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HOMEBREW Digest #0176
HOMEBREW Digest #176 Wed 14 June 1989
FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
Rob Gardner, Digest Coordinator
Contents:
Brewing with Fruit. (bryan)
Mead et al. (Dave Sheehy)
Brew Humor (Steve Anthony)
Re: Homebrew Digest #154 (May 19, 1989) (Bob Dromeshauser)
Send submissions to homebrew%hpfcmr@hplabs.hp.com
Send requests to homebrew-request%hpfcmr@hplabs.hp.com
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 13 Jun 89 09:53:03 PDT (Tue)
From: bryan%tekgen.bv.tek.com@RELAY.CS.NET
Subject: Brewing with Fruit.
Hi! I'm a new brewer who became inspired to brew through reading this digest.
My first brew turned out to be a nice light pale ale. O.G. of 54, T.G. of 5.
This seemed pretty low, but it's O.K. I used 2 cans of Alexanders Sun Country
and 1 # of 20 l. Crystal malt for my malt. We have some frozen strawberries
and rasberries from last year that my wife is willing to let me brew with. They
still taste fine, just are mushy from being frozen. I'd like to brew a fruit
ale using my first recipe and adding the fruit. I assume the fruit is put in
during the boil. For a 5 gallon batch I did a 90 minute boil, starting with
3 gallons and boiling to 2 gallons.
How much fruit do I use and when do I add it to the boil? The liquid yeasts
I have access to are the W'yeast products. Which yeast should I use? Anything
special I need to do to brew with fruit?
Thanks, Bryan Olson bryan@tekgen.UUCP
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 13 Jun 89 10:35:44 PDT
From: Dave Sheehy <dbs@hprnd>
Subject: Mead et al.
Full-Name: Dave Sheehy
More Fuel for the Fire
======================
Erik Henchal writes:
> Excuss me a minute, while I flame. 1) Hops and that other herb
> to which you are referring, besides being plants, are not
> related. 2) Why would you put anything in beer or encourage
> others to use ingredients which contribute negatively to the
> flavor and natural aroma of beer? 3)If you want to use drugs, go
> ahead. But if you want to brew REAL beer, use only hops, malt,
> water and yeast.
Following is an entry from one of my gardening catalogs (quoted without
permission):
"_Humulus_Lupulus_ 'Hops'
Cannabaceae. Hardy perennial vine grown for the bitter, sedative
resinous flowers. Flavouring herb in beer, yet few realize that
the mellow effect of beer is not merely from alcohol but is an
herbal property of the hop resins. Aggressive climber. pkt $2.50"
------------------------------
Getting Started
===============
Paul A. Ebersman writes:
>I am just getting into the idea of brewing my own beer, and would appreciate
>pointers as to:
>
>1) Instruction/Recipe books worth having
>
>Thanks in advance.
I really think Papazian is hard to beat. It's not too hard to interpolate
everything you need to do (hell, I did it!). Even better, once you've
gotten that first batch under your belt, his recipes are a great place to
start exploring the different types of beer. The sheer entertainment value
of his writing style (while still getting the information across) makes it
worth having.
------------------------------
Mead
====
Florian Bell writes:
>I'm preparing to make my first batch of mead. Some of the recipes I've
>read call for hops. Others call for various herbs. Using hops in a
>wine-like drink doesn't sound appealing to me. Has anyone experimented
>with hops in mead? Would you do it again? What kind did you use?
>Thanks.
I've made one batch of mead according to Papazian's recipe for Barckshack
Gingermead. I used Cascade hops as listed in the recipe. The only additional
ingredient I added was some cinnamon which was added at bottling time after
half of the mead had already been bottled. As of this writing the mead is
6 months old. Although it says to wait 12 months before sampling it also
says you can cheat and taste it after 6 months in order to get an idea what
you've gotten yourself into. And taste it I did (along with several
other homebrewing companions of course!). Although still tannic we agreed
that it held promise. It does come out a bit dry, I think on purpose. I
suspect that Papazian may have adjusted the published recipe on the dry side
so that if you want it sweeter you just add more honey next time. I get that
feeling from the way it turned out and from the text preceding the recipe.
I'm definitely going to make the next batch a little sweeter.
Also someone (who's name I can't deciper) writes:
>which were boiled for an hour. I used champagne yeast and clover/wildflower
>honey from a friend's bees.
I bought my honey at the local farmers' market from a beekeeper. Once I
told him what I wanted 7 lbs of honey for he launched into story about
how he used to live in Canada and all the locals (Canuks?) used to make
mead all the time and how a pleasant time was had by all. He set me up
with some light honey (I can't remember what type or if I even wrote it
down).
>This mead was virtually undrinkable up to 1 year
>in the bottle. It's now two and 1/2 years old and much better -- very dry, a
>beautiful color and quite intoxicating in small amounts. It's not bad for a
>first try. But I wish now that I had started with the basics, so I know what
>the contributions of various ingredients are. Looking back, I threw in just
>about everything.
As I said before, half of my batch is basic and the other half has some
cinnamon in it. Although it's only 6 months old I wouldn't describe it as
undrinkable. It will be interesting to see what another 6 months aging does
for the flavor. I sampled a bottle of each and must say that I probably didn't
put enough cinnamon into the second half of the batch.
>
>My second batch was patterned after a recipe I took out of the contest
>recipes in Zymurgy. It was a grape/honey mixture (a Riesling pyment) and I
>think of it more as a wine than a mead. It seemed to mature more quickly and
>is very pleasing. No hops this time -- whether that is responsible for
>the early maturation, I don't know.
Please publish your recipes. I only have the one from Papazian's book.
>
>MEAD, and not a wine. My biggest problem is not knowing anyone nearby who
>makes meads, so I can do the necessary research in less than 5 years. I hope
>that changes when I move in the fall.
