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HOMEBREW Digest #0556
This file received at Mthvax.CS.Miami.EDU 90/12/18 09:13:21
HOMEBREW Digest #556 Tue 18 December 1990
FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
Rob Gardner, Digest Coordinator
Contents:
high-gravity recipes (synchro!chuck)
102 on tap? (Norm Hardy)
WYEAST attenuations (Mark.Nevar)
More kegging questions (Mark.Nevar)
live yeasts in commercial beers (Jon Rodin)
Shipping Homebrew/Orange County Brewpubs (John Bates)
Lambics, at Home? (Martin A. Lodahl)
Enzyme additives (mcnally)
water analysis (Chip Hitchcock)
Where to go, what to do? (Lloyd Parkes)
Homebrew digest stack (Andrius Tamulis)
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: Fri Dec 14 13:54:00 1990
From: bose!synchro!chuck@uunet.UU.NET
Subject: high-gravity recipes
Howdy -
I received a few requests for some of my high-gravity recipes,
so I figured I might as well post them to the digest. Unless otherwise
noted, these are 10 gallon partial mash recipes. I brew about 7 gal of
wort in a 10 gal kettle, followed by 7 gal primary and 2 5 gal secondaries,
then 2 5 gal kegs. Otherwise, standard procedures are used.
Special Bitter
15 lb pale unhopped dry extract
2 lb crystal malt
1 lb flaked barley
1 lb pale malt
1 tsp gypsum
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp irish moss
4.5 hbu fuggles (boil)
14 hbu n. brewer (boil)
5 hbu cascade (boil)
1/2 oz fuggles (finish)
1 oz e.k. goldings (finish)
26 g fuggles (dry)
40 g goldings (dry)
young's yeast culture (from the brewery)
8 beechwood chips
1990 Christmas Ale (9 gallons)
9.9 lb pale unhopped liquid extract
6.6 lb liquid wheat beer extract
3 lb honey
1 lb flaked barley
1 lb pale malt
1 lb malted wheat
10 g orange peel
1 tsp gypsum
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp irish moss
14 hbu chinook (boil)
7 hbu n. brewer (boil)
1 oz goldings (finish)
1 oz cascades (finish)
young's yeast culture (from the brewery)
Helles Belles Maibock
18 lb pale unhopped extract
2 lb crystal malt
1 lb lager malt
1 lb toasted lager malt (5 min @ 350 deg)
1 tsp irish moss
14 hbu hallertau (boil)
14 hbu tettnanger (boil)
1/2 oz hallertau (finish)
1/2 oz tettnanger (finish)
anheiser busch yeast culture (from bakers yeast)
one: chimay
two: chimight
three: you can't
Chimight (chimay light) (9 gal)
15 lb pale uhopped extract
3/4 lb brown sugar
1 lb crystal malt
1 lb flaked barley
1 lb pale malt
1/2 lb wheat malt
1/4 tsp gypsum
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp irish moss
7 hbu n. brewer (boil)
14 hbu chinook (boil)
1 oz saaz (finish)
1/2 oz tettnanger (finish)
chimay yeast culture (from a bottle)
Chimay Trippel (7 gal)
3.3 lb pale uhopped liquid extract
12 lb pale unhopped dry extract
1 lb 6-row pale malt
1 lb wheat malt
1 lb vienna malt
2 lb light brown sugar
1/2 lb corn sugar
10 g coriander
8 g orange peel
4 hbu saaz (boil)
4 hbu hallerau (boil)
4.5 hbu fuggles (boil)
handful of boiling hops added to finish
1 tsp irish moss
chimay yeast culture (from a bottle)
Brain Death Barleywine / Light (5 gal full strength + 4 gal half strength)
17.5 lb pale unhopped pale dry extract
3 lb crystal malt
1.5 lb flaked barley
1.5 lb wheat malt
1 tsp gypsum
1 tsp irish moss
68 hbu chinook (boil)
20 hbu cascade (boil)
2.5 oz goldings (finish)
10 g chinook (dry)
20 g goldings (dry)
50 g cascade (dry)
sierra nevada ale yeast culture (from brewery)
1/2 to 1 lb special hops (herbal hop substitute) *
* Special hops should be repeatedly soaked and sparged in lukewarm
water for at least 4 hours to eliminate water-soluble off-flavors.
Special hops are added to secondary about one week before kegging.
Quantity depends on quality and potency of the herbs.
Warning: having two kegs of this stuff on draft in your living
room can be dangerously fun.
- Chuck Cox (uunet!bose!synchro!chuck) - Hopped/Up Racing Team -
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 15 Dec 90 16:04:13 PST
From: polstra!norm@uunet.UU.NET (Norm Hardy)
Subject: 102 on tap?
