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HOMEBREW Digest #0477
This file received at Mthvax.CS.Miami.EDU 90/08/17 03:13:36
HOMEBREW Digest #477 Fri 17 August 1990
FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
Rob Gardner, Digest Coordinator
Contents:
Re: hops, kegs & recycling (Bob Clark - Sun Engineering)
"Rouge Red" hops (maybe) (Mike Meyer)
Starting a homebrewer's club in Southern New Hampshire ("Gary F. Mason - Image Systems - MKO2-2/K03 - 603884[DTN264]-1503 16-Aug-1990 1335")
On Exploding Bottles (bob)
Resealable Bottles (bob)
gushers? (florianb)
carboys, hops, and racking (mage!lou)
Trub, Old Testament and Hot Wort (Dave Sheehy)
various replies to this weeks comments (jay s hersh)
Not Enough Heat !! (Mark Montgomery)
Hot Peppers & pH (Brian Capouch)
strainers and glass carbuoys (Alan Duester)
Wort straining (Norm Hardy)
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: Thu, 16 Aug 90 06:43:15 PDT
From: bobc@Eng.Sun.COM (Bob Clark - Sun Engineering)
Subject: Re: hops, kegs & recycling
> From: Glenn Colon-Bonet <gcb@hpfigcb>
>
> Anybody know if you can use the hops directly off the vine (without
> drying them)?
The reason to dry them is for consistency. Without drying, you are
using ingredients with substantial water content which is:
a. variable
b. not found in the commercial products you buy
In other words, 2 oz. of wet hops has a whole lot less bittering than
2 oz. of dried hops.
-----
On another subject, I have started the practice of taking an empty
Cornelius keg with me to company functions where there is good keg
beer. At the end of the event, I simply drain the leftovers into my
keg and throw CO2 on top. It keeps quite well in my fridge at home.
Just the other night, I was able to score 15 gallons of some local
microbrew! Another advantage to being a homebrewer...
Bob C.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 16 Aug 90 09:57:32 PDT
From: meyer@tcville.hac.com (Mike Meyer)
Subject: "Rouge Red" hops (maybe)
Bryan Olson asks:
Has anyone sampled "Rouge Red" from the Rouge River microbrewery in Ashland
Or? I had some recently, it has the most incredible finishing hops
aroma/taste, very strong. Does anyone know how they do it?
Though I haven't tried Rouge Red, I recall a trip to the Bridgeport brewpub
in Portland a couple of years ago, where I was similarly impressed by the
hops finish of one of their ales, a floral, spicy taste of heaven. While
sitting at the bar, I noticed the requisite jar of hops pellets left out for
the curious, marked "Nugget Hops". Same fragrance, and it opened my eyes
to the importance of fresh hops in my beer. Since then, my best ales have
used Nugget hops, and I've even used them for a "light" beer I made with
Bierkeller Dark malt, my infamous "Black Lite". Curiously, Nugget is a
very-high alpha acid variety (about 14%), and is considered a bittering
hop, but they have a very distinctive aroma that nobody ever mentions.
They aren't appropriate to
every beer style, but they add quite a flavor to a full-bodied ale.
Mike Meyer Hughes Aircraft, El Segundo, CA
meyer@tcville.HAC.COM
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 16 Aug 90 10:37:38 PDT
From: "Gary F. Mason - Image Systems - MKO2-2/K03 - 603884[DTN264]-1503 16-Aug-1990 1335" <mason@habs11.enet.dec.com>
Subject: Starting a homebrewer's club in Southern New Hampshire
A group of us in Southern New Hampshire and bordering Massachusetts are
beginning to form a Homebrewer's Club. We have contacted the AHA for
their information, and done some other early groundwork.
If there is anyone in the area who reads this Digest, and is interested
in taking part, please reply to me, or call Bill Liston at (800)562-7173.
Let's get this thing brewin'!
Cheers...Gary
------------------------------
Date: Thu Aug 16 14:35:37 1990
From: semantic!bob@uunet.UU.NET
Subject: On Exploding Bottles
On exploding bottles:
My first batch of brew I bottled before fermentation was complete. The
ferment got stuck, so I just relaxed and bottled it. Well it also got
infected. I keep sturring it to try and restart the fermentation. I also
used an old scratched up food grade bucket. Needless to say my first batch
was a flop. (Things are much better now though.)
