Copy Link
Add to Bookmark
Report
HOMEBREW Digest #0262
HOMEBREW Digest #262 Sat 23 September 1989
FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
Rob Gardner, Digest Coordinator
Contents:
mead recipe source, and yeast hydration (BROWN)
Dried yeast (Pete Soper)
Re: Pineapples in Beer (Mike Fertsch)
Re: Wort Chillers (kipps)
Re: detent (Pete Soper)
Rousing Dried Yeast (Len Reed)
Steam Beer ferment and new Beer book (man)
Send submissions to homebrew%hpfcmr@hplabs.hp.com
Send requests to homebrew-request%hpfcmr@hplabs.hp.com
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 22 Sep 89 09:49 EST
From: <BROWN%MSUKBS.BITNET@CORNELLC.cit.cornell.edu>
Subject: mead recipe source, and yeast hydration
Tony g asks:
>Some friends and I are going to be making a honey mead this fall. We would
>be very interested in any recipes/tips/comments you folks might have
>regarding honey mead.
There's a recipe for a basic mead by Charlie Papazian in the latest issue of
Zymurgy, if you can locate a copy. If not, send me a message and I'll e-mail
it to you. Also, a few months back there was a certain amount of discussion
on meads on this digest. Perhaps you could scan the summaries sent out
recently and find what you need. Good brewing (meading?)!
Doug Roberts comments:
>90 to 100 degrees sounds awfuly high to me. I would be real hesitant
>to plunk my yeast into water that warm. 70 to 80 degrees, maybe, but
>temperatures above that are in contradiction to everything I've ever
>read about beer yeast.
Not me. I've read this several places now, including (I believe) Charlie
Papazian's book, and the back of a couple yeast packs. I'll check my sources
tonight when I go back to the brewery (i.e. my house). I've actually done it
a couple times with good results. The yeast takes off quite nicely. The key
point here is to pitch into WORT at 70 to 80 degrees. The production of
esters associated with high temperature fermentation won't occur during the
hydration phase (no sugars) and temps in the 90's shouldn't kill the yeasts.
Try it! I, for one, am glad to hear I can make beer reasonably close in
quality to that made with liquid cultures, since I won't pay $4 for the yeast
for each batch, and I'm not set up yet to culture myself (the eventual
solution, I suspect).
By the way, has anyone contacted the Rapids company yet about a
"homebrewer's" package?
Jackie Bitnet: brown@msukbs
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 22 Sep 89 10:37:24 EDT
From: Pete Soper <soper@maxzilla.encore.com>
Subject: Dried yeast
In HBD #261 roberts%studguppy@LANL.GOV (Doug Roberts) writes:
>To quote (Williams Brewing catalog):
>> "It appears most home brewers have been abusing their
>> dry yeast. Dry yeast should only be rehydrated in warm
>> water between 90 and 100 degrees F. Use 1/2 cup of
>> water for every 14 grams of dry yeast. Rehydrating
>> dried yeast in wort can shock and injure the yeast,
>> because wort is relatively acid,and dry yeast prefers
>> a neutral rehydration medium. It is vital to the
>> future flavor of the beer that dry yeast be rehydrated
>> in warm water only.
>> Ideally, rehydration should take place for 15 minutes
>> before pitching. When pitching, it is very important
>> that the freshly revived yeast is not temperature
>> shocked; a temperature change of more than 17 degrees
>> will cause the yeast to both emit off-flavor compounds
>> and slow down, perhaps halting all activity if the
>> shock is great enough. If your yeast is at 90 degrees
>> F. and your wort is at 65, add a half a cup of wort to
>> your yeast to become acclimated to the new
>> temperature, and then pitch into the 65 degree
>> fermenter."
>90 to 100 degrees sounds awfuly high to me. I would be real hesitant
>to plunk my yeast into water that warm. 70 to 80 degrees, maybe, but
>temperatures above that are in contradiction to everything I've ever
>read about beer yeast.
But the point of this part of the article is that some of what we've
all read is not based on proper handling of yeast cells, specifically,
bombarding their cell walls with sugar molecules before they are ready
to handle them and not paying proper attention to temperature management.
Many dried yeasts have instructions written on their packets that
specify just the kind of hydration procedure described by Williams above.
