the minimum aging period is only about six weeks.
I don't mean longer aging won't improve it, but it's not
only clear and drinkable after the shorter period, it even
tastes GOOD. I would suggest that a possible cause of the
problem mentioned by Dave could be the use of powdered or
ground, rather than whole spices. Maybe Dave could answer
that directly.
Many people prefer to vary amounts of spices to suit their
own taste preferences. I can see that Roger would prefer
less cinnamon than some might. But the oils in clove and
nutmeg can produce very nasty bitternesses, if they're used
improperly or in too large amounts, so don't just leap into
the breach.
For a small batch of metheglyn (one to one-and-a-half gallons
finished), I use 3 lbs. of honey to a gallon of water, and
one "grab" handful of stick cinnamon, two cupped handfuls
(scant) of whole allspice, and a short palmful of whole cloves.
I do not add nutmeg to my basic recipe, although I'm VERY
fond of it and can happily add it to almost any other cooking.
I don't add it because it's so tricky. I DO put some in my
rose-petal mead and my peach mead, but only one or two split
nutmegs. Maybe Rob still has my recipe on file somewhere,
if you want it. Or you could email me direct. If you expect
direct email answer, though, you have to be accessible via
bitnet.
What I intended to say was that in my early days of mead-making
(some ten years or so ago), I tried using ground spices and
ruined a couple of batches before I found out what the problem\
was.
My foster-brother likes heavy, sweet, spiced fruit meads and
has some good recipes for that type. I don't care for them at
all. Mine, while not exactly "sec", turn out dry enough for
an acceptable table drink. I believe I have previously
compared them to a good Moselle for sweetness.
My second batch of beer was almost, but not quite as good as the
first. I must have either mixed the bottling sugar insufficiently
or capped incorrectly, because about half the bottles were flat.
No problem in Newfoundland. We have a local beer called "Jockey
Club" that is QUITE drinkable. I simply mixed the flat homebrew
with Jockey and drank it happily. I have noticed that my brewing
colleagues here ALL choose Jockey. It's minimally darker, a bit
lower in carbonation, and noticeably better tasting than any
other domestic commercial beer here. I wish I could make it
available all over North America. It's something I'll MISS when
I leave in August.
I have a friend here who makes a delightful rowanberry (European
mountain ash, dogberry) liqueur. If anyone is interested, I'll
see if I can get his recipe. It's strange in that the actual
flavour is light, fruity, and sweet, while the "nose" is
distinctly remeniscent of freshly-cut lumber. WOODY is a MILD
description. Like the infamous moose-turd pie, "It's good,
though."
Here's how!
--Ye Olde Batte
------------------------------
Date: 15 Jun 89 17:21:10 EDT (Thu)
From: hplabs!decvax!wang!mds (pri=8 Marc San Soucie ms 019-890 x76723)
Subject: A Page From The Brewing Journal
A page from the brewing journal (a lesson in excess):
----------
Batch 8 - July 7, 1987
Crankcase Stout (Stout III)
- 1 lb. crushed crystal malt
- 1 lb. crushed roasted barley
- 1-1/2 lbs. crushed black malt
I put these delights into two gallons of water and got it boiling, eventually.
Boiled about 10-15 minutes, then scooped out most of the miscellaneous, putting
some into another pot to soak with clear water.
- 9 lbs. Munton&Fison dark dried malt extract
This was somewhat exciting, as by the third bag the sluice was thick enough
that the malt balled up extravagantly. Continued application of heat settled
things down nicely.
- 1 can John Bull dark hopped malt extract
As if I really needed more ingredients.
- 2 inches brewer's licorice
Thick soup, this. I added the juice from the extra pot, black stuff by now,
all tart flavor. Two hours after starting, it was finally boiling.
- 2 oz. Nugget leaf hops
- 2 oz. Galena leaf hops
Possibly another 1 oz. of Nugget. I forget.
- 1 oz. Cascade hops
- 2 packets Doric ale yeast
For finishing. Total boil time was about 70 minutes. Literally porridge by
finishing time. Turned out to be only two gallons of wort - need a bigger pot
for this mess. One boilover didn't help. Took the usual amount of time to cool,
then I pitched double yeast and a 1 oz. packet of amylase enzyme, finally
retiring for the night after about 6 hours work.
Whoomp! exploded the cover off the plastic fermenter. Marvelous mess all over
the walls. Had to scoop cubic yards of foam out of the fermenter to get the
cover back on.
Long secondary fermentation, perhaps 3 weeks. Already intimidated.
Heavy, strong, thick. Not really drinkable by 11/88. Interesting, but not
completely enjoyable. Too much of too many good things.
----------
Ah, for the innocent days of youth...
At least now I know my limits.
Marc San Soucie
The John Smallbrewers
Massachusetts
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End of HOMEBREW Digest #178, 06/16/89
