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HOMEBREW Digest #0344
This file received at Mthvax.CS.Miami.EDU 90/01/25 03:25:58
HOMEBREW Digest #344 Thu 25 January 1990
FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
Rob Gardner, Digest Coordinator
Contents:
Steve McEvoy and Wort Chillers (Charlie Woloszynski)
RE: Homebrew Digest #343 (DAVE RESCH MAILSTOP:CXN1/5 DTN:523-2780)
Uses for spent grains (Stephen B Coy)
American Homebrewers Conference/Bluebonnet/Michael Jackson (John Mellby)
Sierra Nevada Yeast (Dave Suurballe)
KuukenBuuk ("S. Travaglia, University of Waikato, New Zealand")
Sierra Nevada Yeast (Dave Suurballe)
KuukenBuuk ("S. Travaglia, University of Waikato, New Zealand")
WARNING: Novice Alert (William P. Taylor)
Re: What's the big deal about wort chillers?? (Chris Shenton)
Re: kegging problem (John Polstra)
Re: Small scale mashing, dry hopping, etc. (John Polstra)
Send submissions to homebrew%hpfcmr@hplabs.hp.com
Send requests to homebrew-request%hpfcmr@hplabs.hp.com
Archives available from netlib@mthvax.cs.miami.edu
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Date: Wed, 24 Jan 90 09:55:21 EST
From: chw@barnardstar.bellcore.com (Charlie Woloszynski)
Subject: Steve McEvoy and Wort Chillers
In Digest #343, Steve asks why all the fuss over wort chillers and can't
a cold break be achieved by adding cold water. Here's my perspective
on this.
At the end of your boil, you end up with some number of gallons of
HOT wort, which needs to be cooled quickly. During this phase,
the wort is MOST suspectible to infection. As infection leads to
off-flavors and bad beer, we want to avoid this as much as possible.
Steve suggests using cold water to cool down the wort. First, cold
tap water may or may not be infection-free. That depends on your area.
Cold water also has suspended chlorine, which can, when mixed with
organic material, form off-flavors. This is especially true for
those using grains in the boil. If you are lucky enough to have really
quality water (which I am not), perhaps cold tap water is sufficient,
depending on the volume of your boil.
The ending temp of x gallons at 212 and (5-x) gallons at 50F is
(x*212 + (5-x)*50)/5 assuming a five gallon batch size and 50 tap water.
Doing a couple of quick calculations, it is easy to see that your boil
cannot be very big to get to 70F. A larger boil will result in higher
temps, which you will have to let "air-cool" with the possibility of
the dreaded infection.
The poroblem becomes worse when you realize that the larger the boil, the
better the hop utilization and grain utilization. Also, people
who mash have very large boils to get good mash efficiency.
With all these factors leading towards larger boils, a wort chiller is
the "best" solution.
As for my personal experience, I recently went through these thoughts,
and ended up building an immersion wort chiller, circulating cold water
through the tubing and immersing the wort chiller into the boil near the
end. This effectively sanitized the wort chiller and, since the
water goes through the middle, made clean up (the outside only) much
easier. I made my own for about $25 in plumbing supplies
(soft copper tubing and some fittings to hook up to the faucet).
My beer has, honest to god, gotten much better. It is crisper, cleaner,
and lacks off flavors that have been following me for a while.
While not all of the improvement was from the wort chiller, (I gave up on
Red Star yeast and now use Munsion and Fission Ale Yeast) I
think it really helped.
Hope this message helped explain why wort chillers are nice.
Relax and have a homebrew,
Charlie Woloszynski
Bellcore
M'town NJ
chw@aries.bellcore.com
- -----------------------------------------------------------------------
Finally, the volume of water needed
to adequately cool your wort to 70F is
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 24 Jan 90 06:44:43 PST
From: DAVE RESCH MAILSTOP:CXN1/5 DTN:523-2780 <RESCH@COOKIE.enet.dec.com>
Subject: RE: Homebrew Digest #343
In digest number 343, Florian writes:
>A question regarding Sierra Nevada yeast. I recently tried to make a starter
>by pitching the last 1/2" of beer from a SNPA bottle into a starter wort.
>After two days of sitting on top of the fridge (my usual starter place), the
>wort was looking at me like it thought I was crazy--no fermentation at all.
>Does this even work, or was I wasting my time with pasteurized beer?
It certainly works for me. I have used SNPA for the past three batches with
great success. I also pour about the last 1/2" of the bottle into a small
starter wort. I make the starter wort somewhat weak as suggested in several
articles in the Zymurgy yeast special issue (about 8 tablespoons of DME in 2
1/2 cups of water). I usually have good activity in about 1 1/2 days.