I bottled in Grolsch bottles and WOW what *POP* I got when I opened
them. Well, I would get them real cold and it wasn't so bad at first.
But a few weeks latter they started blowing the porcelen (sp?) caps
and harware off. Since the beer wasn't the best tasting, and things
seemed a little dangerous I decided to dump the batch.
So I go into my bathroom (where I keep my beer) and started to open
the first bottle. Well it wasn't cold! The cap and harware *Blew* off,
broke the medicine cabinet mirror, bounced of the ceiling, two walls,
and landed in the toilet. And /everything/ got covered with fizzy,
sticky beer. I was stunned! I could have been blinded!
I didn't want to toss my bottles so I carefully loaded them into the
fridge. The next day I took them out one at a time and opened them
up in a sink full of water. The water dampened all the force of the
beer.
I havn't had a problem since then. However several people have mentioned
that some of their brews build up carbonation over time. I'll have
to sample some of my original batches which I stored away for ageing.
I may just have to drink them All real quick!
- -- Hope you enjoyed the show!
- -- Robert A. Gorman (Bob) bob@rsi.com Watertown MA US --
- -- Relational Semantics, Inc. uunet!semantic!bob +1 617 926 0979 --
------------------------------
Date: Thu Aug 16 15:03:41 1990
From: semantic!bob@uunet.UU.NET
Subject: Resealable Bottles
I'm going to start a debate here. :-)
I only use resealable bottles. I use two types: The standard 16 oz
Grolsch bottles, and the 22 oz Fischer bottles. I get these at the
local bottle redemption center for 5 cents each.
So I can't figure out why any one would bother capping.
I think 12 oz bottles would be very repetitive to fill. Then you've
got to cap them all. What a pain. With 22 oz resealables I fill up
about 22 bottles. I seal them as soon as there full, and that's it.
No capper, no caps, no capping.
I think they would be cheaper too. What do people pay for caps?
1 or 2 cents each. And then add on the cost of the capper.
More expensive, More work, Why bother!
Of course, I'm leaving my self open to those keggers out there.
Now there's a lazy lot! Just on big bottle (keg) to fill. But
they have to purchase kegs and taps and CO2 and refridgerators.
So what's you opinion?
- -- Robert A. Gorman (Bob) bob@rsi.com Watertown MA US --
- -- Relational Semantics, Inc. uunet!semantic!bob +1 617 926 0979 --
------------------------------
Date: 16 Aug 90 13:07:15 PDT (Thu)
From: florianb@tekred.cna.tek.com
Subject: gushers?
Tom Hotchkiss gave us some interesting stories about gushers and exploders:
>For safety's sake, if you currently have any gushers, I'd recommend
>opening all of them ASAP! By "gusher," I mean that when you open a bottle
>the beer gushes out violently (i.e. hits the ceiling). You can wrap the
>bottles in a heavy towel when handling them to make the procedure safer.
The part I'm having trouble with after reading his narrative is that if
gushers and exploders are present in homebrew, then something must be
seriously wrong. If this assumption is correct, then it seems to me that
steps should be taken to understand what is wrong with the brewing process
and to also fix it right away. Even though infection is often assumed as
the culprit in gushing beer, I maintain that it is more likely secondary
fermentation in the bottle. It is extremely important that one should
monitor the "seconds per glub" in the secondary carboy, as well as the
specific gravity. In addition, it is important to ferment and secondary
ferment at a nearly constant temperature. This will reduce yeast shock.
To this I will add that I'm a pretty sloppy brewer. I stick my filthy
hands in the brew, I suck on the racking hoze, I roll loose hops in
unwashed cheesecloth on the kitchen counter to make hop bags, I dump in
priming syryp made with cold water, and I hardly ever scrub my bottles
(when I *do* bottle), I have never used more than a one minute soak in
bleach solution for bottles and equipment, and so on as T -> oo. I have
yet to get gushing beer or gunk growing in the bottles. BUT, in very
old (year old) beer, I have noticed excess carbonation, which I attribute
to the yeast simply using up every last bit of fermentable left in the
brew. But there has never been carbonation anywhere near the point of
gushing out.
