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HOMEBREW Digest #0246
HOMEBREW Digest #246 Thu 07 September 1989
FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
Rob Gardner, Digest Coordinator
Contents:
Doug Roberts ??s on cara pils etc. (BROWN)
re: Mashing (Darryl Richman)
re: racking to secondary (Darryl Richman)
Homebrew supplies mail order (boubez)
Results of the Great British Beer Festival (What Universe is this?)
mashing crystal malt (iwtio!korz)
Mackeson's and Soft Brown Sugar (Patrick Stirling)
TCJOHB (Revised addition - when?) (Brian Atkins)
pause in fermentation (Pete Soper)
Video (MARKIEWI)
Doric Ale Yeast, and CWE (Marc San Soucie)
Dextrin Malt - does it self-convert? (Mike Fertsch)
Re: Homebrew Digest #241 (August 30, 1989) ("Richard_A_Morano.WBST311")
Send submissions to homebrew%hpfcmr@hplabs.hp.com
Send requests to homebrew-request%hpfcmr@hplabs.hp.com
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 6 Sep 89 08:15 EST
From: <BROWN%MSUKBS.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Subject: Doug Roberts ??s on cara pils etc.
Doug Roberts asks about mashing cara pils as a source of dextrin. I have
been adding about 1/2 pound to all my mashes over the last year. I don't
have a controlled experiment to test its effect, but it theoretically
increases body and head retention. I produce a nice full-bodied beer, with
creamy head on the beer, but that may also be due to high mashing
temperatures. More importantly, I BELIEVE that you must mash cara pils to get
the goodies out. Boiling or steeping it will not do the trick. (I'll have
to check the literature on this, but that is my best recollection). You may
want to check this out before using any more of it in your extract recipes. I
notice that you mashed it with the crystal malt in your second (Malz bier)
recipe, but it may not contain enough enzymes to mash alone (crystal has NO
enzymes) -- I'll definately have to consult the literature on this, but again
that is what comes to mind. A pound or two of pale malt should provide the
necessary enzymes.
Doug also writes:
> Anyhow, working on that assumption, I cooked
> up the following recipe last night:
> 7# light syrup
> 2# Cara Pils (dextrin malt)
> 2# light crystal
> 1# extra rich crystal
> 1/2 oz Hallertauer hops (5.0% Alpha acids)
> 1.0 oz Willamette hops (4.5% AA)
> 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp Citric acid, 1 tsp yeast nutrient
> 1 TBL Irish Moss
> 11.5 oz Edme Yeast
> I mashed the cara & crystal malts for 2 hours at 140 F, then sparged
> to about 4 gallons. Then, added the syrup & Hallertauer hops. Boiled
> for 30 minutes, and added the Irish Moss. Then boiled for 30 more
> minutes and decanted to the primary where I added the salt, citric,
> nutrient & Willamette Hops (dry hopping, I believe this technique is
> called). Willamette, BTW, is a wonderful aromatic hops.
A few personal opinions on your recipes (this one and Clara Bell):
1. For a beer this malty I'd suggest more bittering hops, at least 2 oz. of
5% alpha acid bittering hops. Another opinion: Save that nice Hallertauer
for flavor or aroma hops (added to the last 10 minutes of boil, steeped, or
dry hopped). I've gone to high alpha acid varieties exclusively for primary
bittering hops, saving the wonderful Willamettes, Cascades, Saaz, etc. for
flavor and aroma. What are other people's experiences? Does the variety of
bittering hops really affect flavor (as opposed to bitterness) at all?
Finally, I thought dry-hopping usually took place a few days before
bottling. The acidity and alcohol in the fermented beer prevents the
flourishing of all the bacteria on those unwashed, unheated hops flowers.
Although I do not practice this technique (being a bacterio-phobe), I
understand it results in WONDERFUL hop aroma.
2. Salt, citric acid and yeast nutrient? My opinion (from what I've read
and experienced) is that these adjuncts are unnecessary when making extract
beer. I've made wonderful extract stout with distilled (actually R/O)
water. The extract should provide enough nutrients, acidity and minerals
(salts) for proper fermentation. Perhaps this is not true for some syrups.
Any other opinions out there?
3. 1-2 TABLESPOONS of irish moss? That seems like a lot to me. Check your
local literature.
Not trying to bash on you, Doug. I'm just a frustrated brewer in the humid
midwest, waiting for the mold count to drop in my damp house and runnin' out
of homebrew from last year. Glad you're back in the saddle!
