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HOMEBREW Digest #0498
This file received at Mthvax.CS.Miami.EDU 90/09/18 03:20:36
HOMEBREW Digest #498 Tue 18 September 1990
FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
Rob Gardner, Digest Coordinator
Contents:
Keg coolers... (GARY 17-Sep-1990 0657)
bottle culturing yeast (Kenneth R. van Wyk)
Kegging vs. Bottling (John Polstra)
Munich dark beers (crawford.wbst)
Beer production costs (Jay Hersh)
Disconnected (Oran Carmona)
fridges & taxes (Donald P Perley)
Volume 6; HyperCard Beer Stack (GARY 17-Sep-1990 1930)
Southern New Hampshire Homebrew Club Inaugural Meeting (GARY 17-Sep-1990 1933)
yeast, hops, fridges (Pete Soper)
Send submissions to homebrew%hpfcmr@hplabs.hp.com
Send requests to homebrew-request%hpfcmr@hplabs.hp.com
[Please do not send me requests for back issues]
Archives are available from netlib@mthvax.cs.miami.edu
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Date: Mon, 17 Sep 90 04:04:44 PDT
From: GARY 17-Sep-1990 0657 <mason@habs11.enet.dec.com>
Subject: Keg coolers...
re: refrigerators vs freezers.
I bought the chest freezer (used, of course), and a Hunter monitor. After a
week or so, I am convinced I made the right move. I preferred the freezer
because of the ability to load/unload a keg without moving others, and because
of the vertical nature of the storage. I wonder how you planned to store kegs
above the bottom layer? Is a fridge tall enough, not withstanding the weight
handling capacity of the shelves? The freeser has a ledge (over the motor,
etc.) that seems ready made for a carboy. One thought occurred though - one
had better wish to ferment and store kegs at the same temperature, within a few
degrees.
Cheers...Gary
P.S. The cellar is around 70 degrees. The freezer has run less than two hours
per day (registers on the monitor - handy) to keep 55 degrees.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 17 Sep 90 09:37:39 EDT
From: Kenneth R. van Wyk <krvw@cert.sei.cmu.edu>
Subject: bottle culturing yeast
I brewed my first batch this weekend using bottle cultured yeast (from
a bottle of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale). Things seem to be going real
well as of this morning - a solid head starting to work its way out
the blow-by tube already. The jury is still out, of course, but I'm
looking forward to tasting the results (and not worrying in the
meantime...).
Here in Pennsylvania, Sierra Nevada is impossible to find - I ended up
getting a case at my in-laws' in New Jersey. (Corollary: in PA,
*most* good beer is darned near impossible to find.) So, I'd like to
try culturing something that I can get more easily. Has anyone out
there tried culturing Anchor Liberty Ale? Does Anchor pasteurize or
filter? If there's culturable yeast in there, that would help me out
a lot, since Anchor Liberty is both easy to find and a notable
exception to the above corollary. :-) If not, any suggestions for
other PA-available ales that contain culturable yeast?
Thanks for any tips.
Ken van Wyk
krvw@cert.sei.cmu.edu (work)
ken@oldale.pgh.pa.us (home)
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 17 Sep 90 08:57:35 PDT
From: polstra!jdp@uunet.UU.NET (John Polstra)
Subject: Kegging vs. Bottling
[ I posted this a week ago, but it must have gotten lost. So here is a
repost. ]
Things have been getting a little boring around here lately. What we
need is to add a little controversy. It's a nasty job, but somebody's
got to do it. To that end, I offer the following bit of heresy:
Kegging doesn't save time.
There, I've said it. I feel better already. Now, let me explain myself.
BOTTLING CYCLE: After I pour a homebrew out of a bottle, I rinse the
bottle several times right away with water. (I.e., put some water in
the bottle and shake vigorously.) That takes only a few seconds and it
at least removes all visible residue. Then I put the bottle in the
dishwasher, to be run with the next load. My bottles come out of the
dishwasher absolutely sparkling, and of course the heat from the dry
cycle sanitizes them. So my bottles are always stored clean. There is
nothing in them that would make little beasties want to come in and set
up shop. Worst case, they might pick up a little dust during storage.