Others may have separate opinions, but it is, I believe, worthwhile to
examine the brewing process in order to understand the origin of these
troubles.
On the topic of Grolsch bottles, have a look at the thickness of the
glass where the swingtop bail inserts into a dimple on the neck. This
is a very thin point! It may be that Grolsch bottles relieve their
pressure via the gasket. Case in point. About a year ago I popped some
blueberries into a Grolsch bottle, poured boiling water into the bottle
and capped it as an experiment to see whether I could make juice. About
two weeks later, the bottle was oozing juice out of the gasket. I took
it to the sink, swung open the lid, and the top popped off, spraying
blueberry wine all over the place. I'm sure it would have exploded had
it been a longneck bottle. The wine was pretty good, but I'll never go
clowning around with bottling unfermented juice again!
Florian
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 16 Aug 90 15:58:56 MDT
From: hplabs!mage!lou
Subject: carboys, hops, and racking
In HBD #476 Gary Mason writes:
>Has anyone seen a cap (with the tube holes, etc.) for a 6 1/2 gallon carboy?
>Every one I find is for a 5 gallon, and the larger one has a smaller OD neck.
>In fact, have you seen a handle for the larger volume? Which reminds me that I
>have wondered about carrying a full carboy by the neck with one of those - any
>chance of snapping it off?
Gary, you need a new source of large carboys. I use 7 gallon carboys
(actually, I think it is 28 liters). The ID of these is the same as for 5
gallon carboys but the OD is definitely larger. I use the regular size carboy
handles but have to enlarge them with pliers and have a great deal of trouble
getting the original bolt to work because the larger gap is too large.
On other matters, several people have commented on how to prevent hops from
getting into your fermenter. Like others have mentioned, I use hops bags for
all of my hops. I do it mainly because I often brew alone and I find this the
easiest technique to use single-handed; the hops bags can be removed from the
brew pot and sparged while the wort is cooling. This has the disadvantage of
not being able to use the hops as a filter bed but has the advantage of being
feasible for a single person to perform. If you want to use the hops as a
filter, I recommend using a separate sieve in your funnel rather than using a
funnel with a built in strainer.
As to worries about siphoning into a carboy and having a lot of air above the
beer that can cause oxidation, if the brew is still fermenting then it will
produce CO2 and force the air out so no problem (several others have mentioned
this). However, If you are racking something that is more or less fermented
out but you're not ready to bottle yet (e.g. barley wine or mead that should
age in the carboy for a while with several rackings) then this could be a
problem. I used to add ascorbic acid at this point and worried far too much
until I found a better way. I don't have a regular CO2 system so I came up
with a jury-rigged fix. I have a seltzer bottle, the kind that uses CO2
cartridges to make club soda. I run a sanitized tube to the bottom of the
carboy and exhaust one of the cartridges into it. I then let the CO2 settle to
the bottom before racking which gives me a layer of CO2 to push the air out
without spending $100's for a CO2 system.
Louis Clark
mage!lou@ncar.ucar.edu
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 16 Aug 90 16:14:06 PDT
From: Dave Sheehy <dbs@hprnd>
Subject: Trub, Old Testament and Hot Wort
Full-Name: Dave Sheehy
I've had some experience with racking wort off of the trub. Using the same
recipe I've made one batch racking the wort off the trub and another without
racking off the trub. The batch where I racked the wort off the trub is in
my opinion the best 5 gallons of beer I've made to date. I also followed
Miller's suggestion to pitch first then rack a few hours later (before
fermentation begins). He doesn't state why but I believe it's to reduce the
contamination risk since the yeast will be well on its way when you rack. I've
recently begun to wonder if this might be a great help to those of us who
must cope with warm ferments during the summer months. My first batch of
weizen beer using Wyeast's wheat yeast came out really funky due to the warm
weather :-(. I've haven't had a chance to test this hypothesis yet though.
As far as Soper's comments about TCJoHB being Old Testament I'd like to
comment on that. I think that Charlie could give a rat's a** about a beer's
clarity. His emphasis seems to be on making beer that's enjoyable and all the
different kinds of things you can put in it to make it so. Contrast this with
Miller or Noonan who say little or nothing about how to experiment with recipes
and come up with something unique. When I want to brew a classic style I refer
to Miller's recipe for a starting point. When I want to brew something unique
I refer to Papazian for ideas. Papazian is also not oriented towards
competition where clarity is an important factor. I guess to sum it all up I
don't agree that Papazian should be labelled as Old Testament.