Jackie Brown bitnet: Brown@msukbs
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 6 Sep 89 06:37:09 PDT
From: Darryl Richman <darryl@ism780c.isc.com>
Subject: re: Mashing
From: kipps@etoile.ICS.UCI.EDU
"I'm about to try mashing for the first time :-) using a 33 qt enamel pot
"as the mashing tun.
Good luck to you. Plan ahead so that you know what you want to do at
each step. And don't worry too much about times and temperatures--
these things do work naturally.
"but I've thought of another way that I
"haven't read about. Why not emerse the pot in a sink of water? It seems
"like an easy way to control the temperature surrounding the mash. Has
"anyone tried this before or know of a good reason not to?
Can you get a sink full of water at 150-160F? Can you do this within a
few degrees? If you are going to do a single step infusion mash, Dave
Line's suggestion of an insulated cooler is probably the best way to
do it.
There is a big advantage to moving up from 5 gallon batches when working
with grain. I don't worry about losing temperature during a rest with
a 15 gallon batch--there is just too much thermal inertia (combined
with the stainless steel pot I use) for it to move in half an hour
or more.
--Darryl Richman
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 6 Sep 89 06:47:20 PDT
From: Darryl Richman <darryl@ism780c.isc.com>
Subject: re: racking to secondary
From: roberts%studguppy@LANL.GOV (Doug Roberts @ Los Alamos National Laboratory)
"5. Has this ever happened to anyone else? I racked my Clara Bell batch
"from the primary to the secondary day before yesterday. The head had
"just fallen after a healthy, vigorous initial fermentation. However, I
"noticed the next day that fermentation had completely stopped. I've
"experienced this before where racking seems to shock the yeast
"temporarily (up to a few days), and then fermentation resumes. I'm
"always careful to let the wort cascade down the side of the glass
"carboy to minimize oxygentation, and I always make sure to syphon a
"big slug of yeast with the wort in an attempt to assure continuous
"fermentation. However, about half the time I notice that
"fermentation comes to a complete halt for up to 3 or 4 days, after
"which it slowly resumes. Any ideas?
After the head falls, most of the yeast has run out of food and is falling
out of solution and becoming dormant. One of the reasons why you get a
head on fermenting beer is the same as why you get it on a finished beer--
there are CO2 bubbles building a head in conjunction with the protiens.
When the fermentation slows down, there is a lot less CO2 coming off the
beer, so there isn't anything to form a head with. Also, I usually notice
that the airlock doesn't move much after racking. I attribute this to
the fact that I have purged most of the CO2 out of solution as well, by
running it through that narrow racking tube. This is actually a Good
Thing (tm) because it means that I've purged the air out of the carboy
I'm racking into. But it takes the slowed down yeast quite a while to
once again reach a saturated solution of CO2; only after this will
the CO2 begin evolving from the beer again.
--Darryl Richman
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 6 Sep 89 09:57:39 EDT
From: boubez@bass.rutgers.edu
Subject: Homebrew supplies mail order
Hi there! I'd like to ask the homebrewers out there about their favourite
mail-order place for brewing supplies. I live in New Jersey (if that's
any help) and would like to buy equipment and supplies hrough the
mail. Thanks in advance.
toufic
Toufic Boubez
boubez@caip.rutgers.edu
boubez@bass.rutgers.edu
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 6 Sep 89 08:00:36 CDT
From: jmellby@ngstl1.csc.ti.com (What Universe is this?)