When I'm ready to bottle a batch, I fill my priming bucket with a weak
bleach solution. I fill one of my (already clean) bottles halfway with
the bleach solution and shake vigorously. Then I funnel the solution
into the next bottle and repeat. After I've treated about 12 bottles,
I switch over to rinse mode. I give each bottle a thorough but quick
and painless rinse, using a bottle washer attached to the sink with the
faucet full on hot. I place the bottles on a bottle-drying tree to
drain.
That's it. The total time spent in washing and sanitizing the 50
bottles is small and relatively painless. And it overlaps with
sanitizing the priming bucket and siphon hose, and with boiling the caps
and the priming solution.
I siphon the brew from the carboy into the priming bucket. That's an
extra step compared to kegging, but it doesn't take very long. After
that, bottling goes pretty fast using one of those wands with a
spring-loaded valve at the end. I use a standard 2-lever capper, piece
of cake.
The main clean-up task is cleaning the carboy (just like with kegging).
The priming bucket is easy to clean, since it never got very dirty to
begin with.
KEGGING CYCLE: I use Cornelius soda kegs (a.k.a. the "good" kind of keg).
After I drink up all the beer in a keg, I have to clean it as well as
the cobra tap and hose. The first step is to rinse the keg several times
with water. Then, I boil a few gallons of water and clean out the cobra
tap and hose by repeatedly putting boiling water into the keg, sealing
it, pressurizing it, and dispensing the water out through the cobra tap.
I do this at least 3 times, because I worry (oops) about what might be
lurking inside that opaque dispensing hose.
Then, I disassemble the keg. I clean the inside of the keg using
liquid dish soap, warm water, and a dishrag. That is awkward, because
my elbow fits through the mouth of the keg only when it is oriented
properly. It makes scrubbing kind of difficult and sometimes painful.
(Scrub, scrub, scrub, CRUNCH -- OW!) I clean each of the other parts in
a big sink, rinse them well, and let them dry. After a few days, I
re-assemble everything and store the keg.
Now, the killer: At kegging time, I have to go through almost all of
that again. First, I fill the keg with a weak bleach solution and boil
a bunch of water. I seal the keg, apply some pressure, and dispense
some of the bleach solution until the hose is full of it. I let it sit
that way for 15 minutes. (No longer than that -- bleach corrodes
stainless steel.) Then I rinse a few times with the boiling water,
pushing it through the hose, etc.
Filling the keg is a piece of cake, of course -- just pour in the
(boiled) priming solution, run a little CO2 in to guard against
oxidation, and siphon directly from the carboy into the keg.
Then comes cleaning the carboy, etc.
CONCLUSION: I haven't actually timed my bottling or kegging process.
But it *feels* like kegging takes about as long. Now, I *like* kegging.
It's great having homebrew on tap. But the primary reason that is
always given for kegging (i.e., saving time) is, IMHO, bogus.
What I am really hoping to get out of this discussion is some tips on
how to spend less time and effort cleaning and sanitizing my kegs.
John Polstra jdp@polstra.uucp
Polstra & Co., Inc. polstra!jdp@uunet.uu.net
Seattle, Washington USA ...!uunet!polstra!jdp
(206) 932-6482
------------------------------
Date: 17 Sep 90 09:42:11 EDT (Monday)
From: crawford.wbst@Xerox.COM
Subject: Munich dark beers
On a recent trip to Toronto I had the pleasure of sampling some brews from
a brewpub called Growlers (located at 75 Victoria). They had two brews
available when I was there, a light lager and a Dunkel. Both brews were
excellent, especially the Dunkel. The Dunkel was how I imagined the brews
of Munich would taste, very rich, smooth, and had a nice chocolate taste.
Now I have a new goal in life, to brew a Dunkel. My problem is I have no
experience with making dark beers. I assume the dark rich chocolate taste
comes from munich malt (is this true?). Any text I have read says to avoid
chocolate malt, it is wrong for the style. Does anyone out there have any
experience with dark german beers or munich malt? Dave Miller's book has a
recipe that includes all munich malt, no other source of enzymes. Does
munich malt contain enough enzymes for the conversion? Also, does anybody
have a good mail-order source for munich malt? If anyone can help me out
I'd appreciate it (otherwise I'll just have a homebrew.)
