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HOMEBREW Digest #0146
HOMEBREW Digest #146 Tue 09 May 1989
FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
Rob Gardner, Digest Coordinator
Contents:
Novice Questions Responses (rogerl)
Homebrew Digest #145 (May 06, 1989) (ferguson ct 71078)
no subject (file transmission) (lbr)
Re: More novice questions
Re: to boil, or not to boil (a.e.mossberg)
Shipping beer? (Mark J. Bradakis)
Why no carbonation? (Frederic W. Brehm)
Re: More novice questions (Michael Eldredge)
Wanted: recipe help with steam beer (Frederic W. Brehm)
Bruheat Boiler Question (Crawford.wbst129)
Re: Homebrew Digest #145 (May 06, 1989) (Darryl Richman)
Send submissions to homebrew%hpfcmr@hplabs.hp.com
Send requests to homebrew-request%hpfcmr@hplabs.hp.com
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 8 May 89 08:45:59 EDT
From: rogerl@Think.COM
Subject: Novice Questions Responses
Date: Fri, 5 May 89 12:01:47 EDT
From: gh0t+@andrew.cmu.edu
Subject: More novice questions
...
I've noticed, in "complete joy" and elsewhere, directions that call for boiling
wort with part of the water required, and then adding the rest of the water to
it in the fermenter. I'm not exactly sure how to interpret this. In particular,
does this mean that it's OK to just add tap water to the boiled portion of the
wort, or should pre-sterilized (boiled) water be added?
I build all of my Homebrew with just adding tap water to the wort.
Yes you do run the risk of contamination, but we're not suppose to
worry, right. One thing I try to do is boil as much of the water as I
can for the batch. This means for a 5 gal. recipe I will most likely
boil about 3 gal. of it and add 2 gal. of tap water. Then I cover the
container and let it sit until the tempurature has dropped to a
reasonable pitching temp. And, yes, it is always better to boil all
of the water you are going to use to create a homebrew. But if you
don't have the facilities or equipment, don't worry about it. Lots of
excellent homebrews are made with tap water.
Another question concerning water: is there any advantage to using anything
but tapwater? The water here in Pittsburgh is not bad, but it's not great,
either. (It took some getting used to when I came here from Oregon, where
municipal water sources are typically snowmelt. Pittsburgh water comes from the
Allegheney river, which has its source, I believe, in an oilwell upstate.)
First, remember that brews are mostly water. So the water you use
will effect the final product. If the water is particularly
unappetizing I would suggest using bottled water. The town water
where I am is safe to drink by all standards but has a strange musty
oder to it.('they' say it's algee in the supply) But we took no
changes and had an active charcol filter installed in the main into
the house. Yes, it was a bit expensive. But the way I figure it, it
has paid for itself in the 5 years we've had it based on the price of
bottled water being delivered to the house.
Last question: I know that there have been previous postings about mail order
sources for brewing supplies, ...
Try:
Beer and Wine Hobby
22B Cranes Court
Worburn, MA 01801
FAX: (617)662-0872
Outside MA:
1(800)523-5423
Inside MA:
(617)933-8818
They are very knowledgeable, prompt and generally a great bunch to
work with.
Now where's that homebrew I just poured.
Roger J. Locniskar <rogerl@think.com>
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 5 May 89 12:01:47 EDT
From: ferguson%X102C@HARRIS-ATD.COM (ferguson ct 71078)
Subject: Homebrew Digest #145 (May 06, 1989)
>So my question is, can I add either cold tapwater to the fermenter OR
>cooled pre-boiled water without too great a risk of contamination?
Yes, unless you live in Mexico or someplace where the water could kill
you it is safe to add tap water. Charlie Papazian's (sp? -- TCJOH)
approach to putting the hot wort into the carboy is to pre-fill the 5
gal. carboy with about 3-1/2 gallons of cold tap water before sparging
the wort into it. I would urge you to try it, especially given your
comments about the difficulty you have had in cooling your wort to
room temperature. I use it and it works great. Usually my fermenter
is at 76-78 degrees as soon as I finish sparging and I can add the
yeast immediately.