Just got back from a 4 day stint in Portland, OR. Actually it was in
Beaverton but its close enough.
There is a chain of brewpubs running now, with somebody called Dr. Neon
doing the brewing (or supervising). They supply different names for the
pubs so you have to know where to look. The one I went to was called
McMenamins Brewpub and Restuarant. Good stuff with their Terminator Stout
being my fave.
But, on a tip from a fellow imbiber, I headed for Raleigh Hills to a tavern
called The Dublin Pub. 102 beers on tap and although I didn't count the
taps, there was indeed many of them. Being a German lager freak I ordered
a Paulaner Pils and then a Spaten Munich (helles). Old smell - something
was amiss but the taste was fine.
My question - how the HECK can a place possibly have that many beers and
serve them in reasonably good shape? The joint was busy not not hoppin'.
I imagine the NW ales were in okay shape, but I can get them anytime in
Seattle. They even had the award winning Deschutes beers there. I thought
of Florian's fondness for them and let them be.
Norm Hardy
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 17 Dec 90 08:00:10 mst
From: Mark.Nevar@hp-lsd.cos.hp.com
Subject: WYEAST attenuations
I'm sending this again, as it seems not to have made it the first time.
Name Apparent Flocculation Comments
attenuation
ALE
1007 German 73-77% High Ferments dry & crisp leaving a
complex yet mild flavor. Produces
an extremely rocky head and
ferments well down to 55 F.
1056 USA - Chico 73-77% Low/medium Ferments dry, finishes soft, smooth
and clean, and is v. well balanced.
1028 English London 73-77% Medium Rich minerally profile, bold and
woody w/ a slight diacetyl product.
1098 English Whitbread 73-77% Medium Ferments dry and crisp, slightly
tart and well balanced. Ferments
well down to 55 F.
1084 Irish Stout 71-75% Medium Slight residual diacetyl is great
for stouts. It is clean, smooth,
soft, and full bodied.
1338 German Alt 67-71% High A full bodied complex strain
finishes very malty. Produces a
dense rocky head during ferment.
3056 Wheat 73-77% Medium A blend of S. cerevisiae and S.
delbrueckii to produce a south
German style wheat beer with a
cloying sweetness, when the beer
is fresh.
LAGER
2007 Pilsner 71-75% Medium Specific for pilsner style beers,
especially for American pilsner.
Ferments dry, crisp, clean, light.
2042 Danish 73-77% Low Rich, yet crisp and dry. Soft,
light profile which accentuates
hop characteristics.
2035 USA - St Louis 73-77% Medium Unlike American pilsner styles. It
is bold, complex and woody.
Produces slight diacetyl.
2124 Bohemian 69-73% Medium The traditional Saaz yeast from
Czech. Ferments clean and malty,
rich residual maltiness in high
gravity pilsners.
2206 Bavarian 73-77% Medium Rich flavor, full bodied, malty
and clean.
2308 Munich 73-77% Medium Smooth, soft, well rounded and
full bodied. Sometimes unstable.
All notes are from Alternative Beverage Catalog(1-800-365-BREW). No affiliation
except as a satisfied customer. There is no mention if the data came from
Wyeast Labs or from their own experimentation. My vote is for the latter.
Mark Nevar
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 17 Dec 90 08:00:46 mst
From: Mark.Nevar@hp-lsd.cos.hp.com
Subject: More kegging questions
I'm sending this again, as it seems not to have made it the first time.
Sorry if it is a duplicate.
Thanks to all who responded to my keg sanitizing question. I kegged a batch
of Marzen on 12/6 and used CO2 to provide an initial seal. Now my questions:
After 2 days in the fridge, there was no pressure in the keg, so I did the CO2
thing again. 5 more days passed before I checked it again. Same result. So,
what is wrong ? I pressurized the keg
to 10 PSI and then disconnected the CO2 line. Is this the right pressure and
am I supposed to disconnect it or leave the pressure constant. Finally,
what dispensing pressure should I use ? 5 PSI ?
The beer was in the secondary at 55 F for 6 weeks. I added 1/2 cup corn sugar
for priming. Is it possible that no yeast is left alive to carbonate ?
Is it possible the CO2 I injected went into solution. I would think it
would have stopped going into solution before ALL the pressure was gone.
I think I will force carbonate by using 20PSI and rolling the keg around.
Does this sound right ?
BTW, The keg sealed fine when I experimented with water.
Anyway, what I'm looking for is pointers on your procedures for kegging.
I saw florian's post in #554 which answered this to some extent, but I'd
like to hear if this was for lagers only.