Thanks
Greg
------------------------------
Date: 17 Sep 90 13:18:02 EDT
From: Jay Hersh <75140.350@compuserve.com>
Subject: Beer production costs
While we're on the subject I have heard that 45% of the cost of a Budweiser (or
like brand of swill) goes to race cars, speed boats, and other moronic or not so
moronic (depending upon your viewpoint) sports events and promotional gimmicks.
That means that every Bud you drink forces you to watch yet another idiotic
commercial. Pretty vicious cycle, eh??!!
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 17 Sep 90 13:03:17 PDT
From: ocarma@unssun.nevada.edu (Oran Carmona)
Subject: Disconnected
I seem to have been disconnected from HBD... could you please re-suscribe
me to it? Thanks!
O<
ocarma@unssun.nevada.edu
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 17 Sep 90 16:58:00 EDT
From: perley@glacier.crd.ge.com (Donald P Perley)
Subject: fridges & taxes
>How do you
>store kegs that when full weigh about 45 pounds each when fridge shelves
>seem so fragile?
Take the shelves out and put the keg on the floor of the fridge.
>Regarding taxes: 5 cents is nothing! Here in Manitoba Canada taxes
>eat up 56 cents out of every dollar on beer! Count yourselves lucky.
>Of course we do have the third highest tax rate in the world...
The proposed california tax would be "nickle a drink" or 30
cents/6pack at the manufacturing level. This would be marked up by
each stage of the distribution chain. You already have some idea how
much they mark up the nickle they spend on ingrediants. It could be
well over a dollar/6 by the time you see it at the grocery store, or
50 cents/bottle at the bar.
This would, of course, apply to beer exported from California, and
would be in addition to any federal taxes and state tax in the state
where you buy it.
-don perley
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 17 Sep 90 16:35:40 PDT
From: GARY 17-Sep-1990 1930 <mason@habs11.enet.dec.com>
Subject: Volume 6; HyperCard Beer Stack
The AHA verifies that they have some copies of Volume 6 of Beer & Brewing for
sale ($18.95 member price). For some reason, they aren't going to reprint it.
I have run across a HyperCard stack on beer. It has some elementary sections
on how beer is made, ingredients, types, and some reviews of various brews. If
there is interest, I will contact Rob about archiving it.
Cheers...Gary
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 17 Sep 90 16:37:37 PDT
From: GARY 17-Sep-1990 1933 <mason@habs11.enet.dec.com>
Subject: Southern New Hampshire Homebrew Club Inaugural Meeting
What: Southern New Hampshire Homebrew Club Inaugural Meeting!
When: Wednesday, September 19, 1990 - 8 PM
Where: Jack Sullivan's house - directions follow...
Coming North or South on Rte.3, take exit 33 (in MA), Route 40 West toward
Groton for 2 1/2 miles. Take a right at the Getty gas station (this is
Dunstable Road in Westford). Follow this road for 2.2 miles. Take a left
onto Groton Road (as you cross into Tyngsboro, the street becomes Scribner
Hill Road). Take the 2nd right onto Virginia Road, then the 2nd left onto
Indiana Lane. The house is on the corner, on the right hand side of the
street. One Indiana Lane (the street sign may be missing!).
Telephone 649-9083
[Bring samples of your latest/greatest if you like, but remember - in deference
to Jack and his neighborhood...we will maintain our decorum at all times 8') ]
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 17 Sep 90 23:01:14 EDT
From: Pete Soper <soper@maxzilla.encore.com>
Subject: yeast, hops, fridges
In HBD #496 <R_GELINA%UNHH.BITNET@mitvma.mit.edu> (Russ Gelinas) wrote:
[Details of incomplete fermentation with partially inflated Wyeast pkt omitted]
>and was forcing the CO2 back into solution. SO, the question(s) is(are): how
>has the increased CO2/increased pressure/other factors affected the yeast
>population?
I believe that the increased CO2/increased pressure is irrelevant.
I would bet money that your real problem is that for some reason the
yeast never multiplied up to the population needed to ferment the beer in a
reasonable time. I would bet a beer that the reason for this was lack of
dissolved oxygen. When pitching Wyeast with no starter it is critical that
as much air get dissolved into the wort as possible. Oxygen is the rate-limiting
factor for yeast cell division in this setting and the yeast can only go
through a few divisions without oxygen and are left wimpy when forced to do
this. I suspect you are short of yeast by an order of magnitude or so.