I have also added extra tap water after sparging to top-off the
carboy*. I haven't noticed any ill effects. The water I have used in
all my brewing was Minnesota well water (I had my own well). It was
rich in iron and other minerals and was never chlorinated, florinated,
or anything else.
>Another question concerning water: is there any advantage to using
>anything but tapwater?
I can't help you here. All I have ever used is tap water.
>Last question: Could some of you who know of good sources be so kind
>as to email me addresses and phone #'s, please? <mail order>
I would suggest calling your local brewing supply store. It seems
like no brewery or wine-making supply outfit can survive unless it
also has a mail-order business going. The Pittsburg stores may do the
same.
>Thanks in advance. I really enjoy this bboard. peole seem much nicer
>on it than on some of the others I read. I guess the posters on those
>others just haven't had enough homebrew. 8-)
>
>Gordon Hester
>gh0t+@andrew.cmu.edu (works sometimes when "reply" doesn't)
Amen. This is certainly the most laid-back group of net-posters.
Chuck Ferguson Harris Government Information Systems Division
(407) 984-6010 MS: W1/7732 PO Box 98000 Melbourne, FL 32902
Internet: ferguson%cobra@trantor.harris-atd.com
uunet: uunet!x102a!x102c!ferguson
* War story follows: My first batch of homebrew basically followed
Papazian's beginners approach. My fermenter was a 5 gallon glass
carboy fitted with a rubber stopper and 3/8 inch diameter blow-off
tube. I used a pelletized hops which disentigrated in the wort.
Quite a bit of "hops fines" made it through my strainer and ended up
in the fermenter. There was about 5 inches of air space above the
brew in the fermenter with a decent layer of hops fines on the
surface. I put the carboy on my kitchen floor, stuck the blow-off
tube apparatus in the bottle and went to bed. During the night the
thing bubbled and foamed nicely. Only problem was the hops fines
collected in the blow-off tube and solidified. Around 2 AM the fines
formed a solid plug and the pressure in the fermenter blew the
blow-off tube and probably 1/2 gallon of brew onto my kitchen ceiling.
What a mess! I cleaned it up but my kitchen stilled smelled like a
brewery for a while. Since this episode, I have begun straining out
most of my boiling hops and other solids while they are still in the
brewpot. I also top-off the fermenter with tap water until the brew
level is right under the stopper of the blow-off tube. That way there
is no place for foam (kreusen?) to accumulate and solidify.
Funny thing is, the brew still turned out OK (RDWHAH :-)). Another
lesson learned from this episode was that homebrewing is almost a
bullet-proof endeavor. I have since talked to a homebrewer that makes
beer in a musty basement in a bucket covered by a scrap of old plywood
and then bottles the stuff in plastic 2 liter pop bottles (with those
cheap screw-on caps no less!). He has been doing this for years and
has only made one bad batch of beer. Not bad.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 8 May 89 10:02:54 EDT
From: holos0!lbr@gatech.edu
Subject: no subject (file transmission)
Subject: Re: More novice questions
gh0t+@andrew.cmu.edu writes in #145:
> I've noticed, in "complete joy" and elsewhere, directions that call for boiling
> wort with part of the water required, and then adding the rest of the water to
> it in the fermenter....
> Even though I put it in a tub of cold water,
> it took hours to cool to even 80 degrees F. I put in the yeast at that point,
> even though the recipe called for cooling to 68 degrees -- I was fearful that
> I was creating opportunities for contamination while the cooling took place
> (and besides, it was getting late.) So my question is, can I add either cold tapwater to the fermenter OR cooled pre-boiled water without too great a risk of
> contamination?
You're better off boiling as much of the wort as possible. Most extract
brewers start with undersized pots and add only 1/2 or so of the water to
the boiling pot. Then they add cool water after boiling to make up the
difference. This works, but it increases the caramalization of the wort
sugars. If you have big canning pots--the 40 qt type--boil it all.
