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HOMEBREW Digest #0228
HOMEBREW Digest #228 Tue 15 August 1989
FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
Rob Gardner, Digest Coordinator
Contents:
More about honey (dw)
Re: Culturing SN Yeast (Pete Soper)
Culturing Residual Yeast (florianb)
re: Culturing SN yeast (Darryl Richman)
re: Chicago's Micros (Darryl Richman)
Brewpubs (Walt Thode)
Seiben's (iwtio!korz)
Harvesting Hops (Crawford.WBST129)
Send submissions to homebrew%hpfcmr@hplabs.hp.com
Send requests to homebrew-request%hpfcmr@hplabs.hp.com
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Date: 14 Aug 89 08:44:19 EDT (Monday)
From: dw <Wegeng.Henr@Xerox.COM>
Subject: More about honey
I've never tried to subsitiute honey for corn sugar when priming, but it
shouldn't be that difficult. According Miller's book, a pound of corn sugar
in a gallon of water will add 40 to the starting specific gravity, while a
pound of honey will add 35. Since both substances are almost completely
fermentable one can easily compute the approximate amount of honey to add
to replace corn sugar. Note that honey probably varies, so you may have to
experiment a bit (you could even compute your own exact figures if you
want).
As for types of honey, I always use strained (without cob) clover honey.
For the quantities we're talking about (less than 10% of the total
fermentables in the brew) I doubt if flavors such as orange blossom,
buckwheat, etc. would be detectable. Honey that you buy in the store isn't
pasturized, so be sure to boil it (either with the wort, or in some water
if used for priming) before use.
/Don
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 14 Aug 89 11:21:37 EDT
From: Pete Soper <soper@maxzilla.encore.com>
Subject: Re: Culturing SN Yeast
I have a pale ale fermenting now that is using yeast from a bottle
of Worthington White Shield ("best before May/1990"). Here are the
tedious details.
I put a 4oz baby juice jar with 2oz of starter wort, a 1 hole rubber
stopper and a glass fermentation lock into my pressure cooker and cooked
it for the usual 15 minutes, letting it cool overnight before opening
the cooker. Then I took the cap off the beer and ran a lighter flame
around the lip, poured all but the last 1/2oz of the bottle into a
glass and put the last 1/2oz into the baby juice jar of wort, finally
adding the stopper and lock to the jar and then covering the neck of the
jar with sanitized foil (to keep it clean for when this starter was
poured into the next larger one). I did this in such a way to minimize
the time the juice jar mouth was exposed to room air. I also held my
breath and made sure there were no drafts in the room.
The Worthington yeast started fermenting in 12 hours. I transferred
it to an 8oz starter using the above methods after 2 days, then
transferred that to a 32oz starter after 2 more days. After a total of
6 days I pitched the final starter into a 5 gallon batch of wort. This
was fermenting vigorously after 12 hours.
The starters were all developed at 75 degrees while the batch of beer
is fermenting at 65 degrees. The starter wort was made with 1 tablespoon
of dry malt extract and 1/8 teaspoon of yeast nutrient per 16oz of
water (tap water but with the chlorine filtered out).
These are extreme measures, I admit. However I hand carried The
Worthington's back from England and could not afford to botch the starter.
I agree with Allen Hainer that getting the freshest beer you can is
worthwhile, since the yeast in the bottles will eventually starve and
die. The first bottle of Worthington I was offered had a best before
date of May/1984! However I disagree with Allen about using corn sugar
for starters and would only recommend malt extract. It is best to have
the yeast consuming maltose right from the start.
The big question in my mind now is whether my batch of beer will taste
better than Worthington White Shield - IMHO a really awful pale ale.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Pete Soper +1 919 481 3730
arpa: soper@encore.com uucp: {bu-cs,decvax,gould}!encore!soper
Encore Computer Corp, 901 Kildaire Farm Rd, bldg D, Cary, NC 27511 USA
------------------------------
Date: 14 Aug 89 08:18:09 PDT (Mon)
From: florianb@tekred.cna.tek.com
Subject: Culturing Residual Yeast
In #226, Bob Virzi asks:
>Last weekend I tried an experiment with Sierra Nevada Ale.
>As I drank each bottle, I carefully dumped the bottom of the
>bottle sediment into a mixture of table sugar and water.
>...
>So, did I hopelessly botch the experiment or is SN pasteurized
>after conditioning in the bottle? Is three days too short a
The small amount of yeast residue in the bottle is due to
krausening, according to SN. However, the wort used for krausening
could be alive with lager yeast, for all one knows. Perhaps the
viability of the yeast could depend on the history of the bottles
you mentioned. See Homebrew Digest #227 for a comment on the age
of bottled beer and an attempt at culturing Chimay yeast.
[Florian Bell, Boonesborough, Oregon]
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 14 Aug 89 07:23:02 PDT
From: Darryl Richman <darryl@ism780c.isc.com>
Subject: re: Culturing SN yeast
You did the right thing, and it was doing the right thing. The only problem
is that "high krausen" for such a small volume is not very high.
