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HOMEBREW Digest #0431
This file received at Mthvax.CS.Miami.EDU 90/06/04 03:14:10
HOMEBREW Digest #431 Mon 04 June 1990
FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
Rob Gardner, Digest Coordinator
Contents:
This whole invert sugar thing (Eric Pepke)
hops tea (more or less) (R_GELINA)
Maryland and Virginia Microbrews (Robert Allen)
invert sugar (Chip Hitchcock)
more on Red Star (Chip Hitchcock)
Invert Sugar (Lane_Molpus)
Tastings of Ales and Lagers (John Mellby)
Brewpubs in Colorado Springs? ("Gary F. Mason - Image Systems - MKO2-2/K03 - 603884[DTN264]-1503 01-Jun-1990 1812")
Rubicon brewpub tour (cckweiss)
help (BLCARR02)
The Mill; judging wheat beer (CRF)
bulging can (mage!lou)
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: Fri, 1 Jun 1990 10:12:30 EDT
From: PEPKE@scri1.scri.fsu.edu (Eric Pepke)
Subject: This whole invert sugar thing
I'm really sorry I started this whole invert sugar thing. My original question
was purely a pragmatic one--how to interpret the recipes of Dave Line. The
goal is to replicate a particular flavor, not just get the least cidery or
whatever, and getting the recipe right is a good first step.
Fortunately, I did get one answer over Usenet. A gentleman has successfully
made the Ruddles County recipe using American ingredients. For the invert
sugar, he used sucrose heated with a little citric acid. He says the result
tasted very much like the Ruddles he hand-imported back from England.
That's good enough for me, and that's the procedure I'm going to follow. I
will report on the results.
Eric Pepke INTERNET: pepke@gw.scri.fsu.edu
Supercomputer Computations Research Institute MFENET: pepke@fsu
Florida State University SPAN: scri::pepke
Tallahassee, FL 32306-4052 BITNET: pepke@fsu
Disclaimer: My employers seldom even LISTEN to my opinions.
Meta-disclaimer: Any society that needs disclaimers has too many lawyers.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 1 Jun 90 11:07 EST
From: <R_GELINA%UNHH.BITNET@mitvma.mit.edu>
Subject: hops tea (more or less)
I just want to recommend steeping (whole) hops for the last 1-3 minutes of
the wort boil, actually, steep with the heat off. WOW what a flavor and
aroma you can get! My last batch (a red-brown ale) has an incredible
flowery and sweet start to it, that switches to nice bitterness from the
boiling hops added at the beginning. What fun! I cannot imagine the need
for ever dry-hopping.......
Russ Gelinas R_GELINAS@UNHH.BITNET
------------------------------
Date: Fri 01 Jun 90 11:31:07
From: bob@RAllen.wtp.contel.com (Robert Allen)
Subject: Maryland and Virginia Microbrews
A blind taste testing was held recently for microbrews from Maryland
and Virginia.
Scoring on a scale of 1 to 10 on the basis of color, head retention,
hop aroma, inital taste, mouth feel and aftertaste
The results were as follows:
373 Wild Goose Amber Wild Goose Brewery, Cambridge, MD
366 Dark Horse Winter Lager Virginia Brewing Co., Virginia Beach VA
363 Oxford Class Amber Glen Burnie, MD
349 Jefferson Blue Ridge Mt. Forrest, VA
326 Olde Heurich Washington DC (Pittsburgh)
301 Samual Middletons's Pale Ale Wild Goose Brewery, Cambridge, MD
265 Virginia Gold Cup Virginia Brewing Co.
253 St. Pauli Girl Germany
210 Budweiser USA
174 Thomas Point Light Wild Goose Brewery, Cambridge, MD
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 1 Jun 90 11:28:00 EDT
From: bob@wraith.wtp.contel.com (Robert L. Allen)
~r note
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 1 Jun 90 11:27:56 EDT
From: ileaf!io!peoria!cjh@EDDIE.MIT.EDU (Chip Hitchcock)
Subject: invert sugar
> answer #2 (when pushed): It's sucrose (cane sugar)
> that's been boiled with a little bit of
> citric acid to convert the di-saccaride
> to a mono-saccaride.
This squares with Papazian, and with a note in Miller that yeasts eating
table sugar need \\3// enzymes---one for glucose, one for fructose, and an
"invertase" to break the sucrose into glucose and fructose for the other two
to work on. Doing this reaction separately would give you a quicker
fermentation, possibly giving fewer side-reactions (which you might or might
not want).