When you boil all the wort, you should use a wort chiller to get the
hot wort down to pitching temperature. (These are copper tubing coolers.
You run the wort thru the tube, which sits in ice water, or you put the tube
coils in the wort and run cold water thru it.) With grain beers, this is
essential unless you want enough trub in the fermenter to ruin the brew.
With extract beers, I think you can get by with setting the fermenator in
a bathtub of cold water. Wort ruining bacteria like the 80-120 degF range,
though, a wort chiller gets you rapidly through this zone.
80 degrees won't kill the yeast, but it may hurt the flavor. Quality ale
yeast should be fermented at 60-65 degrees. High temperatures increase
"diacytl"--which gives beer an artifical butter aroma, similar to
movie popcorn "golden topping".
If you did opt for adding cold water at the end, the water should be treated.
That is, any salts and other preparations done to your brewing liquor (water)
should be done to it. Boiling and force cooling (set it in the tub, covered)
is probably better, since this will kill wort spoiling beasties. I used
to get by with merely adding tap water. Some water supplies have
organisms that are not pathogenic in humans. Some of these can spoil beer.
> Another question concerning water: is there any advantage to using anything
> but tapwater? The water here in Pittsburgh is not bad, but it's not great,
> either.
It depends on the tap water. You're not drinking this water, you're brewing
with it. Truly bad tastes--iron, chlorine, toxic waste--are bad for beer.
But good-tasting water doesn't necessarily make great beer. The ideal water
depends upon the beer style and the brewing method. If you're making pale
ale--the standard beginner brew--moderately hard water with lots of calcium
sulfate is the best. If your water is soft, add gypsum. If your water
has 450 ppm as calcium sulfate, just run the water into the brew kettle.
The ideal home brewing water is sterile, free of nasty chemicals, and is
very soft--80 ppm minerals, mostly calcium. Iron is ruiness if it is
perceptible to the palate. Magnesium in large amounts is bad (above
50 ppm? I forget). The water should have no chlorine smell--but activated
charcoal takes that out. It's pH should be near 7--many municpal supplies
are very alkaline from the treatment. High levels of sodium are ruinious--
never use a water softener; these remove calcium and substitute sodium.
Soft water is best because you can brew all kinds of beer by adding salts.
Hard water restricts you to certain types, or requires you to jump through
hoops. Note that water composition is most important during the mash--
so if you're brewing from extract it's less critical. Dave Miller's
"The Complete Handbook of Home Brewing" discusses water treatment at length.
Most water companies will tell you about the water if you give them a
call and ask to speak to a chemist.
If you're using well-water that tastes of blood, buy bottled water. If
you lucky like me you can run the soft municpal water through a Water-Pic
charcoal filter and add salts as desired. (I make light lager with *no*
water treatment other than the filter.) If your water has lots of
carbonates you need to boil, cool, and rack. It depends....
BTW, recipes that call for "1 tsp. gypsum" or whatever are silly at best.
Adding gypsum to hard water is counterproductive, and you may need more
than the recipe calls for if your water is softer than the water the
recipe formulator used.
BTW, I'm an all-grain purest. I use whole hops, pure strain yeast, and
have a fermentation refrigerator. I mention this to let you know I have
lots of experience in brewing, but also to warn you that I may have lost
perspective on just what compromises affect the beer the most.
> Last question: I know that there have been previous postings about mail order
> sources for brewing supplies, but I don't find them among the messages that
> remain in my local archives....
Best source is the ads in Zymurgy. Write and get several catalogs.
I am hesitent to recommend specific suppliers. I have never dealt with
any disreputable or difficult sources. (I don't see how you could
compete without return business.) I choose my suppliers on the basis
of cost and especially hop quality.
