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HOMEBREW Digest #0352
This file received at Mthvax.CS.Miami.EDU 90/02/06 03:27:40
HOMEBREW Digest #352 Tue 06 February 1990
FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
Rob Gardner, Digest Coordinator
Contents:
Molasses Priming (Mike Fertsch)
Reflux condensers for hops (Michael Berry)
Coffee brew (Tom Hotchkiss)
Quick yeast. (Mark Freeman)
Cloudy beer: one more suggestion. (Mark Freeman)
stuck fermentation (Pete Soper)
SUBSCRIPTION (AUIDCC)
Mead; boiling hops separately ("FEINSTEIN")
St. Patricks Day (Steve Fowler)
Re: Boilig Hops Separately ("Allen J. Hainer")
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
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 5 Feb 90 08:57 EST
From: Mike Fertsch <FERTSCH@adc1.adc.ray.com>
Subject: Molasses Priming
Martin A. Lodahl asked about Treacle Priming:
> Has anyone out there tried priming with molasses? How did it turn out?
> How much did you use? What type? I assume it would add a rum-note to the
> flavor, along with finish notes differing from the initial taste, and
> perhaps a slight tang. Am I way off base? I'm considering experimenting
> with it in my next batch of porter.
I've toyed with the thought of molasses priming for my Old Peculiar (old
ale) look-alike I made last fall. [It is a look-alike, but not a
taste-alike, but that is a different story :-( ] In brief, I decided NOT
to prime with molasses ---
Beers can be primed with anything fermentable - it is the amount of
fermentables which control carbonation. Different brands of molasses have
quite a wide variation in sugar content; most of which is probably not
fermentable. Rather than run a lot of priming experiments to determine the
proper amount, I got lazy and primed with corn sugar. I added the molasses
to the boil; any flavor the molasses give will carry through into the
finished product. By putting the molasses in the boil and priming with
sugar, you can control both the molasses character and the carbonation.
My old peculiar has lots brown sugar and licorice in addition to the
molasses. I recall using around a cup of molasses in the boil (3 gallon
batch). The beer is carmelly, and a bit phenolic. I don't care fot it,
and am blaming most of the unpleasant taste on the brown sugar and
excessive licroice. I've vowed NEVER to use brown sugar again, but don't
know on the molasses. Let us know how your molasses porter turns out!
Mike Fertsch
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 5 Feb 90 08:59:36 mst
From: Michael Berry <mcb@hpgrbd.hp.com>
Subject: Reflux condensers for hops
Full-Name: Michael Berry
Louis Clark asks: (your middle initial isn't "N" is it? :-)
> A few issues back someone (sorry, I don't remember the name) asked about
> boiling hops separatly from the extract. I've been wondering about this
> myself, especially for those high S.G. barley wines where all the sugar
> impairs hop utilization in the boil.
I have left the concept of "boiling" and "finishing" hops in the past. I now
do all my hops with a reflux condenser.
If you took much chemistry you are probably familiar with this device and
technique. It is an extraction method that contains all the volitile
components of the stuff being boiled. That's all I'll say about that.
The actual condenser is a glass arrangement about 18" long. It is essentially
a hollow tube with a glass jacket around most of this length that serves as
a cooling-water jacket. It has 2 bibs on it for cold water in & out. This
connects to an interface-adaptor (they fit very smoothly together so as to
be air-tight) that goes into a cork. This cork fits the top of a 1L
erlenmeyer flask. We have a stand and clamp setup that holds the whole
arrangement steady with the flask over a stove burner. Two surgical tubing
tubes carry water from the sink. That's all you need, parts cost about
$50 from the CSU chem lab.
I can do 3 oz of hop leaves at a time with this arrangement. I usually boil
them for about an hour. By this time the leaves are virtually transparent
and the water a bright yellow from the alpha acids and pollen. Sparging the
remaining leaves produces little more extract although I always do it.
The down side is that my kitchen no longer smells wonderful while brewing.
The up side is that my beer has a nose that is magnificent! You really get
a feel for what Cascade hops smell like.
I might add that I am a toy freak. If there is any techno-toy that can be
employed to do a job then I'll usually buy it. This fit right into that
schema. 1 brewpub in town is going to this method.
Michael Berry ARPA:mcb%hpgrla@hplabs.HP.COM UUCP:hplabs!hpgrla!mcb
Worry, don't relax... Your drinking Budweiser!