As for hot wort, the first time I did a full boil (using an extract recipe
I'd made many times before) I didn't have a wort chiller and I just had to
let it sit overnight till it cooled down. Well, that batch never did taste
very good. I think there's a moral in that story somewhere.
Dave Sheehy
dbs%hprnd.hp.com
------------------------------
Date: 16 Aug 90 19:46:58 EDT
From: jay s hersh <75140.350@compuserve.com>
Subject: various replies to this weeks comments
Hi there was a bunch of things I wanted to comment on
To the person wanting to keep air out of their secondary. CO2 is heavier than
air so you could blow in CO2 if you have a CO2 system or you could pick up a
soda charger and the CO2 chargers for it for that purpose
To gary who suggested pitching right in to the brewpot after wort chilling. I
don't see the point of this. You need to aerate the wort for the yeast to grow
and reproduce and you need to get it into the carbouy anyway. The time it takes
to get the beer into the carbouy has no real effect on the bacteria vs yeast
war. The real problem is the lag time in which the bacteria reproduces by a
factor of 2 every 20-40 minutes while the yeast takes 90-120 min. That is why
starting your yeast and pitching a proper volume of active slurry is the best
solution.
to Chuck Cox. Chuck baby I have seen it printed that the lower the temperature
the higher the CO2 absorption, with low 40s being the suggested temp. I believe
this was in a 2 part series reprinted in Zymurgy and written by someone in the
refrigeration mechanics trade group (the guys who install and maintain bar tap
systems). It also seems a good idea to invert the keg since this increases the
area the CO2 comes in contact with aiding absorption.
To people with hop cloggin problems. If you use pellets forget straining its a
pain and really the hops settle to the bottom of the fermenter and the yeast
will form a layer over it fairly quickly isolating it from the beer. If you use
leaf hops get yourself boiling bags and put your leaf hopsd in them. They do not
affect acid extraction and make life much easier.
My lagering procdure (*I use Vierka dry yeast typically started several hours
beore pitching) is to toss the yeast slurry in as soon as the wort is chilled
and then to move the carbouy into the cold room (45-55F). The beer is a large
thermal mass and will take several hours to cool down this givves the yeast time
to work up. Sometimes I wait until I see visible fermentation before moving the
carbouy but I never wait more than ~24 hours.
To Joe U with cloudy mead. I boil down Irish moss hops and water crystals into a
tea before adding the honey. I have never had any haze in my meads so I assume
this works.
To all interested in Jalapeno beers. At the AHA conference of 86 I believe
Charlie P served a pepper beer I believe was called Devil Made me Do it. I think
this recipe has been published. Try writing or calling the AHA and asking
Charlie
- Good brewing!
P.S. Boy has this digest gotten busy lately!
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 16 Aug 90 19:32:46 PDT
From: ncpmont@brahms.AMD.COM (Mark Montgomery)
Subject: Not Enough Heat !!
from yesterdays HBD both
gerald@caen.engin.umich.edu (Gerald Andrew Winters)
rhager%math@sdsu.edu (Richard Hager)
mention the problem of not having enough heat
to conduct a vigorous boil.
Problem:
I also have the same problem. I have a ~5 gallon pot which is barely
large enough for a full batch and have recently whacked apart a 1/4 keg to
enable full recipe boils. The Coleman propane stove that has served me
marginally when boiling in the ~5 gal pot just plain runs out of poop when
attempting to fire the ~7 gal keg. I believe the Coleman burner is rated at
10,000 BTUH which is the same as (or maybe slightly higher than) the normal
kitchen burner. NEED MORE HEAT!
Possible solutions:
1. In Paul Prudhomme's mail order catalog there is an 'outdoor
cooker' that stands 24 inches tall and puts out ~35,000 BTUH running on
propane. This seeems a little overkill and is also about $125.
2. Two local barbecue supply shops have available what they call
a 'wok burner' that puts out ~35,000-~45,000 BTUH, can be run on propane
or natural gas and costs about $65. A stand would have to be kludged or
they can weld it up in a stand w/ grate for another $50 or so. They gave
me a demo of it and it looks like an F-16 on afterburner, heading for
takeoff. Again, seems like overkill and too expensive.