Len Reed
gatech!holos0!lbr
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 8 May 89 11:05:21 EDT
From: a.e.mossberg <aem@mthvax.miami.edu>
Subject: Re: to boil, or not to boil
In HOMEBREW Digest #145, Gordon Hester asks:
>I've noticed, in "complete joy" and elsewhere, directions that call for boiling
>wort with part of the water required, and then adding the rest of the water to
>it in the fermenter. I'm not exactly sure how to interpret this. In particular,
>does this mean that it's OK to just add tap water to the boiled portion of the
>wort, or should pre-sterilized (boiled) water be added?
[...]
>Another question concerning water: is there any advantage to using anything
>but tapwater? The water here in Pittsburgh is not bad, but it's not great,
>either. (It took some getting used to when I came here from Oregon, where
>municipal water sources are typically snowmelt. Pittsburgh water comes from the
>Allegheney river, which has its source, I believe, in an oilwell upstate.)
Tap water is fine, unless you're unsure of the quality. If it's safe to drink,
it's perfectly alright to use in your brew. If you're concerned about the
quality, a standard water filter would probably be sufficient to bring the
water to spec.
>Last question: I know that there have been previous postings about mail order
>sources for brewing supplies, but I don't find them among the messages that
>remain in my local archives. Now that I've actually begun brewing, and have
>found that local sources are a good hour's round-trip drive away (around
>Pittsburgh, there is generally no good way to get from here to there,
>regardless of where here and there are), I sure wish I had kept some of the
>messages giving info about mail order sources. Could some of you who know
>of good sources be so kind as to email me addresses and phone #'s, please?
Wine and Brew by You has a big selection, and a new catalog. (305) 666-5757
5760 Bird Rd., Miami, FL 33155
aem
--
a.e.mossberg - aem@mthvax.miami.edu - aem@miavax.SPAN - aem@umiami.BITNET
Big Brother is watching you. - George Orwell
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 8 May 89 10:24:08 -0600
From: mjb%hoosier@cs.utah.edu (Mark J. Bradakis)
Subject: Shipping beer?
The Fat Chance brewers are considering sending off an entry to a homebrew
judging in California. Since we are in Utah, there is a fair bit of shipping
involved. Does anyone have any warnings, recommendations, etc. regarding
shipping beer? I imagine it can't be too bad if we send it early enough so
it has time to settle before the tasting, and we take care in packaging to
insulate the stuff from too rapid temperature fluctuations.
mjb et al.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 8 May 89 13:01:06 EDT
From: fwb@demon.siemens.com (Frederic W. Brehm)
Subject: Why no carbonation?
My second batch of brew has a problem: most of the beer is flat. The beer
tastes OK (there's not have enough hops to my liking, but chalk that up to
experience). A few bottles in my first batch had an obvious sour taste, so
I guess those bottles were not really sanitary. I haven't detected that
taste in any bottle from this batch, however.
The first two bottles I filled were champagne bottles and these were very
well carbonated. (Pouring from a champagne bottle "gluggs" and mixes the
sediment more than a lager bottle, but that's a different discussion.) All
of the others were either Sam Adams or New Amsterdam bottles. The
conditioning conditions (??) were probably OK because all the bottles make
a little "pfft" sound when I open them. Most of the beer in the lager
bottles are flat, but every now and then I find one with carbonation.
I had to adjust the caper after the champagne bottles, so my hypothesis is
that I blew the adjustment and the seal on the rest of the bottles was
marginal.
Are you experienced? Well, I have some questions for you.
1. Is this a reasonable hypothesis?
2. Is there another possibility, like some kind of infection? I've
heard of bacterial infections causing a too high pressure, but how
about a too low pressure?
3. How do I test my (or your) hypothesis?
4. Is there a way to salvage this beer? Maybe I should buy a seltzer
maker and CO2 cartridges! :-) Can I reset the caps and let them
stand another week? Should I add some boiled sugar solution and
recap?