I also used some SNPA yeast to start a culture on agar in a petri dish. This
was also very successful. I used one of the colonies to start my last batch
which is fermenting nicely as I write. I am quite pleased with the Sierra
Nevada Pale Ale yeast. The beers I have made with it have a very "clean" taste
and have been the best I've made to date.
Dave Resch (in Colorado Springs)
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 23 Jan 90 16:30:36 pst
From: hplabs!rutgers!beaver.cs.washington.edu!ssc-vax!coy (Stephen B Coy)
Subject: Uses for spent grains
John DeCarlo writes:
> I know I read somewhere (this Digest, zymurgy, some place) about someone
> making use of the spent grains left over from the brewing process to make
> various food products.
Last summer while visiting the Full Sail Brewery in Hood River with
some friends we found out what they do with their spent grains. The
grains are given to a local farmer who uses them for hog feed. The
hogs eventually end up as sausage in the restaurant next to the
brewery which does all the cooking for the brewpub.
BTW After years of talking with friends and reading this newsletter
I'm finally brewing my first batch! Life is good.
Stephen Coy
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 24 Jan 90 13:14:49 CST
From: jmellby@ngstl1.csc.ti.com (John Mellby)
Subject: American Homebrewers Conference/Bluebonnet/Michael Jackson
Just a note to let everyone know that this year's American Homebrew Alliance
is having its annual competition in Dallas this year. On March 29-31 the
Homebrew Alliance Bluebonneet Conference and Competition will be at the
Harvey House Hotel in Plano. Speakers include Fred Eckhardt, George Fix,
Dave Miller. A special speaker is
M I C H A E L J A C K S O N,
who will also be doing a beer tasting. The topic of MJ's speech is still
under discussion. I believe that he will also be doing two separate tastings
at a local pub, The Mucky Duck (details TBD).
The conference costs $80 ($65 for AHA members, or $77 to join AHA and the
conf). One day is $30. Michael Jackson's tasting is $20, or $15 if you
register early. I don't have any more details yet, but you can send
mail if you want more info (or call), or you can talk to Mike Leonard
at (214)234-4411.
P.S. on a sadder note, the local brewery, Reinheitsgebot Brewery, is
basically out of business. They were unable to get more investors, and
did not show enough of a profit (I guess no profit at all), and they are
closed. They even have beer left but cannot afford bottles to bottle the
remaining batch.
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 (214)343-7585
***************************************************
* "I don't care if you rogered the Duke of *
* York with a prize-winning leek!" *
* -- Blackadder *
***************************************************
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 24 Jan 90 11:29:48 PST
From: hsfmsh!hsfdjs!suurb@sfsun.West.Sun.COM (Dave Suurballe)
Subject: Sierra Nevada Yeast
Florian had trouble cultivating Sierra Nevada yeast. Other friends of mine
have had trouble, too, and I never learned what the problem was. However,
I have successfully cultivated the stuff about 135 times. I don't know
what I'm doing right, but I'll tell you what I do, and you can compare it
to what you do and come up with a conclusion.
I always buy the youngest, unrefrigerated Sierra Nevada beer I can
find. There is a bottling date notched on the right side of the label.
This has been described in this Digest. The store I use carries all
the Sierra Nevada beers, and I buy whichever is youngest; they all have
the same yeast. I don't use the Barley Wine, however, for fear that the
yeast have been altered by soaking in that high alcohol solution for so
long. I don't know if this fear is founded or not. The store I use
doesn't refrigerate the beer, and I don't either. I don't know if this
is important. I have been forced to buy the beer at another store that
does refrigerate it, and I have had more trouble those times, but that
beer was also older. Rather than experiment and discover which is more
crucial, age or temperature, I just buy it young and warm.
I start the yeast on Wednesday night in one cup of 1.030 solution
of powdered light malt extract and water. I simmer this solution for 15-30
minutes and then let it cool to skin temperature. I cool it different ways
depending on how much of a hurry I'm in (how close to bed-time). The
slowest way is to let it sit on the stove till it's the right temperature.
The fastest is to set the pot in the sink full of cold water. In between
is to put it in the frige. I don't know what temperature the stuff is
when I put the yeast in; I call it skin temperature. When the pot feels
neither warmer nor cooler than my hand, it's ready. Low tech.
I decant the contents of two bottles of SN beer, pour a little of the
wort into one bottle, swirl to suspend the sediment, pour this into the
second bottle, swirl, pour this and the rest of the wort into a sterile
flask, and insert a standard fermentation lock. I use two bottles because
my results were more variable with one. That is, it sometimes takes longer
to start with one, but it always started. A friend who also does this
routinely uses three bottles for the same reason. He feels the results
from two bottles are too variable. I don't.