> Dan Fink at the AHA office (an arrogant young nerd who can tell you with
> utter conviction that there is only one "right" way to brew beer):
>
> Invert sugar is just table sugar that has been boiled. Therefore,
> when you use table sugar your are effectively using invert since you
> boil it anyway.
Not very likely. I don't remember the precise strength of the
glucose-fructose bond, but I doubt that it will break, even at ~100 Celsius,
without a catalyst. When 2 mono-saccharides are joined a molecule of water is
released. To break this bond you have to put back the atoms that were
squeezed out (i.e., "hydrolysis" (= "water breaking")); acid contributes
loose ions which help pry the bond open. (Strong acids (sulfuric, hydrochloric)
would also work, but might give additional reactions and might leave ions
you don't want in your beer.)
The principle is similar to electrolysis of water, which goes at a
reasonable speed in slightly acidic water and \\very// slowly in neutral
water. Making soap is the most common example of hydrolysis, except that you
use alkali (base) as a wedge instead of acid.
> Dave Line's books use outdated technology - use dry
> malt extract instead since table sugar will give you a cidery taste.
Has anyone ever found out just what byproduct(s) give(s) the cidery taste? In
any case, if corn sugar (which is notorious for giving a cidery taste) is
dextrose I wouldn't assume that glucose/fructose would give the same (mixture
of) byproducts. Also, if you're trying to reproduce a particular beer you
probably don't want to replace completely fermentable sugar with partially
fermentable malt extract.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 1 Jun 90 11:43:53 EDT
From: ileaf!io!peoria!cjh@EDDIE.MIT.EDU (Chip Hitchcock)
Subject: more on Red Star
The latest issue of the Wort Processors (Boston) newsletter gives results
of a test done by Steve Stroud and Sherri Almeda; they created single-cell
cultures from Red Star lager yeast and split a batch of lager wort five ways,
pitching with four started cultures and one rehydrated packet of dry Red
Star. Fermentation took 4 days for the dry and 6 for the cultures.
In a blind testing everybody recognized the batch done from dry yeast
("smelly", "cidery", "thin", "phenolic" vs "clean", "sweet", "tea-like",
"full-bodied" for the other four). The comments match the gravity
measurements; OG 1.042, FG 1.008 for the dry, 1.019 (average) for the
cultures.
Stroud concludes that there is a contaminant in the dry yeast. (Note that
if they got down to single cells the odds are 2:1 against picking up a bad
cell even if the contaminant was 10% of the cell count---or could it be a
trace nutrient that encourages different enzymes in the yeast?) He's trying
another batch from the slurry of one of the single-cell batches on the
possibility that a newly-culture batch isn't as active/attentuative as one
that has been through some brewing cycles; results will be available in about
a month.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 1 Jun 90 14:38:35 PDT
From: Lane_Molpus@NeXT.COM
Subject: Invert Sugar
Sucrose is a disaccharide. Each molecule of sucrose
is comprised of two monosaccharides, glucose and
fructose, bound together. Inversion is a process whereby
the bonds between the monosaccharides are broken,
yielding a mixture of glucose and fructose (plus some
water).
The name "inversion" comes from the change in optical
properties -- this has to do with bending beams of
polarized light, and is complex and irrelevant.
Inversion takes place in a numbers of ways. Acids
(e.g., cream of tartar, lemon juice) can break down sucrose
(and other polysaccharides), especially when heat is added.
Yeast cells generate an enzyme called invertase, which
accomplishes the same thing. This inversion is necessary,
since yeast cannot ferment the sucrose directly. This allows
fermentation of sucrose without much concern by the
brewer, since the yeast takes care of the inversion for
you (At least as far as conversion to alcohol is concerned.
There are those who swear that fermented
sucrose tastes different than fermented glucose.).
Corn sugar is also a type of invert sugar; it's created by
the acid hydrolysis of cornstarch into glucose.
Cornstarch is a complex polysaccharide, consisting
of long chains of glucose molecules. Heating it with
an acid breaks the starches down into dextrose and
water.
Since glucose is often made by the inversion of corn
starch, it is fair to call glucose invert sugar, although
invert sugar can also mean a mixture of glucose and
fructose.