5. Is there a good way to check the adjustment on the bottle caper
before using it on fresh beer? That would contribute to my brewing
relaxation! I have the two-handle kind which grabs a ridge on the
neck of the bottle to compress the cap.
I have about half of a case left (it's amazing how a little investment of
time and money will make you consume anything). I'll report on any
experiments which I attempt.
Thanks for a wonderfully informative newsletter.
Fred
--
Frederic W. Brehm Siemens Corporate Research Princeton, NJ
fwb@demon.siemens.com -or- princeton!siemens!demon!fwb
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 08 May 89 10:07:18 PDT
From: dredge@lancashire.STANFORD.EDU (Michael Eldredge)
Subject: Re: More novice questions
> Date: Fri, 5 May 89 12:01:47 EDT
> From: gh0t+@andrew.cmu.edu
> Subject: More novice questions
> I've noticed, in "complete joy" and elsewhere, directions that call for
> boiling wort with part of the water required, and then adding the rest
> of the water to it in the fermenter. I'm not exactly sure how to
> interpret this. In particular, does this mean that it's OK to just add
> tap water to the boiled portion of the wort, or should pre-sterilized
> (boiled) water be added? It sure would be
...
It can be quite hard to get going in brewing. There are several
very good books, each of which describes a different (and sometimes
contradictory) method.
The most important lesson I've learned in brewing is that it is a
creative art -- much like fine cooking (well, that's just what it
is). As with any cookbook recipe, a homebrew recipe and method come
from a particular perspective. Miller, Burch, Papazian (and each one
of us) have a particular style that has worked before. Their method
may work well for you, too. Or you may need to develop one of your
own. Adding tap water can work fine if you trust it to brew with in
the first place. Two friends and I just did 2 batches yesterday. We
have two 5 gallon SS kettles, but by the time the 90-120 minute boil
is done, each batch is about 1.5 gal short of the 5.5 gal. This time
we sparged the hops with cold tap water. We've actually done it
several ways (hot boiled, cool pre-boiled, cold tap and also
near-frozen bottled water from the store). We've never had any
problems, in fact we've been lucky enough to have brewed several very
good beers.
The bottom lines seems to be: ~4 gal wort at 210 degF + ~1.5 gal at
65 degF -> 5.5 gal at ~96 degF. Still "pretty" hot.
In addition, ever since Batch#2 we've used a wort chiller. We
*strongly* maintain that it is the most important second round piece
of equipment to buy. It is the best $40-$45 you can spend. It cools
a batch to pitching temp in 15-25 minutes (depending on whether we
sparged with cold water or not). Everyone knows how it aids in
reducing risk of contamination and saves time. But it also helps
greatly in reproducibility. The slowly cooling wort can still break
down the aromatic hop oils. With the wort chiller, you quickly get
the wort temp below that which affects the aromatic hop oils. We've
been able to get very nice and very reproducible aromatic hop
qualities in our beers.
Michael Eldredge
Stanford University, IC Lab
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 8 May 89 14:55:14 EDT
From: fwb@demon.siemens.com (Frederic W. Brehm)
Subject: Wanted: recipe help with steam beer
I am planning to make my third batch of beer. My first two have been all
extract brews. This time I would like to try a "Better Brew" (ala CJoHB)
recipe with some adjunct grains. Another goal for this batch is to
approximate the taste of Anchor Steam Beer (my wife's favorite). Of
course, this is a pretty far reach with my meager experience, so I am
appealing to the experts for help with a recipe for "A-clone Steam Beer".
Do you have any suggestions? Just knowing what hops to use for bittering
and finishing would be a big help.
Thanks,
Fred
--
Frederic W. Brehm Siemens Corporate Research Princeton, NJ
fwb@demon.siemens.com -or- princeton!siemens!demon!fwb
------------------------------
Date: 8 May 89 06:22:15 PDT (Monday)
From: Crawford.wbst129@Xerox.COM.WBST129
Subject: Bruheat Boiler Question
I have recently gotten into all-grain brewing and purchased a Bruheat
boiler to use for both mashing and boiling. My problem is scorching of the
grains while mashing. I have heard that scorching is not uncommon and the
only solution I have heard of is to use an infusion mash with a thinner
mash (I am currently using a temperature-step method as described in
Papazian). My questions are:
- What ratio of water to grain should I use for an infusion mash in the
Bruheat?