Yes, splashing room air into the wort puts a few bacteria and molds into it.
But this is just about inevitable anyway and it is important to get the yeast
population up so it can keep the unfriendly populations in check so this is
again an important tradeoff for liquid yeast cultures.
Also, while we are at it, keep in mind that the number of viable (live,
healthy) cells in a Wyeast packet is partly a function of its storage history.
Yeast in liquid suspensions are very fragile. They can't tolerate any
significant heat and have poor shelf life under the best of circumstances.
Old or abused liquid yeast translates to more danger of a marginal situation in
which you end up with too few cells on the job. When things are marginal nine
times out of ten you will still end up with beer and nine times out of ten you
will think "This could have been better".
Another thing to consider is that the difference between a little and a lot
of inflation of the yeast packet might be very little yeast in volume but it
might represent a doubling or two and each doubling takes *time* so there is
a real tradeoff there. It's best to get all the doublings possible to happen in
the packet and/or starter and not in the full batch of wort, which is an
order of magnitude or three less sanitary.
If there was enough air then perhaps something else kept the yeast from
multiplying, like a big temperature dip (packet warmer than wort?) or the like.
The bottom line is that when starting with such a small amount of yeast
everything has to be done right for things to come out right.
> Should I pitch some more yeast? Or call it a sweet stout and smile?
You could pitch some dried yeast and be sure of getting enough cells on the
job without adding any air. If it were me I'd rehydrate some good dried yeast
like Edme (Yes, damnit!) or Whitbread in a little pre-boiled water and pitch it.
Pitching more Wyeast or other liquid cultures would pose worrisome problems.
Without a load of oxygen the cell count would still be left way way too low.
Adding oxygen at this stage would be mandatory to build up a liquid culture
but might give you a load of problem chemicals. I don't know enough to say
whether all the yeast would drop what they are doing and respire some more,
thus safely consuming the oxygen and multiplying, or if some of the cells
would continue anaerobic fermentation, leading some of the oxygen added to
generate staling compounds. The other problem is how you would actually get
any air dissolved into the wort without racking it.
If you did rack your wort with splashing and got some air dissolved that way
you'd have to watch out for "dextrin fermentation kicking in". With the yeast
population low, the wort still perhaps not as acid as it should be, etc there
is extra danger of competing organisms getting a foothold. If you are very
unlucky like someone who posted about this recently you might get some
dextrin-chomping bacteria. :-(
If there are any pro biologists out there, please straighten me out if I
goof this up. I'd like to show some simple arithmetic as it relates to yeast.
The party line is that in ordinary circumstances yeast tend to build up to a
certain maximum concentration in a given medium and around 2 million cells per
ml is the figure I've read several times. So given the 50ml of wort in a Wyeast
packet you might have roughly 50x2 million or 100 million cells once the
packet is puffed up. Figuring that you need the same concentration in your
batch of beer to get the job done you need around 5x3780x2 million or
about 40 billion cells. So to get from 100 million to 40 billion by powers of
two via budding you need about nine doublings. With a fully developed pint
starter (call it 500ml) you start with roughly 2^3 more volume as compared to
the Wyeast packet, so you've done three of the doublings in the starter. Each
doubling takes 2-10 hours depending on a ton of variables, but 3-4 hours is a
good guestimate. So a 5 gallon batch of wort started with healthy Wyeast
packet pitched with no starter would be expected to take 24-36 hours to get up
to full speed. With a pint starter this changes to 12-24 hours. But of course
many of us have seen many different timings: your mileage will vary!
A very important point is that I'm assuming that starters are developed at
regular room temperature of around 77 degrees F. I went through a lot of
bullshit about starters needing to be developed at lower temperatures and I
now believe this is garbage.
All of this also assumes that each batch of wort pitched with yeast just gets
one dose of oxygen dissolved in it at the start. If you can arrange for extra
oxygen to get into your starter you can grow even more yeast and the excess
will sediment out. (Even regular starters kept a bit past peak will show
sedimentation of yeast) Minimizing the gravity of the starter wort will also
help favor yeast multiplication over alcohol production. I recently did this
with Wyeast #2042. By using several small steps in starter size with maximum
possible aeration at each step I developed about five ounces of thick pitching
yeast with only 800ml (28oz) of starter wort at the end. The fermentation I did
with that yeast was bubbling in 8 hours and was essentially complete in 6 days,
at 51 degrees. I know this was too fast; next time I'll use a bit lower
temperature with this yeast. Also, I recommend minimizing the number of stages
of starter used unless you appreciate the difference between "sterile" and
"sanitary".