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 5 Feb 90 10:25:41 MST
From: Tom Hotchkiss <trh@hpestrh.hp.com>
Subject: Coffee brew
Full-Name: Tom Hotchkiss
Here's my limited experience with Coffee beer. I set out to make a batch
of the "world's most dangerous stout," and here's what I came up with:
Colorado Crankcase Stout
- ------------------------
3.3 lb EDME SFX Dark Malt Extract
3.3 lb John Bull Dark Malt Extract
2.0 lb Amber Dry Malt Extract
1.0 lb Crystal Malt
1.0 lb Roasted Barley
1.0 lb Chocolate Malt
.75 lb Black Malt
1/2 Stick Brewer's licorice (boil 60 min)
1 oz Brewer's Gold (60min)
1 oz Brewer's Gold (45min)
1 oz Fuggles (30min)
1 oz Fuggles (Dry hop in primary)
1/2 lb French Roast Coffee Beans (not ground)
Yeast from previous batch. Wyeast #1028, "British Ale Yeast"
Procedure:
Steep grains in water (about 3.5gal) while heating. Remove grains just
before boil. At boil, add licorice and extract. Add hops to boil
according to schedule. Cool wort and pitch yeast.
O.G. = 1.065
Add unground Coffee beans and 1 oz Fuggles hops to primary fermenter.
The next day (24 hours), skim off "crud;" this includes foam, hops, and coffee
beans. One day later, rack to secondary. Ferment 3 weeks total and bottle
with 1/2 Cup corn sugar.
F.G. = 1.026 (Alcohol ~ 5%)
Notes, thoughts:
1. Wyeast #1028 doesn't have high attenuation, which caused the high final
SG. Basically, I think the yeast quit. After 1 month in bottles, the
beer has only low levels of carbonation. However, I like it this way!
With the high terminal gravity, the beer actually feels thick and sweet
in your mouth. If you want to make a good sweet stout (i.e. Mackeson),
a recipie like this (lots of extract and Wyeast #1028) is a good way to
go. For a traditional sweet stout leave out the coffee and lighten up
up on some of the dark grains.
2. As expected, this stuff is black! When you pour a bottle, it sucks
all the light out of the room! You have to drink it in the dark.
3. Unless you're a real coffee fanatic, this is too much coffee. There
is a strong coffee aroma and taste (personally, I like it). I
mistakenly assumed that 1/2 lb unground beans in 5 gallons of liquid
wouldn't taste so strong or impart much of a caffine kick (wrong!)
The night I bottled, I sampled about 1 pint around 9 or 10pm; couldn't
sleep for hours. This stuff packs a caffine punch! I think I just
invented the world's first legitimate "breakfast beer." Actually, it
makes a great dessert beer; have it in place of coffee after a large meal.
Although I like is as is, I'd recommend using less coffee of a weaker
and decaffinated variety.
4. Amazingly, even with 4oz of hops, there isn't much hop aroma or taste.
However, there are so many other flavors and smells, you don't miss
the hops. Some of the smells and flavors to be found in this brew
include: coffee, chocolate, smoke, sweet thick malt, etc. This stuff
tastes more like some kind of bizzare soft drink than beer.
5. Finally, there have been some postings concerning large quantities of
specialty grains and tanins. In this batch, I know there was a
significant quantity of grain husks left in the boil. I used so much
grain, I couldn't possibly scoop it all out (I could have poored it
through a strainer to remove more of the grain). However, I can't
taste any significant tanin in the beer. Even though the beer is
thick and strong flavored, I'd expect tanins to show themselves
(tanins are very obvious even in the most powerful flavored wines).
Well, enough rambling. Hope you find this interesting.
Tom Hotchkiss
trh@hpestrh.hplabs.hp.com
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 5 Feb 90 09:36 PST
From: Mark Freeman <MFreeman@VERMITHRAX.SCH.Symbolics.COM>
Subject: Quick yeast.
Date: Fri, 2 Feb 90 17:48 MST
From: CORONELLRJDS@CHE.UTAH.EDU
Fermentation was visible (via bubbling through the fermentation lock)
within 4 hours, much to our excitement. It bubbled like nothing I've seen
for two days, after which it slowed down, and within another day,
all signs of acive fermentation stopped. The question is, did we do
something wrong? Will we still get good beer? Is there corrective action
we can take to kick-start the fermentation? (Or Are we guilty of the ultimate
sin, needless worrying?)
Yes, but you can absolve yourselves by relaxing and having a
homebrew. Consider yourselves lucky, I bottled a batch yesterday
that had been fermenting for seven weeks and the fermentation
lock indidcated that there was still activity, but I decided
enough is enough. There are a wide variety of factors that
influence the rate of fermentation: temperature, amount of
fermentable sugars in the solution, age of the yeast and so on.