We may not be close, but if there are enough people interested perhaps we
can collaborate (is it legal to ship homebrew across state lines? :-). A year
is a long time to see if you're latest experiment turned out. I sampled mine
at 6 months so I could start another batch and have something to go on other
than enthusiasum and anticipation.
Dave Sheehy
-----------
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 13 Jun 89 15:07:46 EDT
From: Steve Anthony <steveo@Think.COM>
Subject: Brew Humor
The following is a copy of a Dave Barry article, where he recounts his
experiences with home brewing. This was copied without any permission
whatsoever, other than that it's funny and this forum might enjoy it.
A BOY AND HIS HOBBY
Recently, I began to feel this void in my life, even after meals, and I
said to myself: ``Dave, all you do with your spare time is sit around and
drink beer. You need a hobby.'' So I got a hobby. I make beer.
I never could get into traditional hobbies, like religion or stamp
collecting. I mean, the way you collect stamps is: Every week or so the
Postal Service dreams up a new stamp to mark National Peat Bog Awareness
Month, or whatever, and you rush down and clog the Post Office lines to buy
a batch of these stamps, but instead of putting them to a useful purpose,
such as mailing toxic spiders to the Publishers Clearing House, you take
them home and just sort of *have* them. Am I right? Have I left any
moments of drama out of this action sequence? And then the *biggest*
thrill, as I understand it, the real *payoff*, comes when you get lucky and
collect a stamp on which the Post Office has made a *mistake*, such as
instead of ``Peat Bog'' it prints ``Beat Pog'', whiuch causes stamp
collectors to just about wet their polyester pants, right?
So for many years I had no hobby. When I would fill out questionaires and
they would ask what my hobbies were, I would put ``narcotics'', which was
of course a totally false humorous joke. And then one day, my editor took
me to a store where they sell beer-makeing equipment. Other writers, they
have editors who inspire them to new heights of literary achievement, but
the two major contributions my editor has made to my artistic development
are (1) teaching me to juggle and (2) taking me to his beer-making store
where a person named Craig gave me free samples until he could get a hold
of my Visa card.
But I'm glad I got into beer-making, because the beer sold here in the
United States is sweet and watery and lacking in taste and overcarbonated
and just generally the lamest, wimpiest beer in the entire known world.
All other nations are drinking Ray Charles beer and we are drinking Barry
Manilow. This is why American TV beer commercials are so ludicrously
masculine. It's a classic case of overcompensation. You may have seen, for
example, the Budweiser or Miller commercial where some big hairy are
standing around on the side of a river when a barge breaks loose and starts
drifting out of control. Now *real* men, who drink *real* beer, would have
enough confidence in their own masulinity to say: ``Don't worry; it's
probably insured.''
But the men in the commercial felt this compulsion to go racing off on a
tugboat and capture the barge with big hairy ropes, after which they make
excited masculine hand gestures at each other to indicate they have done a
task requiring absolute *gallons* of testosterone. Then they go to a bar
where they drink Miller or Budweiser and continue to reassure themselves
that they are truely a collection of major stud horses, which is why you
don't see any women around. The women have grown weary of listening the
men say: ``Hey! We sure rescued THAT barge, didn't we?!'' And: ``You think
it's easy, to resure a barge? Well, it's NOT!'' and, much later at night:
``Hey! Let's go let the barge loose again!'' So the women have gone off in
search of men who make their own beer.
Some of you may be reluctant to make your own beer, because you've heard
stories to the effect that it's difficult to make, or it's illegal, or it
makes you go blind. Let me assure you that these are falsehoods,
especially the part about making you go bleof nisdc dsdf,sdfkQ$$%''%.
Ha Ha! Just a little tastless humor there, designed to elicit angry letters
from liberals. The truth is, homemade beer is perfectly safe, unless the
bottle explodes. We'll have more on that if space permits. Also, it's
completely legal to make beer at home. In fact, as I read the current
federal tax laws - I use a strobe light - if you can make your own beer,
you can claim a tax credit of up to $4,000, provided you claim you spent it
on insulation!
And it's easy to make your own beer: You just mix your ingredients and
stride briskly away. (You may of course vary this recipe to suit your own
personal taste.) Your two main ingredients are (1) a can of beer
ingredients that you get from Craig or equivalent person, and (2) yeast.
Yeast is a wonderful little plant or animal that, despite the fact that it
has only one cell, has figured out how to convert sugar to alcohol. This
was a far greater accomplishment than anything we can attribute to giant
complex multicelled organisms such as, for example, the Secretary of
Transportaion.
After the little yeats are done converting your ingredients into beer, they
die horrible deaths by the millions. You shouldn't feel bad about this.
Bear in mind this is *yeast* we're talking about, and there's plenty more
available, out on the enormous yeast ranches of the Southwest. For now,
your job is to siphon your beer into bottles. This is the tricky part,
because what can happen is the phone rings and you get involved in a
lengthy conversation during which your son, who is 4 1/2, gets a hold of
the hose and spews premature beer, called ``wort'', all over the kitchen
and himself, and you become the target of an investigation by child welfare
authorities because yours is the only child who comes to preschool smelling
like a fraternity carpet.
But that's the only real drawback I have found, and the beer tastes
delicious, expect of course on those rare occasions when it explodes.
Which leads us to another advantage: If you make your own beer, you no
longer need to worry about running out if we have a nuclear war of
sufficient severity to close the commercial breweries
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 13 Jun 89 16:12:25 CDT
From: rdromesh@ub.D.UMN.EDU (Bob Dromeshauser)
Subject: Re: Homebrew Digest #154 (May 19, 1989)
Please remove me from this bulletin board.
Thank you
rdromesh
------------------------------
End of HOMEBREW Digest #176, 06/14/89