Subject: Results of the Great British Beer Festival
Results of the Great British Beer Festival
August 1-5th, in Leeds, UK, the yearly GBBF was held. Sadly, once again,
I was not present. However, yesterday's "What's Brewing" gives the results
of the competition:
Supreme Champion Beer of Britain:
Chiswick Bitter (Fullers/Griffin Brewery) Closest to this in the USA
is Fullers ESB (that I know of)
Highly Commended:
Theakston's Old Peculier (available in the USA in bottles or kegs,
but of course this is not cask beer in the USA)
Runner-up
Timothy Taylor's Landlord (strong pale ale) And I don't believe this
is available in the USA
Mild & Light Bitters
1. Taylor Gold Best 1033
2. Courage BItter Ale 1030
3. Bateman Mild 1033
Standard Bitters
1. Fuller Chiswick 1035.5
2. Butcome Bitter 1039
3. Golden Hill Exmoor Ale 1039
Strong Ales
1. Theakston Old Peculier 1057
2. Bateman Victory Ale 1056
3. Fuller ESB 1055.75
Special Bitters
1. Bateman XXXB 1048
2. Moorhouse Pendle Witches Brew 1050
3. Youngs Special 1046
Best Bitters
1. Taylor Landlord 1042
2. Batham Bitter 1043
3. Marston Pedigree 1043
New Breweries
1. Hop Back Summer Lightning 1050
2. Whitby's Own Force Nine 1055
3. Sara Hughes Dark Ruby Mild 1058
Surviving the American Dream
John R. Mellby Texas Instruments
jmellby@ngstl1.ti.com P.O.Box 660246, MS 3645
Dallas Texas, 75266
(214)517-5370 (home) (214)343-7585
****************************************************************
* "For those of you that don't live in Texas, this is the time *
* of year when it gets so hot here that little pieces of the *
* medulla oblongata flake off like dandruff and people start *
* making speeches about how we need to stamp out these porno *
* businesses, or build a new medical school in Lubbock, or put *
* in a bid for the 1996 Olympics. And then they argue about *
* it, and one of em kills the other one." *
* -- Joe Bob Briggs *
****************************************************************
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 6 Sep 89 09:18:55 mdt
From: att!iwtio!korz@hplabs.HP.COM
Subject: mashing crystal malt
>In digest #245, Doug Roberts writes:
>I mashed the cara & crystal malts for 2 hours at 140 F, then sparged
I don't know about Cara Pils (Dextrine) Malt, but Crystal Malt has
no enzymes (they have been killed by the heat used in manufacturing
the malt), so there is no point in mashing Crystal Malt. Anytime you
raise the temperature of the malt above 160F or so, you denature the
enzymes that convert the starches to complex sugars to simple sugars.
I simply steep the Crystal Malt in a grain bag while the liquor comes
to a boil. Then I sparge with ice cold water into the primary --
yes, I know it's not as efficient as a hot sparge, but once I pour
the hot wort into the cold sparge water, I can pitch immediately.
Al.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 6 Sep 89 09:30:40 PDT
From: pms%jammer@Sun.COM (Patrick Stirling)
Subject: Mackeson's and Soft Brown Sugar
Doug Roberts says:
"I will never again make a batch with brown sugar as an ingredient (a
little honey or molasses, perhaps, but not caramelized refined sugar)."
Which I agree with! However, to shed a little light, I think one
problem may be that in Britain soft brown sugar is (relatively)
unrefined. It's not dyed refined sugar, it's thick, gluey (almost
gooey) stuff, somewhere between turbonado (sp?) and white sugar.
Turbonado is much less refined, black and gooey but still somewhat
crystalline. Perhaps with British style brown sugar the Mackeson's
would come out better. Not that I'd try it, mind you.
Can anyone recommend a book that describes the differences between
different styles of beer? E.g. Maerzen, Trappist, Bock, Alt, etc. I'd
like something pretty detailed, that describes what gives each style
its individual character.
patrick
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 6 Sep 89 09:18:32 pdt
From: Brian Atkins <atkins@hpindqa>
Subject: TCJOHB (Revised addition - when?)
Full-Name: Brian Atkins
Does anyone know if Charlie P. is planning to product a revised
edition to "The Complete Joy of Home Brewing"? Two things
I would like to see added are (of course) a complete index, and
expected starting and final specific gravity ranges on more of the
recipes (mostly the all grain brews toward the end of the book).
Is there a place we could call/mail to to provide requests for a revised
edition?
Also, has the net index to TCJOHB been revised lately? My copy is at least
8 months to a year old. Can someone post the latest, greatest copy?
Thanks!
Brian Atkins
------------------------------------------------------------------
Brian Atkins atkins@hpindqa.HP.COM (408) 447-2057
Information Networks Division - 43LS
Hewlett Packard 19420 Homestead Road, Cupertino, CA 95014
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 6 Sep 89 13:05:03 -0400
From: Pete Soper <soper@encore.com>
Subject: pause in fermentation
In HBD #245 roberts%studguppy@LANL.GOV (Doug Roberts) says:
>5. Has this ever happened to anyone else? I racked my Clara Bell batch
>from the primary to the secondary day before yesterday. The head had
>just fallen after a healthy, vigorous initial fermentation. However, I
>noticed the next day that fermentation had completely stopped. I've
>experienced this before where racking seems to shock the yeast
>temporarily (up to a few days), and then fermentation resumes. I'm
>always careful to let the wort cascade down the side of the glass
Don't do that. Running the wort down the side in a thin film causes
air to dissolve in the wort. Run the hose or another racking tube all
the way down and fill the new container from the bottom up instead.