(I included some more of the Williams' quote so folks that only see
this message have the essential subset of information)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Pete Soper +1 919 481 3730
internet: soper@encore.com uucp: {bu-cs,decvax,gould}!encore!soper
Encore Computer Corp, 901 Kildaire Farm Rd, bldg D, Cary, NC 27511 USA
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 22 Sep 89 10:33 EDT
From: Mike Fertsch <FERTSCH@adc1.RAY.COM>
Subject: Re: Pineapples in Beer
Mike Meyer (meyer@tcville.hac.com) recently discussed:
> a Christmas Ale last year which used Pineapple Juice as an adjunct.
> It was pretty good, the pineapple juice leaves a pleasant, but not
> blatant flavor -- hard to identify, especially in concert with the
> usual spices and stuff. It was a real "mystery ingredient" for those
> of us tasting it, until the brewer owned up.
A long time ago, I heard bad things about pineapple juice in beer. The
details are fuzzy, but I recall that pineapples have lots of funky enzymes.
The story goes that the pineapple enzymes will degrade proteins, starches,
or other essential ingredients in wort. In addition to fermentation
problems, I suspect that this degradation would leave the beer cloudy.
I have never tried to brew pineapple beer, so I could be all wrong on this.
Can anyone confirm my story?
Mike Fertsch
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 22 Sep 89 09:04:25 -0700
From: kipps@etoile.ICS.UCI.EDU
Subject: Re: Wort Chillers
A couple weeks ago I made a query about the cost and specs of wort
chillers. I got a few replies and made a few calls. The bottom line is
that you can make a wort chiller for less than $25 in about the time it
takes to brew from extract. THE HOME BREWERY (714) 822-3010 or
1-800-321-BREW (outside CA) is selling wort chillers for $29.95, so I
decided to buy a wort chiller and brew instead :-)
The wort chiller's made of some 20 ft of copper refrigerator coil with a
female hose connection at one end and a male at the other. The catalog
says it will chill boiling wort to 70 degrees in 10 minutes. I found it
brought it down to 80 degrees in 20 minutes, but I'm not complaining.
Someone suggested attaching a garden hose to the outflow and watering the
garden. I like the idea of conserving water, so I gave the dogs a warm
bath.
-Jim Kipps
Hmmm...the dogs are starting to look a little dirty again ;-)
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 22 Sep 89 12:29:18 EDT
From: Pete Soper <soper@maxzilla.encore.com>
Subject: Re: detent
In HBD #261 att!iwtio!korz@hplabs.HP.COM (Al) says:
>> The only thing the Honeywell unit has that I wish the Hunter had is an
>>adjustable "span". I know I've probably used the wrong term. What I mean
>>is a way of saying "turn on X degrees above and turn off Y degrees below
>>the set point".
>What you're thinking of is called "detent."
The terms I couldn't remember are called "dead band" for on/off
controllers and "proportional band" for proportional and PID controllers.
Think of it as hysteresis.
My thought is that without control over this, depending upon the thermal
inertia of the wort, interaction with heat production by yeast, etc. you
might not be able to use the *wort* temperature to control the fridge
without suffering from wide and constant temperature swings.
I plan to make an alternative probe or probe carrier for the Hunter
unit and put this inside the fermenter so the wort temperature and not
that of the area around the fermenter is what is held constant. If
anybody has already done this I'd very much like to hear about it.
Incidently, I have a controller accident report to make. Several weeks
ago I got some wires tangled and left the probe of my Hunter unit trapped
outside the fridge. I came back a day later and the Hunter reported 80
degrees (garage temp) while my Radio Shack thermometer (probe inside the
fridge) indicated 30. The fridge was humming merrily away, on its way to
its 10 degree lower limit. The yeast didn't just go to sleep, it moved
to Wisconsin. Even after warming back to proper temperature the
fermentation stayed dead until I pitched another starter.
As long as I've shared this embarrassment, let me tell you about one
more. Have you ever had the inside nut holding the drum tap of your
bottling vessel loosen after you've racked 3 gallons of beer into it?
I hate it when that happens.