To actually culture from a bottle, all you need to do is pour the yeast
slurry from the bottom into an 8 ounce bottle (for example, I use a baby
bottle) of wort. Let it go 3 or 4 days, until the bubbles on top slow
down and there is a bit of sediment on the bottom. Then make up a quart
of wort and pour this into it. Let that go for 3-5 days and you're ready
to pitch into 5 gallons. Each time you are bring the quantity of yeast
up by 20 times, roughly.
--Darryl Richman
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 14 Aug 89 07:26:10 PDT
From: Darryl Richman <darryl@ism780c.isc.com>
Subject: re: Chicago's Micros
The worst offender I've tasted is DeWayne Saxton's bottled beers (Excalibur
Stout, Lionhearted Ale, Ivanhoe). He can make a clean beer--the last one
I had was nice. But for the previous 9 months every one I tasted was way,
way off. He's not advertising Weisse or Whit beers, and I don't buy his
product. I support micros who, at worst, are not doing our reputation any
harm.
--Darryl Richman
------------------------------
Date: 14 August 1989 0833-PDT (Monday)
From: thode@nprdc.navy.mil (Walt Thode)
Subject: Brewpubs
I'm fairly new to this forum. I'm interested in as complete a list of
brewpubs (microbreweries, or whatever they call them in various parts of
the country) as I can find. It would not surprise me if such a list had
appeared here before. If so, can someone forward it to me? If not,
let's create one. I can provide the following information about San
Diego:
The first brewpub in San Diego opened last spring. Its official name
is the "Old Columbia Brewery and Grill" located at Columbia and B Streets
in downtown San Diego. It has taken the path to long-term success (I
suppose) by catering to the yuppie crowd, and their market research must
have worked, because the place is always crowded. The beer isn't bad,
but it's a little lacking in character.
Another brewpub is scheduled to open here next winter. Its current
name is the Mission Brewery. The brewmaster went through a previous
incarnation in a back-alley place in Fallbrook (50 mi. north). His beer
there was better than Old Columbia's, with a better flavor and a bit more
hops bitterness. He's currently making beer to sell in 3-4 restaurants
around town. The on-site place is part of a renovation of an old (70
years ago) brewery building near Pacific Highway and Washington St. into
an office/shop complex.
We don't have any brewpubs yet that are properly funky in atmosphere.
Maybe someone will fill that void in the future.
Can anyone else provide information about brewpubs in other parts of the
country? I know there are a bunch in the SF Bay area and in the Pacific
Northwest, and I've visited a couple of them. I'd like eventually to
compile a directory that covers anyplace I might visit. I'll volunteer
to collect submissions for a summary posting if you'll send them to me.
--Walt Thode
ARPA: thode@nprdc.navy.mil
UUCP: {everywhere_else}!ucsd!nprdc!thode
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 14 Aug 89 15:15:08 mdt
From: att!iwtio!korz@hplabs.HP.COM
Subject: Seiben's
In digest #226, there was an article about Seiben's beer. I have some
info that may explain why the beer quality at Seiben's has been
declining. Mind you, this is all second or third hand news and thus
should be not taken as law.
It all appears to have begun during the planning stages of the place:
there was NOT ENOUGH PLANNING. I understand that their finishing
tanks did not fit in the brewing area and needed to be cut in half.
Once they got started, they had some financial difficulties after the
initial novelty wore off. As of January 1st, 1989, heads rolled and
a restaurant mgmt company took over running the place. The new
management told the brewery to: 1) weaken the flavor, 2) add more
carbonation, and 3) lower the serving temperature. I tasted their
beers only after Jan 1, 1989 and I was very disappointed: no flavor,
no aroma, no bouquet, too cold, too carbonated, and no head. Yuk!
In my humble opinion, I would recommend Seiben's as a study in how
NOT to run a brewpub.
In the Chicago area, I would recommend Goose Island as a brewpub to
visit. There are two others that I have not yet visted, so I can't
recommend them.
Al.
------------------------------
Date: 14 Aug 89 10:29:12 PDT (Monday)
From: Crawford.WBST129@Xerox.COM
Subject: Harvesting Hops
I have a few questions for the Hops growers. I just recently harvested my
hops that I planted two years ago (I didn't get any hops the first year).
The information that came with the hops (from Marysville Oast) said to
build a Hops Oast and dry with warm air blown through a bed of hops before
freezing them. I have also read that they can just be air dried in the
shade for sereral hours. Has anybody tried these methods?
Also, I only got about 2 oz.s of hops from one plant (Willamette). This
seems like it's very low. Is this because its only the second year? How
many plants would I need for a years supply in the freezer?
Any information would be appreciated.
Greg Crawford
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End of HOMEBREW Digest #228, 08/15/89