Question:
Has anyone found a good solution? Maybe a cheaper outdoor cooker
from somewhere (mail order?)? A source for smaller burners in the 15,000 to
20,000 BTUH range? Magic?? If anybody has suggestions I'd dearly like to
hear them and since it seems others have the same problem maybe a post to
the digest wouldn't be out of line.
Regards, Mark Montgomery (ncpmont@amd.com)
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 16 Aug 90 21:24:30 -0500 (CDT)
From: Brian Capouch <brianc@zeta.saintjoe.EDU>
Subject: Hot Peppers & pH
I don't have my "bible of peppers" here on hand, but I'd bet half a case
of Bud Dry that the hotness of peppers comes from a lipid-based
substance, which might have a measurable pH but certainly not enough,
for the most part, to overcome the buffering capacity of an average
wort. Note that I am talking here about the "active hot" ingredient
only; I cannot vouch for what the effects of the main dry-matter mass of
the peppers themselves might be.
In an unrelated vein, perhaps I have been committing something
heretical, but I always just shake my carboys a tad after racking into
secondary, after placing the airlock on but before adding the water. I
assume that a few minutes of bubbling is enough to remove the oxygen
from the top of the carboy, and certainly haven't been bothered by lack
of carbonation in my finished brews.
I have had several professional brewers snicker at my questions about
how they avoid oxidizing hot wort, and while I haven't actually seen
them do it, they tell me that the effects of pouring from a boiling pot
into a carboy or heat-exchanger would be negligible. Does anyone know
for sure about this.
Finally, I'm taking a poll: what would be a good, sturdy, reliable
thermometer to use for mashing in a 5-gal stainless pot? I need to get
one quickly, so a premium would be placed on one I could find at common
hardware or mall type stores.
Brian Capouch
Saint Joseph's College for Children
Rensselaer, IN
brianc@saintjoe.edu
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 16 Aug 90 23:18:11 EDT
From: capnal@aqua.whoi.edu (Alan Duester)
Subject: strainers and glass carbuoys
Ken Weiss writes:
>A question for those of you using glass primary fermentors - How do
>you get five gallons of hops-filled wort strained and inside a glass
>carboy without making a HUGE mess? I thought of a big funnel, but it
The way I deal with the hops is by cross-straining between two pots. I pour
through a somewhat coarse strainer into another pot (assuming that the wort
was boiling seconds ago and will sterilize the thin walled pot), then back
through a fine strainer. I have to halt about three times through each pour to
dump the hops out into the garbage (I just live with chill haze, yes). Into
the sink for cooling, and then pour it all into a half load of pre-chilled
water in the carbuoy through my funnel and pitch my yeast.
This way the mess usually stays on the stove instead of the floor.....
========================================================================
Al Duester, Ocean Engineer, MS S201 # SPAN: 6308::capnal
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution # INTERNET: capnal@aqua.whoi.edu
Woods Hole, MA 02543 # (508) 457-2000 x2474
========================================================================
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 16 Aug 90 19:04:58 PDT
From: hplabs!polstra!norm (Norm Hardy)
Subject: Wort straining
Here are my two bits about how to transfer the wort into the primary fermenter:
(1) First, I NEVER pour through a funnel or strainer while hot. That is indeed
the cause of some oxydized beer.
(2) When the wort is through boiling, I place it on a flat surface (with
appropriate towel or hot pad underneath). Then I stir quickly, but not
enough to splash the wort in a clockwise direction. Then the wort sits
and whirlpools for 10-15 minutes. Leaving the lid off is okay while the
wort is over 170f, in fact, it probably is helpful to the taste of the
beer.
(3) I then chill the wort with an immersion cooler, placed in gently so as
not to disturb the liquid too much.
(4) When chilled to the right temp, I siphon the wort into the carboy using
straight J tube connected to the flexible siphon hose. Putting the tube
at the bottom outside of the boiling pot gets almost all the wort before
the now centralized hops start coming through.
(5) Crystal clear wort! Very little sludge in the primary.
Norm H
------------------------------
End of HOMEBREW Digest #477, 08/17/90
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