Thanks,
mark, the puzzled
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 17 Dec 90 9:12:10 MST
From: Jon Rodin <jar@hpcndpc.cnd.hp.com>
Subject: live yeasts in commercial beers
I just successfully cultured and used a Sierra Nevada yeast for my last batch
of brew. It went so well that I don't really see the need to ever buy yeast
again. My question is what beers contain live yeast and what kind of yeasts
are they? Red Tail Ale appears to be bottle conditioned, does anyone know
about the yeast in this beer? The label on the Red Hook beers says
"unpasteurized", but the beer (at least the ESB) has no krausen on the bottom
of the bottle. Does Red Hook filter their beers. What variety of yeast is in
the Sierra Nevada beers (say compared to the Wyeast varieties)?
- --------------------------+---------------------------------------------------
Jon Rodin |
j_rodin@cnd.hp.com | No brain, no gain.
(303) 229 2474 |
- --------------------------+---------------------------------------------------
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 17 Dec 90 09:20:33 MST
From: bates@bjerknes.Colorado.EDU (John Bates)
Subject: Shipping Homebrew/Orange County Brewpubs
Happy Holidays Gang,
I have just had an unfortunate incident with UPS trying
to ship some homebrew to the west coast. I had never tried shipping before,
so I asked the advice of the local experts (lots of them in Boulder).
Following their advice, I wrapped each bottle individually in bubble wrap,
used yards and yards of bubble wrap bottom, top, and sides, then shake tested
the final package. Satisfied it was well packed, I took it to the local mail
station, indicated it was "non-perishable food", and plunked $15 down to ship
this 35# package by ground. A week later I got a call from the shipper that
UPS had damaged the box and, since there was alcohol inside, UPS was not
responsible for any damage. UPS had returned what was left, less than half the
bottle and no sign of the original package. From the amount of damage done, it
was obvious that the problem was not in the packaging, but in the handling by
UPS. I called up the AHA (nice when it's a local call) and spoke to Dan Fink
who said they were about to run an article on shipping in the next issue. Still, the bottom line I concluded was that you're SOL if you ship homebrew
and it's damaged in shipping. Any other experiences in shipping homebrew???
Also, since I don't have any of my own homebrew to enjoy on my trip to relatives in Orange County, CA, are there any good brewpubs there?
Regards, John Bates (Norman's evil twin)
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 17 Dec 90 7:54:45 PST
From: Martin A. Lodahl <pbmoss!malodah@PacBell.COM>
Subject: Lambics, at Home?
Greetings all. I'm just back from yer basic life-changing
experience: an unstructured, largely unplanned tasting & study tour
of Belgium. Brought back many pages of tasting notes, and more
pages of notes taken at breweries, and as the embarrassingly crucial
lacunae in them begin to become apparent, I can see my brewing
studies turning in a new direction: lambics!
So, some questions: has anyone (successfully) made (pseudo-)
lambics at home? I don't mean going the whole route and leaving the
bitter wort outside overnight in an uncovered pan to spontaneously begin
fermenting, but rather culturing the biota (not just yeast, but
bacteria, too!) from a bottle of gueuze or whatever, and pitching
that in the usual way into a lambic-like wort?
Has anyone yet seen Jean-Xavier Guinard's book on lambics, in the
"Classic Beer Styles" series? I'm hoping it can fill in some of the
holes in my notes. And those holes are pretty critical: while I
have some guidelines, I have no information on how thick the mash is,
or what the rests are, in the 2.5 hours between its 122F start and
its 167F finish. I also have no information at all on present
sparging techniques, but a fascinating book I picked up at the
brewers' guild hall in the Grand' Place in Brussels ("Les Memoires
de Jef Lambic", Editions La Technique Belge, undated) suggests that
in the 1880's the first runnings and the sparge were boiled &
fermented separately, the beer made from sparge called "mars". Mars
and "lambic" (from the first runnings) were later recombined, with some
candy-sugar syrup added, to make faro.
The information I did get was fascinating, to me, at least. The
grist is a combination of malted barley and UNMALTED wheat, with
proportions ranging from 50%:50% to 65% malt:35% wheat. The malt
looks like 2-row, and tasted not fully modified (steely tips),
presumably to maximize enzyme content. The hops seem pretty
uniformly to be aged 3 years, and in the one bale I had access to
smelled like Northern Brewer. The inoculation vessel Michael
Jackson writes so lyrically about is nothing more nor less than a
coolship, placed in an attic with louvred walls. I've always been
suspicious of coolships, as I didn't see how agitation of hot wort
in the presence of oxygen could be avoided, but at the Cantillon
brewery in Brussels, the pump used to move the wort upstairs from
the boiling kettle seems sized to move the wort slowly and gently
enough to minimize oxidation.