I've only used liquid yeast and have had vastly different
results. Some will start fermenting withing hours and be
finished in 3 - 4 days, and others won't even start for 3 - 4
days! So, relax, your beer is probably just fine.
P.S. Take a hydrometer reading to find out if the activity
stopped because the fermentable sugars are used up, i.e. the
yeast are "finished".
Thanks in advance for any advice,
Chuck and Ashok
[The Brews Brothers]
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 5 Feb 90 09:26 PST
From: Mark Freeman <MFreeman@VERMITHRAX.SCH.Symbolics.COM>
Subject: Cloudy beer: one more suggestion.
From: greene@venice.sedd.trw.com (John Greene)
Subject: Cloudy brew
I went to my local brew supply shop on Friday to buy a package
of dry light malt extract for priming my latest batch this
weekend. The proprietor warned me that people have been getting
cloudy beer from using malt extract for priming because of
proteins release during the boil. He suggested scraping the
foam off the top of the boil when boiling the priming sugar.
(as it contains much of said proteins)
------------------------------
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 5 Feb 90 16:38:00 EST
From: Pete Soper <soper@maxzilla.encore.com>
Subject: stuck fermentation
To Chuck and Ashok (The "Brews Brothers"), about their stuck
fermentation: This subject has come up several times in past months
but I never had time to put my 2 cents in. So here it is, with compounded
interest.
One thing that can cause the yeast to stop in mid-fermentation
is lack of ethanol tolerance. Low enthanol tolerance is usually due to
lack of oxygen during respiration. Yeast can multiply through a few
generations without oxygen but in this case they have to share certain
cell materials across those generations rather than building fresh
materials from oxygen and nitrogen compounds in the wort. This can leave
the cell count low and the cells themselves very weak and subject to
dropping out of the picture before fermentation is complete. So, you
need to ask yourself if enough oxygen was present in the wort at the
time the yeast was pitched. If the cool water you combined with your
wort was from the tap, then chances are it had a lot of dissolved air.
If it had been boiled and then cooled chances are you had virtually no
dissolved oxygen if you failed to rouse the resulting mixture before
pitching. (Note that commercial brewers saturate the wort with oxygen prior
to pitching; the yeast will consume all available oxygen during respiration
and any fear of other hazards, like contamination from room air, should be
overridden by concern for getting the yeast's cell count and energy reserves
built up quickly).
Another thing that will shut down a fermentation like a switch is a
sudden drop in wort temperature. Ten degrees overnight has a drastic effect
and I can testify that 30 degrees in 8 hours is entirely effective for
ruining a fermentation (see below). This subject has been covered a lot
recently so I'll move on.
It isn't clear to me whether the next set of issues could stop
a fermentation entirely, but they are worth mentioning. First, you let
the wort and cold water mixture cool, but was its temperature really
matched up to that of the rehydrated yeast? According to one source,
if the yeast is subjected to more than an 18 degree jump at one time,
its sugar uptake ability may be disabled by cell mutation. However it
seems that this would show up as a weak fermentation that took a long time
rather than the complete stop you observed. Also, although
you should be applauded for rehydrating your yeast before pitching it,
the water used for rehydration should start out much warmer than room
temperature before being matched to the temperature of the wort (just a
quibble).
Back to that cold water. Water straight out of the tap
contains chlorine and above a certain level this is toxic to yeast,
in addition to reacting with wort to create chlorophenols, etc. Again,
this is not likely to be the main problem but is worth mentioning.
Other long shots (not applicable to your case) include lack of
nitrogen and phosphates in a recipe calling for very little malt and a
lot of sugar. Some yeast nutrient (aka ammonium diphosphate) is called
for in this case, but this would probably not help at all if added
after respiration had finished. With a load of corn sugar you also run
the risk of the dreaded "Crabtree Effect" in which the yeast cells sort
of forget how to ferment maltose. Finally, old yeast or yeast stored at
high temperatures might leave so few cells that the remaining
viable ones are stressed a lot by the need to multiply across more
generations than usual.
But what should you do? I'm pretty shaky here and can only describe
what I would do if faced with this situation. Take this with a pinch
of noniodized salt and hope for advice from folks who have hands-on
experience with recovering from stuck fermentations. My only similar
experience was recovering from premature flocculation when I accidently
cooled my wort to near freezing right after pitching. I used the
procedure in the next paragraph with liquid yeast after my wort had
warmed up and all was well in the end, although the fermentation took
a few days longer than it should have.