>carboy to minimize oxygentation, and I always make sure to syphon a
>big slug of yeast with the wort in an attempt to assure continuous
This is not needed. There are many many millions of yeast cells
suspended in the actively fermenting wort you are racking.
>fermentation. However, about half the time I notice that
>fermentation comes to a complete halt for up to 3 or 4 days, after
>which it slowly resumes. Any ideas?
I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that the infusion of new
oxygen caused by improper racking might have triggered another
respiration phase in the yeast, causing the pause you observed.
--Pete Soper
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 6 Sep 89 15:32 EST
From: MARKIEWI%CSHLAB.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
Subject: Video
Has anyone seen the new homevideo "A Video Guide to Homebrewing" ?
it is by Papazian and a few others... and I was wondering if it
was worth watching?
Peter Markiewicz
MARKIEWI@CSHLAB.Bitnet
------------------------------
Date: 6 Sep 89 17:18:08 EDT (Wed)
From: mds@wang.WANG.COM (Marc San Soucie)
Subject: Doric Ale Yeast, and CWE
A while back Martin A. Lodahl wrote:
> ... and not content with trying a new recipe and
> unfamiliar hops, I also used a yeast I hadn't tried before: Doric.
> The yeast gave me a bit of a scare, in that it seemed very slow to
> start, and formed a softer-appearing cap than the yeasts I'm
> accustomed to (Edme and Red Star)(yes, I know). Has any kind HBD
> reader used Doric before? Is it as attenuative as Edme? As
> "estery" as Red Star Ale? Is it, for that matter, an ale yeast at
> all? Youth (?) Wants to Know ...
I have brewed a scullion of beers with Doric Ale yeast now, most of them
Amber Ales (Pale Ales in some books, sweet browns in others), and have been
so pleased with the results that I keep a stack of it around for emergency
use in case some new experimental yeast doesn't pan out and a kick start is
needed. Doric is indeed less attenuative than Edme and Red Star, producing
in my Amber ales a nice sweet flavor with no harshness and full body.
I would describe it as a fine, conservative, failsafe yeast which appears
to impart no special flavors of its own.
On a related subject, I have an interesting beer fermenting in my basement
which is beginning to annoy me, as it has been in the secondary fermenter for
nearly 12 weeks now at between 66 and 75 degrees, and shows no signs of
slowing down. The fermentation collar of bubbles is thick and active, and
there are no signs of filth or perversion that would indicate contamination.
The yeast involved is CWE dried ale yeast, from England. I mean, I've heard
of attenuative yeasts, but I really have to wonder what the heck those little
beasties are chewing on by now. It was only a two-can Amber recipe!
Maybe they're working their way through the glass.
Maybe I should start to really worry. Or call the police.
Marc San Soucie
The John Smallbrewers
Massachusetts
mds@wang.wang.com
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 6 Sep 89 17:28 EDT
From: Mike Fertsch <FERTSCH@adc1.RAY.COM>
Subject: Dextrin Malt - does it self-convert?
Doug Roberts posted a recipe the other day -
> 7# light syrup
> 2# Cara Pils (dextrin malt)
> 2# light crystal
> 1# extra rich crystal
> 1/2 oz Hallertauer hops (5.0% Alpha acids)
> 1.0 oz Willamette hops (4.5% AA)
> 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp Citric acid, 1 tsp yeast nutrient
> 1 TBL Irish Moss
> 11.5 oz Edme Yeast
> I mashed the cara & crystal malts for 2 hours at 140 F, then sparged
> to about 4 gallons.
Having recently discovered Dextrin Malt, this recipe looks pretty good to
me. I like the color, taste, and aroma of this malt.
I always thought that both crystal malt and dextrin malt contain no
enzymes. If this is the case, why a 2 hour mash? Just a short steep in
warm water should do the trick.
Is 'rich crystal' just a darker version of 'ordinary crystal'? I've
noticed a WIDE variation in color in crystal malts.
Mike Fertsch
------------------------------
Date: 31 Aug 89 07:15:10 PDT (Thursday)
From: "Richard_A_Morano.WBST311"@Xerox.COM
Subject: Re: Homebrew Digest #241 (August 30, 1989)
Steve Conklin,
How does someone get the catalog you mention? What is their phone number,
etc.? I have a commercial keg system and have though about brewing my own.
Perhaps you could share the steps you went through to keg homebrew.
------------------------------
End of HOMEBREW Digest #246, 09/07/89
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