Fructose is a very sweet sugar (about 170% as sweet as
sucrose), glucose less so (about 60% as sweet as
sucrose, I think). Thus, a mixture of glucose and
fructose will taste sweeter than pure glucose, but
both will ferment into, for all practical purposes,
the same amount of alcohol
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 1 Jun 90 16:32:41 CDT
From: jmellby@ngstl1.csc.ti.com (John Mellby)
Subject: Tastings of Ales and Lagers
The Offical Mellby Beer-Tastings, year 3.
This is the 19th and 20th such tasting stretching back over two years.
The tastings, in reverse chronological order were of:
Lagers
Ales (CA and UK)
Bochs
Belgians + Samichlaus
Misc. Lagers (including one Non-alcoholic)
Ales, mainly American
Misc.
Oregon and Michigan (ok its weird, but this is where our last trips were)
Available Ales (i.e. purchaseable in Dallas)
Northern Beers (Northern US and Canadian)
Belgian (and other odd European Beers)
California Micro-beers
Lagers, mostly American microbreweries
Ales (an odd lot which turned out to be poor quality)
Ales (Strong, including porters, stout)
Mixed Lagers
Ales
Lagers
Christmas and speciality beers
Mixed (mostly ales)
Lagers
- ------
5/31/90 Surprisingly several people liked to Coors a good deal, and
several didn't giving it a score in the low end of the "good" range!
JRM Roy Tim MikeG Paul Doug Tot Ave
Maharaja 32 37 33 38 30 40 210 35
Coors 31 36 34 33 25 26 185 30.8
Jackson Hole 24 27 26 26 24 31 158 26.3
Samual Adams 41 37 38 45 38 35 234 39
Pacific Coast 27 34 25 26 27 34 173 28.8
Zele Dry 28 30 32 32 31 37 190 31.7
Munchener Nr1 40 34 39 35 38 186 37.2
Gold Coast 43 40 38 40 34 40 235 39.2
Maharaja, Associated Brewery, Bombay, India, Batch 546
Nice clear beer with kind of a fruity smell. Clean taste but a hint of
something wrong - smokey/iodine taste. It made me thing of a Islay Scotch.
A little metallic aftertaste. Thin body.
Coors Extra Gold, Adolph Coors, Golden Colorado.
OK, I admit it, I threw this one in and it didn't do badly. It was very
cloudy which made people think it wasn't from the national brewers.
It was thin, slightly oxidized (I don't know who left this bottle at my
place or when), and maybe a little sulfur. Someone (I said I wouldn't
mention Roy's name) said it was "clearly set above the standard American
beers".
Jackson Hole Draft, Grand Teton Brewery, Helena Mt.
Just from the pretty label I hoped this was good, to no avail.
We had a discussion over whether the aroma was buttery, or just bad.
A light bad flavor.
Samuel Adams, Boston Brewing Co.
This had a nice beer/wort aroma. A beautiful head, unfortunately it has
a SERIOUS collidal suspension of particles. Paul kept saying this was
almost a pale ale, and it did have serious hops. Possibly light struck,
but with a bitter taste, and long bitter aftertaste (maybe cardboardy).
Pacific Coast Lager, Pacific Coast Brewing, Helena Montana
(Montana is the Pacific Coast? I've obviously forgotten my geography!)
The aroma was strange. We argued on caramel or toffee and finally decided
it had a hint of Captain Crunch cereal (really!) It was oxidized with
a sour aftertaste. One person liked the smell/taste and said it reminded
him of Collin County Gold*.
Ze'le' Dry, Zele Brewing Co., Prince George, British Columbia, Canada
The particles in the beer looked like the Tholian energy web on the old
Star Trek. It was a clean light beer. Some fruit (banannas) in the
taste, but still good. Very good for a Dry beer!
Munchener Nr. 1, Paulaner, Munich, Germany
Slightly oxidized but very good! Tim thought it was skunky and didn't
evaluate it, but the rest of us disagreed. It was strong malt aroma
and taste, and Paul guessed it was from Munich before seeing the bottle.
A long aftertaste, but not too hoppy. It was still obviously an old bottle
with catty/oxidized aroma and taste, but still good.
Gold Coast Lager, Pete's Brewing Co, Palo Alto, CA, Contract brewed
by August Schell, in New Ulm, MN
Slightly fizzy, but a clover/buttery aroma. A sweet and tart taste.
Very good!
