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HOMEBREW Digest #0202
HOMEBREW Digest #202 Sat 15 July 1989
FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
Rob Gardner, Digest Coordinator
Contents:
Nomenclature (Kenneth Kron)
HB.DIG #201--breweries in Oregon (florianb)
HB.DIG #201--Re: "my homebrew tastes like wine!" (florianb)
beer -> wine (iwtio!korz)
Re: Seattle brewpubs? (Gordon Hester)
Re: My beer tastes like wine! (dw)
Interesting Ingredients ("Allen J. Hainer")
Send submissions to homebrew%hpfcmr@hplabs.hp.com
Send requests to homebrew-request%hpfcmr@hplabs.hp.com
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 14 Jul 89 07:55:40 PDT
From: kron@Sun.COM (Kenneth Kron)
Subject: Nomenclature
I am interested in finding what specific meaning if any the following terms have
when applied to beer
amber, dark, porter
None of the books I have on home brewing have defined these words (although they do use them)
------------------------------
Date: 14 Jul 89 08:16:25 PDT (Fri)
From: florianb@tekred.cna.tek.com
Subject: HB.DIG #201--breweries in Oregon
In # 201, David Haberman asks:
>A friend of mine will be traveling through Northern California and Oregon and
>would like to know where the good brewpubs and breweries are to visit.
In Oregon, I would recommend the following breweries to visit:
1. The Widmer Brewery of Portland--most of my acquaintences agree this is
the best microbrewery in Oregon.
2. Bridgeport Brewery of Portland--also brews good ale.
3. The Old World Center of Corvallis--brewers of Oregon Trail Ale.
4. Full Sail--I think it's in Hood River. Feature Golden and Amber ale.
You may be interested in the taverns which feature microbrews:
1. The McMinneman Brothers taverns. The Greenway Pub, McMinneman's,
Cornelius Pass Roadhouse. These places feature many of the Northwest
brews and also international brews. Good food. Watch out for their
own brews, however. Terminator, for example. Just not up to the NW
quality of microbrews. They pretend to know what they are doing, but
it's mostly talk.
2. Squirrel's Tavern of Corvallis. Unquestionably one of the best
taverns on the West Coast. A jewel of taverns in the San Francisco
style. Features Northwest microbrews, Canadian Lagers, Henry's on tap.
Features good food, good music, and real live Oregon hill people.
Hope this helps.
[Florian Bell, Boonesborough, Oregon]
------------------------------
Date: 14 Jul 89 08:28:15 PDT (Fri)
From: florianb@tekred.cna.tek.com
Subject: HB.DIG #201--Re: "my homebrew tastes like wine!"
Paul Close says:
HELP! After several years of not brewing (with a few botched attempts at
brewing before that), I decided to try again.
(my hydrometer indicated it should be 5%). After a few swallows, my mouth
has an unpleasant "dry" feel to it, and the sour impression strengthens.
After a quarter-glass or so, I throw out the rest. Yuck!
I'm going to take a stab at this one. I'll bet you a dime to a dollar that
the taste is associated with corn sugar. Lots of people (including myself)
complain about dryness and sourness in brews containing a large amount of
corn sugar. Yes, it could be a bacterial infection, but if your sanitization
is good, then I wouldn't jump to that conclusion.
I recommend starting over with a full extract recipe. Use two cans of
extract this time, and use a cup of corn sugar for priming. Don't worry
about the heat. I've brewed in 90 degree weather before and have had
good results with ale. You can always put the carboy in a pan of water
and drape towels over it. Let the towels dip into the water. They will
act as wicks to bring up the water and evaporate it. This action will
cool the carboy by ten degrees or so.
Use unhopped extract and a couple ounces of Cascade or Willamette hops.
I'm telling you, with this simple procedure, you shouldn't go wrong. If
you still have trouble, write back in for more hints and analysis.
Above all, DON'T QUIT AGAIN! Persevere. You will be rewarded handsomely!
[Florian Bell, Boonesborough, Oregon]
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 14 Jul 89 11:12:22 mdt
From: att!iwtio!korz@hplabs.HP.COM
Subject: beer -> wine
In digest 201, Paul Close asked why his beer taste tended
towards wine. Well Paul, I noticed two things in your procedure
that could give your beer a taste approaching wine. The first
you probably already suspected because you were quite detailed
in describing the fermentation temperatures. Higher (above 65F)
temperatures cause yeast to produce esters, which are what give
fruits their "fruity" flavors. Different yeasts produce different
esters, for instance, I've read that many homebrewers have noticed
banana flavors in brews made with Red Star Yeast. You guessed it...