My point is that even starting with liquid suspensions it is possible to
equal or exceed the pitching rates you get with dried yeast, but normally the
dried yeast provides many more cells at the start. With dried yeast all or
nearly all of the 40 billion cells needed are present. The yeast just need a
couple hours to get themselves sorted out before starting work. This is why
most fermentations with dried yeast start out so much faster than most done
with liquid yeast.
Another question that has come up has to do with the transition of temperature
from the starter to the beer wort. My current superstition is to catch yeast
on the rise with new nutrients. That is, they should be at a constant or
increasing temperature rather than decreasing temperature when new nutrients
are about.
Here is my current superstition, based on "Micro-Organisms and Fermentation",
Jorgensen, Alfred, rewritten by Hansen, Albert, Griffen and Co., 1948. (this
is a fabulous book, QR151 J6 at my school library). I develop my starter up to
the point that I've got enough yeast, then stick it in my kitchen fridge at 35
degrees. A few hours before needing it I bring the starter out, let it warm up
and aerate it, give the lip of the starter flask or bottle a quick flame and
then pitch it. There is more to this actually and I don't suggest this scheme
for beginners but you get the idea.
Let me ask this of somebody who is in touch with Great Fermentations of Santa
Rosa. Would they mind if I posted verbatim their instructions for making
a yeast starter? (email to me directly, please) This technique was published in
their latest newsletter. Although it takes a couple pieces of equipment that
wouldn't be in everyone's home, their method of using a flask and thermometer
seems like a really good tradeoff between totally sound practice and lack of
hassle.
>I have a "new" (planted in April) Hallertaur hops plant. It grew very well, and
>produced some (less than 10) nice cones. I picked those and used them, but
>that was it, no more cones. The plant is still fine. What gives?
I've been told multiple times that the first year of growth is slow in
comparison to later years. Evidently the hops need a season or two to get fully
established. But I suspect there are other factors. I'll be posting a summary
of my first year of hop growing experience sometime this month. But I had two
very vigorous plants, one like the one Russ described, two that did nothing but
produce a few leaves and one that fizzled out altogether.
In HBD #497 brew@ncrmud.Columbia.NCR.COM (Jim Griggers) wrote:
>while still in the glass carboy. My concern with using a chest freezer
>is lifting an already unwieldy carboy full of beer into such a freezer.
>How do others handle this? Lager in the keg?
I face this problem too. By coincidence yesterday I got the freezer of my
dreams: a 27 cubic foot Coldspot (a bit smaller than the USS Nimitz).
With a carboy handle getting a small carboy in and out of this freezer is
no problem. You know you are dealing with a very significant weight but it is
quite doable and not really unwieldy. The same operation with a soda keg is a
nit. As I was searching the want ads for this freezer during the past few months
I thought this was going to be a problem but it is not.
>Would those who have beer refrigerators discuss how your choice for your
>refrigerator was made. Did you choose a no-frost model? How do you
Cheap cost and availability. If it is cheap enough then chances are it was
made before the no-frost era :-)
I've used an old Westinghouse fridge for the past year. It is around 17 cubic
feet and with all the shelves and drawers out I can get two cases of bottles
or three soda kegs or two small carboys or one large carboy and one soda keg
in it at one time. Over the past year this fridge has mostly run well above
regular fridge temps such that the freezer section has never had more than a
touch of frost; never had an need for defrosting during the year. I do have a
drip pan under the freezer which collects condensation and I've emptied gallons
of water from this during the year.
>store kegs that when full weigh about 45 pounds each when fridge shelves
>seem so fragile? Has anyone used an old soft drink cooler, the kind in
Take the shelves and drawers out and put the kegs on the bottom. Only with
a very large fridge could you fit kegs or carboys in otherwise.
- -----------------------------------------------------------------------
Pete Soper (soper@encore.com) +1 919 481 3730
Encore Computer Corp, 901 Kildaire Farm Rd, bldg D, Cary, NC 27511 USA
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End of HOMEBREW Digest #498, 09/18/90
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