- What about using specialty malts (such as Munich Malt) that are
under-modified in an infusion mash? Won't the unconverted proteins cause
problems?
- Is there a way to do a temperature-step mash in a Bruheat without
scorching (what ratio of water to grain)?
I am also looking for alternatives for mashing. I would be interested in
hearing suggestions for any equipment or methods that I could try.
Greg
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 8 May 89 22:08:53 PDT
From: Darryl Richman <darryl@ism780c.isc.com>
Subject: Re: Homebrew Digest #145 (May 06, 1989)
From: gh0t+@andrew.cmu.edu
"I've noticed, in "complete joy" and elsewhere, directions that call for boiling
"wort with part of the water required, and then adding the rest of the water to
"it in the fermenter. I'm not exactly sure how to interpret this. In particular,
"does this mean that it's OK to just add tap water to the boiled portion of the
"wort, or should pre-sterilized (boiled) water be added? It sure would be
"convenient to be able to add cold water to the hot wort to cool it to the point
"where the yeast could be added. For my first batch, I boiled the entire amount
It sure would. There are a variety of approaches here, each of which
has its advantages and disadvantages. If you boil the full volume and
can cool it quickly, you'll extract more bitterness from a given amount
of hops, and ensure sterility. The thicker the wort you boil, the less
effectively you extract hop bitterness. Your tap water probably has a
fair dose of chlorine in it, which you can get rid of by boiling. If
you boil the water before hand and can put it into a sterile container
to cool, you'll have no worries. Your kitchen tap might still have a
bit of spaghetti sauce under the lip from yesterday's dishes--do you
trust it enough to put it into the beautiful culture medium you've just
spent 2 hours making? Some people get away with it--for a while.
I boil 5 gallons of water and put it, boiling hot, into a plastic
carboy, which I cap. This is water I trust to rinse sterile utensils
with and to top up fermenters. I have built an immersion cooler. Once
I made it, it's very easy to use because it is self sterilizing. You
just put it into your boiling hot wort. I connect a hose to each end
and run cold water for 30 minutes to reach 65F, and my batch size is 15
gallons. Making a cooler is cheap and easy. Go to the hardware store
and buy 50 feet of 3/8" soft copper tubing and a pair of fittings for
garden hose. This is about $20. If you don't have a propane torch (I
didn't), they're about $15 and will serve you well when you get around
to building a sparging manifold (;-). Use silver solder to put it
together; other solders have lead which might be leached out by the
acid wort. Wrap the tubing around a pot that fits inside your boiling
pot to get it into the right shape. I stripped some 12 ga. solid core
house wire and wrapped it around the tubes to hold the whole thing
together.
"Another question concerning water: is there any advantage to using anything
"but tapwater? The water here in Pittsburgh is not bad, but it's not great,
"either. (It took some getting used to when I came here from Oregon, where
"municipal water sources are typically snowmelt. Pittsburgh water comes from the
"Allegheney river, which has its source, I believe, in an oilwell upstate.)
Well, oil's well that ends well. AAAAARRRGH! GET AWAY FROM ME WITH THAT
KNIFE! Seriously, it's difficult to know what's good without looking at
a water report. Call up your water company and have them send you one!
It's free (in my experience with both the LA DWP and a local water co.
that is owned by Beatrice). If your water is completely mineral free,
you make most anything by just adding. If it's got substantial amounts
of stuff in it, it begins to limit your horizons and you may want to
check out bottled water. You don't have to go the complete bottled
water route, just dilute your tap water enough to bring the levels
down.
--Darryl Richman
------------------------------
End of HOMEBREW Digest #146, 05/09/89