...banana esters. Other esters can add other fruit flavors. These
esters are the main difference between ale and lager. Note that
lagers are brewed at lower temperatures, in which less esters are
produced. Secondly, you mentioned adding corn sugar to your wort.
Corn sugar tends to add a cidery flavor to your beer. It won't
do much to your flavor when you use it for bottling, but anything
more than a cup or two will change the flavor of the final product.
I suggest, that you substitute light dried malt extract for the
sugar in any recipes that you have. Use 20% more malt extract
by weight in place of the sugar (because malt extract is not 100%
fermentable and sugar is). Regarding the temperature - I don't brew
in the summer: in Chicago, the daytime temps in the summer are
85 to 95 F and the coolest part of my apartment is about 80 F.
I just brew a lot in the winter and alternate hamebrew with
beers like Bass Ale in the summertime. I'm buying a house soon
and you can bet it will have a full basement for brewing and storage.
Don't fret -- if you simply make the two changes I suggest, your
beer will improve 200% and with proper attention to sanitation,
just may taste better than anything you can buy in a store -
I feel that mine does!
Al.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 14 Jul 89 13:46:37 -0400 (EDT)
From: Gordon Hester <gh0t+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Re: Seattle brewpubs?
I hope no one considers this an inappropriate post - I'll make it short.
I'll be in Seattle in a week or so and will have a free evening (and
transportation). Does anyone know of any good brewpubs there that
I might go to?
thanks.
gordon hester
gh0t+@andrew.cmu.edu
------------------------------
Date: 14 Jul 89 15:47:09 EDT (Friday)
From: dw <Wegeng.Henr@Xerox.COM>
Subject: Re: My beer tastes like wine!
Paul Close writes:
>For simplicity, I decided to use a pre-hopped extract kit (an ale). I
>added the water and corn sugar, boiled the whole 5 gallons, chilled it in
>the sink until it was cooled (an hour or so), and added the yeast, which I
>had started earlier.
You don't give any specifics about the recipe, but it sounds like the kit
called for adding a can of malt extract and a bunch of corn sugar. If so,
then the corn sugar is probably the source of the problem. I'm not an
expert on the specifics, but in general corn sugar adds a cidery taste to
beer. Next time add a can of plain, light extract in place of the corn
sugar for boiling (but continue to prime with corn sugar - 3/4 is too
little to have much affect on the taste of the beer).
/Don
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 14 Jul 89 16:02:24 EDT
From: "Allen J. Hainer" <ajhainer@violet.waterloo.edu>
Subject: Interesting Ingredients
A few weeks ago I asked for accounts from people who have used "different
ingredients" in their beers. My own experiences have been with molassis
(~1 cup/5 gallons) in both a stout and a pale ale with execellent results and
with ginger (~2 oz/5 gallons) in a pale ale. I had good results with that
but wish now that I had added more ginger.
Before I tried more liberal experiments, I wanted to hear what others had
tried. I would like to thank everyone who responded. There were a lot of
interesting ideas I would never had thought of myself.
The following is a summary of what I received. These are all ingredients
that the various correspondants had made, tried or heard about:
-al (ajhainer@violet.waterloo.edu)
****************************************
From: florianb%tekred.cna.tek.com@RELAY.CS.NET (Florian Bell)
Coffee, Chocolate, Licorice, Molasses, Brown sugar
Result: "the Kahlua of beers"
From: dougf@dougf.caltech.edu (Doug Freyburger)
Woodruff is used in mead, white wine, pilsners
Raspberry sauce in wheat-beer
Result: yuck!
From: ames!pacbell!pbmoss!mal@mailrus (Martin)
Hoeparden White, of Belgium, is flavored with coriander and demi-sec.
Result: It had a very spicy, citrus tast which I enjoyed, but thought it might
be a bit much in quantities greater than about 8 ounces.
Chopp (available in cans, in Europe) a mixture of beer and lemonade.
Result: It's better than it sounds (marginally). The English "Shandy".
From: uunet!tc.fluke.COM!inc@watmath (Gary Benson)
Instant coffee in a porter.
Result: It did what I imagined to the flavor, but may have affected the yeast
A banana
Result: Exellent, supposedly gives the yeast important neutrients.
Gary also asks how Guinness gets its "creaminess". Does anyone know how
to duplicate this home?