--Pete Soper
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 22 Sep 89 17:37:09 GMT
From: mitihard!kenb@hplabs.HP.COM
>From mitihard!kenb Fri Sep 22 17:37:06 1989
To: ctnews!homebrew%hpfcmr@hplabs.hp.com
About five years ago, September, I had a brewing party with the intent
of making a 5 gallon batch of Christmas ale and 5 gallons of barleywine ale
(extract). The party aspect was four virgin initiates (never brewed before)
who were interested, but clueless as to how homebrew is made. I had one
other brewer helping. And it was a potluck dinner ... and it was a beer
TASTING party ...
Anyway, the strong pot and the weak pot got confused (wait a minute,
how can a pot be confused?), and the extracts were added about evenly
to both pots. Starting sg was around 1.070 for both.
No problem! We got two batches of strong ale that were really excellent!
Both were fairly well balanced. Gave most of it away for Christmas
presents, but managed to drink a considerable amount of it too. Wish I
knew what the recipe was!
Moral of the story:
Too many brewers confuse the pot, but don't worry, relax, have a homebrew.
Ken Bright (408)435-3789
kenb@Convergent.COM
{pyramid, sri-unix}!ctnews!kenb
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 22 Sep 89 12:49:59 EDT
From: Len Reed <lbr%holos0@gatech.edu>
Subject: Rousing Dried Yeast
In #261 roberts%studguppy@LANL.GOV (Doug Roberts) writes:
>> Dry yeast should only be rehydrated in warm
>> water between 90 and 100 degrees F.
> 90 to 100 degrees sounds awfuly high to me. I would be real hesitant
> to plunk my yeast into water that warm. 70 to 80 degrees, maybe, but
> temperatures above that are in contradiction to everything I've ever
> read about beer yeast.
You're not fermenting at this temperature; you're rousing the yeast
that have formed spores. After this step, you then ferment at a lower
temperature. The same step (at 105) is performed with dried bread yeast,
but the bread usually is left to rise at room temperature or slightly
highter--not 105.
Isn't it true that good beer yeasts, especially lager yeasts, don't form
spores well? This is one reason often cited that liquid yeasts make
better beer. The other is that the mass production of dry yeasts allows
for more contamination and mutation.
Len Reed
------------------------------
Date: 22 Sep 89 15:49:20 EDT (Fri)
From: man@granjon.att.com
Subject: Steam Beer ferment and new Beer book
Last week I posted a question about my batch of steam beer that
seemed to restart it's ferment after being removed from the
fridge. Most replies I received said that it was probably just
absorbed CO2 being released. This is what I did: I removed it
from the fridge on Thursday morning. It continued to "bubble"
rapidly until Sunday evening. By rapidly, I mean 1 bubble every
10 seconds. This seemed like too much for me. If I bottled it
then, I would think the chance of exploding bottles would be high.
I finally bottled on Monday evening when the bubbles were 2 1/2
minutes apart. (FG 1.010) I'm not one for constantly taking hydrometer
readings to determine if the ferment is done. I don't like the
risk of opening the fermenter and syphoning. I know there must
be some kind of beer "thief" that can act like a syringe. I tried
using a large syringe, but the needle opening was too limiting.
Any ideas ? I'd rather use hydrometer readings instead of counting
the time between bubbles (BTW, I usually wait for 5 min intervals
before I bottle).
Also, those who belong to the AHA may have gotten a mailing from
the Abbeville Press for "The Connoisseur's Guide to Beer" by
Peter Finch (?). Well, I had seen this book in the book store
recently for 30.00 (The offer is the same, but has discounts for
orders more than 1). The book contains some really nice glossy
pictures. So far, that's the best part. I haven't begun reading
it, but it is a nice tabletop book to impress friends (mine are
very impressionable). It also comes with a pocket guide rating
all the beers the author finds at least "good". A nice litle
guide, although I wish there was space to write in personal
ratings. My 2 copies were shipped without the pocket guide, but
the company is shipping them to me. It does have nice pictures,
though.
Another tidbit. I bought a six of Young's Old Nick Barlywine
Style Ale. Excelent example of the style. Should last me a
month.
Mark Nevar
att!granjon!man
arpa!granjon!man
------------------------------
End of HOMEBREW Digest #262, 09/23/89
*************************************
-------