I'd make a quart starter with malt extract and shake air into it for
a full 90 seconds, then add a fresh packet of rehydrated yeast. I'd
allow this starter a few hours to get going like gang busters and take
up all its air and then pitch it into the main wort. Oh, and I'd be
extremely careful to match the rehydrated yeast temp to the starter
temp and the starter to the wort, trying not to jump temperatures more
than a few degrees at any point.
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------
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: Mon, 5 Feb 90 11:14 CDT
From: <AUIDCC%AUDUCVAX.BITNET@CORNELLC.cit.cornell.edu>
Subject: SUBSCRIPTION
SUBSCRIBE HOMEBREW STEVE ENSMINGER
------------------------------
Date: 5 Feb 90 12:47:00 EST
From: "FEINSTEIN" <crf@pine.circa.ufl.edu>
Subject: Mead; boiling hops separately
Hello, all!
Regarding the boiling of the honey/water wort in making mead: every mead
recipe I've encountered displays two aspects. One, the honey is stirred into
boiling or near-boiling water in such a manner as to prevent caramelization
and burning of the honey. Two, the wort is quickly reduced to a simmer, the
wort then being skimmed of all foam as it comes to the top. This cooks the
wort without degrading the honey, and allows removal of nasties _a la_
allowing the krausen of a beer to blow off.
Done carefully, "cooking" one's mead is easy. The main thing is to simmer and
stir, not boil. I personally regard sulphiting as totally unnecessary, and as
possibly affecting the final flavor of the brew. Again, this is IMHO.
As for boiling hops separately: I've done it, and it's worked just fine. The
tricky part is to make sure that your small pot of "hops tea" comes to the
boil, and continues its boil, simultaneously with the big pot of wort.
I have to say that for those of us who frequently use pelleted hops, boiling
the hops separately can be very helpful. I know my hops bags generally fail
to hold all those little bits, and it's much easier to strain 2 or 3 cups of
liquid rather than several gallons.
But then, I stopped worrying about it altogether a long time ago... :-)
Yours in Carbonation,
Cher
"There are very few personal problems which cannot be solved by a suitable
application of high explosives." -- Anon.
=============================================================================
Cheryl Feinstein INTERNET: CRF@PINE.CIRCA.UFL.EDU
Univ. of Fla. BITNET: CRF@UFPINE
Gainesville, FL
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 5 Feb 90 10:15 EST
From: hplabs!gatech!mailrus!uunet!pdn.paradyne.com!steve (Steve Fowler)
Subject: St. Patricks Day
Well folks, March is almost upon us and that means the celebration
of St. Patrick's day. With that in mind I am looking for some recipes
for 'green beer'. Not really knowing much about how that is brewed
I was hoping the folks on the Home Brew Digest could help me out.
I will gather recipes from any{one,where} and put them into one posting
for the digest (if there is enough feed back). Look forward to hearing
from folks.
Thanks,
Steve Fowler
Steve Fowler \ _ / |UUCP: ..!{uunet|att}!pdn!steve -=--
AT&T/Paradyne ~o.O~ |DOMAIN: steve@pdn.paradyne.com -===--
P.O. Box 2826 (_|_) |LAND: (813)530-2186 --=--- AT&T
Largo, FL 34649-2826 / U |SEA: 27 53 30 N / 82 45 30 W ---- Paradyne
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 5 Feb 90 11:50:38 EST
From: "Allen J. Hainer" <ajhainer@violet.waterloo.edu>
Subject: Re: Boilig Hops Separately
I just started a batch using this technique. I did so because I have found
that long boils tend to darken (carmalize?) my extracts. I boil my hops
and then add the extract at the end. When it comes to a boil again, I am
done. This also has the added benifit of not smelling up the house quite
as much (not that I mind, but some of the other people in the house do).
I hadn't thought of hop utilization, but this makes sense and agrees with
my results. At racking, this beer was much more bitter then I expected from
the amount of hops that I used (not that I mind that either). This isn't
conclusive as I am not sure how hoppy the extract was.
I also tried separate boils this summer when I racked a batch and found it
not to be bitter enough. I boiled some (pelletized) hops and dumped them
in. The beer tasted great, but never cleared after adding the hops. It was
clear when I added them. I am not sure why this happened.
-al (ajhainer@violet.waterloo.edu)
------------------------------
End of HOMEBREW Digest #352, 02/06/90
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