From: Dr. T. Andrews <tanner@ki4pv>
A pound or two of honey in a beer made from pale malt.
Result: A really incredibly beautiful beer.
From: Mike Fertsch <FERTSCH@adc1.RAY.COM>
Frozen raspberries or blueberries mead. (~3# berries/5 gallons)
Result: Good, but cloudy for 9 months or so.
Blackberry extract - added to an all-grain pilsener at bottling. (1 tsp/bottle)
Result: Just bottled.
Corriander, cardomon, oatmeal, unmalted wheat - all in the same batch!
The all-grain mash contained Quaker Oatmeal and unmalted wheat (labelled by the
health food store as 'Organic Red Winter Wheat'(cooked for 1 hour before
adding to the mash). I don't remember the details, but I think I used
around 2 pounds of unmalted wheat and 1/2 pound of oatmeal for a three
gallon batch. Corriander and cardomon were added to the beginning of the
wort boil at a rate of around 2 tsp and 1 tsp repectively (three gallon
batch).
Result: Together, these two spices added a nice fruity, spicey aroma to
my Christmas Ale. If I had to to this again, I would cut back a bit on the
corriander and cardomon, and add a little orange peel.
Sprite extract beer
Result: It didn't ferment due to perservatives in Sprite.
Real banana beer (real bananas!)
Result: Tasted like it sounds, and was very cloudy as well.
Potato beer, with potatoes comprising 30% of the mash (real mashed potatoes!)
Result: A surprisingly good potato beer
Maple-flavored continental dark (a few pounds of maple syrup per 5 gallons)
Ground white peppercorns instead of corriander - the package was mis-labelled.
Result: bad idea
Mike also makes some other interesting comments:
Determination of the proper amounts of 'wierd ingredients' is always
difficult. For ingredients which add flavor (no fermentables), I
experiment with commercial beers. I mix measured abounts of the spice
or fruit extract to a pitcher of beer, and taste the result. I keep adding
ingredients until it tastes 'right'. I then use this concentration for the
homebrewed product.
From: <LLUG_JI%DENISON.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU> (JOHN L. ISENHOUR)
The following is a list of brewing herbs, mostly from Zymurgy back issues
When dosages are provided, the author Gary Carlin has tried them. I
believe all these are safe, but suggest trying the low end dose at first.
All dosages are for 5 gallons
Field Hops (yarrow) Carolus Linnaeus indicated it increased the
intoxicating effects of brew.
Red variety is the easiest to grow. Cut when in full
bloom, dry leaves and stems @ 100 deg. F.
2 oz. for 0.5 hour boil
Agrimony 1.0 - 2.0 oz
Balm (fresh only) 2.0 - 4.0 oz
Betony (not fresh) 0.5 - 1.0 oz
Bogbean 0.5 oz
Sweet Gale - used in English Gale Beer
Cardamon seed 5-8 seeds, crushed 0.5 hour boil
Chamomile 1 oz dry or 3 fresh
Clary - (its oil is used in muscatel)
Alecost - to replace hops
Dandylion 1 gallon loosely packed leaf and taproot
Elecampare fresh root, 1.0 - 2.0 oz. 30 - 40 min. boil
Garden Sage (sage ale) Dry hop 0.5 - 1.0 oz
Gentian Root (super bitter!!) 1/8th to 1/4th oz
Ginger 0.5 - 2.0 oz fresh grated for 20 min
Alehoof (ground ivy) leaves and stems (used as with hops)
Hyssop leaves and young shoots (used with or as with hops)
Indian Borage (used as with hops) used in India as hops and in wine
Licorice small piece of root boiled for 20 min, sweet flavor
Meadowsweet (meadwort) wintergreen nose, has aspirin, dry hop 0.5 oz
Mugwort bittersweet (use as with hops)
Southernwood lemon flavor
Spruce (norway, red, black species only) 1 tablespoon per 5 gallons
Valerian bitter, 0.25 - 0.5 root boiled 25 min
Majoram 0.5 oz dry hop
Wintergreen - Gaultheria procumbens leaves, 1-2 oz, pour 0.5 gal. boiling
water on them, cover allow to ferment 3 days, add to wort
boil.
Szechwan chili peppers 2 - 10 crushed, Charlie suggests boiling liquor
(water) and gradually adding peppers to tast.
Then you add your malt, ect START SMALL!!
************************************
Thanks again to all who responded -al
------------------------------
End of HOMEBREW Digest #202, 07/15/89