I put the starter in the 66-degree basement next to last week's primary
fermentation. It takes about 24 hours before I notice activity in the flask.
It's just like a larger fermentation; it gets some foam on top, and then it
drops, and then the yeast settles, etc. I pitch it on Saturday afternoon,
and it's usually still got a little foam on it then. Because of surprise
changes in my social schedule, there have been times when I didn't brew on
a Saturday, so I pitched the starter a week later, or two weeks later. By
then the starter is completely fermented, and it worked anyway. However,
the experts say the best time to pitch is at the peak of the foam in the
starter. I always smell the flask after pitching the yeast. I don't know
why. It always smells the same; not too attractive. Years ago I used
hopped wort from my previous brew instead of the 1.030 unhopped stuff.
It smelled real good then. Unhopped fermentations don't smell much
like beer.
There is foam on the five-gallon fermentation within 24 hours. I have
gotten that down to 8 hours by inserting an additional step: start the 1-cup
starter on Monday, pitch it into a 2-liter starter on Thursday, and
pitch that into 5 gallons on Saturday. It's nice to see fermentation
that early, but after a while, the materials and measurement, preparation,
sterilization time of the extra step didn't seem worth it, and now I
just pitch the 1-cup starter.
Suurb
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 25 Jan 90 08:37 +1300
From: "S. Travaglia, University of Waikato, New Zealand"
Subject: KuukenBuuk
Hey, has anyone ever done a "cookbook" of favourite brew recipes? If not,
is anyone interested? If so, drop me a line.
_____________________________________________________________________
____/ This trailer will almost certainly self-destruct in a given, finite
/ \ amount of time. It was posted in conjunction with secretly encoded
| BOMB | messages to the soviet block, disguised to look like usenet drivel.
\____/ Disclaimer: My boss and work have their own wrong ideas
The structure of the joke is ... the juxtaposition of the trivial and the
mundane ... We have to reconcile the paradox of it all. The joke mirrors the
paradox. -- Woody Allen
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 24 Jan 90 11:54:38 PST
From: hsfmsh!hsfdjs!suurb@sfsun.West.Sun.COM (Dave Suurballe)
Subject: Sierra Nevada Yeast
Oh, yeah, one more thing about Sierra Nevada yeast. Not only is the
bottle-label dated, but the cardboard case (not six-pack) is, too, only
the case date is easier to read; it's a normal, human-readable date
stamped on top. So if you can't read the notched label-date, try to
find a store that has cases, and buy beer from the youngest case.
Suurb
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 25 Jan 90 08:37 +1300
From: "S. Travaglia, University of Waikato, New Zealand"
Subject: KuukenBuuk
Hey, has anyone ever done a "cookbook" of favourite brew recipes? If not,
is anyone interested? If so, drop me a line.
_____________________________________________________________________
____/ This trailer will almost certainly self-destruct in a given, finite
/ \ amount of time. It was posted in conjunction with secretly encoded
| BOMB | messages to the soviet block, disguised to look like usenet drivel.
\____/ Disclaimer: My boss and work have their own wrong ideas
The structure of the joke is ... the juxtaposition of the trivial and the
mundane ... We have to reconcile the paradox of it all. The joke mirrors the
paradox. -- Woody Allen
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 24 Jan 90 17:03:38 -0500
From: William P. Taylor <wpt@cwns5.INS.CWRU.Edu>
Subject: WARNING: Novice Alert
I've been following this DIgest for a couple of months, and
having never brewed anything in my life (intentionally that is) I've
developed a few questions.
1. What/Who is Pappazian and Zymurgy?? I see these names a lot in
the DIgest and it seems they are beer gurus.
2. How long does it take to brew a batch of beer?? Step-by-step
if possible.
3. What kind of price advantages are there?
Thanks for any input. Being in college, I don't have the
resources or equipment to do anything yet, but I've been downloading
the HBD for future reference.
wpt@cwns5.INS.CWRU.Edu
- --
"And I don't know who I am
But life is for learning." William P. Taylor
-CSNY Michelson 620
Sigma Epsilon Chi
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 24 Jan 90 12:05:54 est
From: Chris Shenton <chris@asylum.gsfc.nasa.gov>
Subject: Re: What's the big deal about wort chillers??
Steve McEvoy writes:
> From my reading however, it seems
> that all that's required to acheive that is to pour hot wort
> into cold water.
If you're doing all-grain, you will have your total wort in the boil pot.