* The Collin County Brewery is all but defunct. They haven't brewed since
January and they have 3 kegs and a case of beer left. Anyone who wants
a brewery for $25K + another $50K in a year should contact them in Plano, TX.
Don and Mary Thompson are good people.
Too bad they can't make a profit in Texas.
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
****************************************************************
* "Virtually no one's allowed to vote...women, servants, *
* chimpanzees (gestures to Baldrick)...even lords." *
* *
* "That's not true, Lord Nelson's got a vote." *
* *
* "He's got a boat, Baldrick." *
* -- BlackAdder *
****************************************************************
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 1 Jun 90 15:13:51 PDT
From: "Gary F. Mason - Image Systems - MKO2-2/K03 - 603884[DTN264]-1503 01-Jun-1990 1812" <mason@habs11.enet.dec.com>
Subject: Brewpubs in Colorado Springs?
I am traveling to the Springs next week. I don't see any listings in the
"Master Brewpub List" for that locale. Does anyone know of any there? If
not, what would be the closest, and how far is that anyway?
Thanks...Gary
P.S. I leave Tuesday early AM, (only found out today) so answers only help
before that.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 1 Jun 90 15:56:59 -0700
From: cckweiss@castor.ucdavis.edu
Subject: Rubicon brewpub tour
The consensus seems to be that June 9 will be best for the Rubicon tour
here in Sacramento. It will happen at 10:00 AM on Saturday June 9.
Rubicon is at 2004 Capitol Avenue, Sacramento, CA 95814, phone 916-448-7032.
I'll try to review the confirmations that came in and E-mail each separately,
but I figured this global posting would be good insurance.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 1 Jun 90 23:57 EDT
From: BLCARR02%ULKYVX.BITNET@CORNELLC.cit.cornell.edu
Subject: help
Hello there Homebrewers
I am very interested in making some of my own homebrewed
beer, can you tell me what I need to do to get started...
Thanks in advance
Rick Pickerell
Blcarr02
University of Louisville
Info. Science and data processing
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 2 Jun 90 08:00 EST
From: CRF@PINE.CIRCA.UFL.EDU
Subject: The Mill; judging wheat beer
Hi there!
Paul Emerson mentioned "The Mill" in dig #430. Yes, there is one here in
Gainesville, and there's one in Tallahassee as well. The beer is geared
towards the Bud crowd, it's true. It also tends to the hoppy side. Those
things considered, it's not that bad. It is fresh beer, and while it's pretty
wimpy by our standards it's better than Bud/Bud Lite/Mic/Mic Lite being all
that's available on draft. The food's pretty good; I've taken my parents
there twice. Their bakery is *outstanding*!
Regarding the tendency for American judges to mis-judge wheat beers due to
haziness combined with ignorance: is there anything to be done about this?
If that framboise of mine turns out okay, and is finished in time, I've been
seriously considering entering it in the AHA's upcoming wheat beer
competition. Then, of course, there's the national competition. I'd hate to
think be penalized because my brew *ought* to be a tad hazy! Suggestions?
Yours in Carbonation,
Cher
"God save you from a bad neighbor and from a beginner on the fiddle." --
Italian proverb
=============================================================================
Cheryl Feinstein INTERNET: CRF@PINE.CIRCA.UFL.EDU
Univ. of Fla. BITNET: CRF@UFPINE
Gainesville, FL
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 2 Jun 90 09:51:41 MDT
From: hplabs!mage!lou
Subject: bulging can
IN HBD #430 Algis Korzonas writes:
>I've got a buldging can of extract (from not brewing frequently
>enough - no doubt!). Since it's going to be boiled anyway, I'm
>not going to worry, but am I missing something? Should I at
>least be concerned? By the way, it's Edme DMS and is about 1.5
>years old. Hey! Wasn't I the one who mentioned to Cher that
>DMS has active enzymes? Couldn't those enzymes now be doing
>something to buldge the can?
I have a can of Alexander's Sun Country pale malt extract with a similar
problem. The can has severly dented in shipping and some of the bulging is
udoubtedly due to that however it has bulged even more in the two weeks I've
had it. I suspect that the initial deformation of the can made further
deformation easier. I don't think Alexander's has any enzymes so I doubt if
that is the cause in your case. I still plan to use it but, yes, I'm a bit
concerned about it.
Louis Clark
reply to: mage!lou@ncar.ucar.edu
------------------------------
End of HOMEBREW Digest #431, 06/04/90
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