Therefore, no room for extra cold water. I try to do a complete batch boil
for my extract batches -- something about hop utilization or something.
> Should I be aiming for a specific temperature at which to pitch?
> If so what would that be?
Most things I've seen say pitch at 70-80F, but recently I read in the
all-grain issue of Zymurgy (great issue!) that you should pitch at the
desired fermentation temperature; this may require a larger culture of
yeast to get the fermentation up and running quickly.
> Of course I'm interested in making better beers than I have
> or I wouldn't be posting the question, but I'm a bit daunted
> by the lengths (and expense) to which people are willing to go
> to control temperature.
The wort chiller's main goal is to get hot wort to pitching temperature as
quickly as possible for two reasons:
1. Reduces chances for infection by wild yeasts, et al
2. Produces good cold break
I haven't made one yet, but I don't think it should be very hard or
expensive. I'm currently having fair success with a deep utility sink filled
with ice water; it takes me about 45 minutes.
_______________________________________________________________________________
Internet: chris@asylum.gsfc.nasa.gov (128.183.10.155) NASA/GSFC: Code 735
UUCP: ...!uunet!asylum.gsfc.nasa.gov!chris Greenbelt, MD 20771
SPAN: PITCH::CHRIS 301-286-6093
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 24 Jan 90 19:30:17 PST
From: polstra!jdp@hplabs.HP.COM (John Polstra)
Subject: Re: kegging problem
[ I am reposting this and another message, both of which I sent on 1/19. I
think Rob's bad disk must have caused them to be lost.]
In HBD #340, florianb@tekred.cna.tek.com (Florian Bell) wrote about his
troubles with leaking Cornelius kegs. This is a baffling problem! I
have two Cornelius kegs and have never noticed any problems with
leaking. Let me suggest one thing to try and one thing to check.
Thing to try: Try boiling the lid (O-ring and all) just before you close
up the keg. My local supplier recommends this. He says that it softens
up the O-ring and makes for a better seal. (I can confirm from
experience that it doesn't melt or damage anything, so don't worry about
that.)
Thing to check: The lever on the lid which you flip over to seal/unseal
the keg should have a little plastic cap on each of its ends. I.e., the
ends should not be just bare metal. Are these plastic caps missing?
They're an important part of the closing mechanism.
Florian, if you ever get this figured out, please let us all know what
the problem was!
- John Polstra jdp@polstra.UUCP
Polstra & Co., Inc. ...{uunet,sun}!practic!polstra!jdp
Seattle, WA
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 24 Jan 90 19:31:19 PST
From: polstra!jdp@hplabs.HP.COM (John Polstra)
Subject: Re: Small scale mashing, dry hopping, etc.
In HBD #340, enders@plains.NoDak.edu (Todd Enders) wrote this about
dry-hopping:
> On the subject of dry hopping and its infection potential: Why
> couldn't you give the hops a bath in everclear before pitching
> them into the primary? That should disinfect them at least somewhat.
> I don't know just how solulable (sp?) the hop oils are in ethanol, but
> I don't think a 5 min. bath would wash out all the good stuff.
> Comments?
Both in this digest and among the brewers in my local club, I have heard
many concerns voiced about the infection potential of dry-hopping. As
someone who uses this practice in almost all of his ales, I would like
to suggest that you all just relax, don't worry, and have a homebrew. I
have never, ever gotten any infection as a result of dry-hopping, and I
am convinced that its potential for infection is very small.
Most beer infections get established during the first 24 hours after
boiling and chilling the wort. That is the time when (A) the yeast is
not well-established yet, and (B) there is no alcohol in the wort yet.
Once the yeast becomes established in the wort, it is very difficult for
an infection to take hold. Later, at racking time, the alcohol level
further hinders the organisms that could otherwise cause infection.
Also, bear in mind that hops are a natural preservative. In fact, the
whole reason brewers centuries ago began using hops was because they
had discovered that the hops would prevent their beer from spoiling.
Finally, look around you. I doubt there's a brewery in England that
does not use dry-hopping. It's standard procedure over there. They
don't do anything special to their hops, they just dump them in. They
have found through experience that it doesn't cause a problem. All of
the microbreweries I have toured in the US (5 so far) use dry-hopping in
at least some of their brews. They all say they've never had infection
problems from that practice.
You like hops? You like hop aroma? Give dry-hopping a try. It works
great!
- John Polstra jdp@polstra.UUCP
Polstra & Co., Inc. ...{uunet,sun}!practic!polstra!jdp
Seattle, WA (206) 932-6482
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End of HOMEBREW Digest #344, 01/25/90
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