The Cantillon brewery, at 56 Rue Gheude in Anderlecht (a suburb of
Brussels) is WELL WORTH SEEING. On Saturdays they offer a tour for
BF50 (same price charged by the museum at the brewers' hall, which
is not worth the trouble, in my opinion), between 10 AM and 5 PM.
Not knowing this, I came wandering in on a Tuesday, and they
essentially gave me the run of the place! Friends, it was grand.
In that one day I gathered more useful & interesting information
than the rest of the trip combined.
So, here I am, collating my notes and trying to come up with a test
recipe. Another question: in the Memoires de Jef Lambic, he says
his father (a mid-19th century lambic brewer) obtained the
following yields: "Comme le faro etait fait du melange de ces deux
bieres, on en obtenait finalement 460 litres pour cent kilos de
froment et d'orge. Il fallait donc 22 kilos de grains pour un
hectolitre de faro et 40 kilos de grains pour hectolitre de
lambic ..." Can anyone give me a pointer to how I might convert
that to an approximate specific gravity? Another approach, it
occurs to me, might be to scale the figures given to a 5 gallon
batch, and just use his method of handling first runnings & sparge
separately, using a rather thin mash. Any suggestions?
= Martin A. Lodahl Pac*Bell Minicomputer Operations Support Staff =
= malodah@pbmoss.Pacbell.COM Sacramento, CA 916.972.4821 =
= If it's good for ancient Druids, runnin' nekkid through the wuids, =
= Drinkin' strange fermented fluids, it's good enough for me! 8-) =
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 17 Dec 90 09:58:22 PST
From: mcnally@wsl.dec.com
Subject: Enzyme additives
After three batches with disturbingly low extraction rates, I've begun
to wonder whether the 2-row I'm using is sufficiently diastatic to deal
with specialty malts. For example, yesterday's batch was 6 lbs. 2-row,
3 lbs. wheat, and 1 lb. dextrin malt. The OG is about 53; I was
shooting for *at least* 60.
I know that 6-row is more diastatic, but (according to Dave Miller) it
is also higher in polyphenols and other undesirables. As an
alternative, I am wondering if anyone has ever used enzymes added from
a jar. I don't really know what I'm talking about, but I do know that
I've seen little jars at my local homebrew supply labeled "amylase
enzyme". Is this some sort of cheap dirty trick? Are there bad
side-effects?
- --------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mike McNally mcnally@wsl.dec.com
Digital Equipment Corporation
Western Software Lab
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 14 Dec 90 12:41:08 EST
From: cjh@vallance.eng.ileaf.com (Chip Hitchcock)
Subject: water analysis
I think the Kjeldahl test is useful as a rough measurement of the amount of
protein (loose and bacterial) in the water; my recollection is that it
excludes nitrates, nitrites, and dissolved ammonia, so what's left is almost
entirely in proteins (which average somewhere around 12-14% nitrogen (maximum
19, minimum ~9 for common amino acids).
Plate count is a direct bacterial assessment; you slosh a bit of the water
around on agar-coated dishes (plates), incubate for a few days, and count the
number of colonies (unless you've got overlap, one colony=>one viable
bacterium put in the dish). You'll get some bacteria even in drinking water
because killing the last ones takes too much (chlorine, ozone, whatever you
use as a sterilant). I've forgotten what distinguishing marks are, but there's
a way to distinguish coliform colonies (which indicate that the water is
contaminated with sewage) from whatever else you'll find; they didn't do that
here, hence "total" count. (My recollection is that coliform count is usually
a small fraction of the total even in sewage.)
I have no idea what the appropriate/typical ranges are for most of these
numbers. The best advice if you're using tap water is to boil it vigorously
before putting in any of your ingredients; this drives off chlorine (which
will ruin the flavor at the usual concentration). If you don't like the
results of any of your first few batches, try bottled water and see if it
makes a difference you can taste; also, find out what other homebrewers whose
results you like do for water.
Chip Hitchcock (cjh@ileaf.com)
I used to be a chemist, a long time ago....
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 18 Dec 90 10:22:46 +1300
From: Lloyd Parkes <Lloyd.Parkes@comp.vuw.ac.nz>
Subject: Where to go, what to do?
Nanoo nanoo,
I will be travelling to and around the States late February, early
March and I would really like to see some breweries. I will almost
certainly be going to L.A., San Francisco, New Orleans and San
Antonio. If anybody can suggest other places to see I would be most
grateful. I hear that San Antonio has brewery that is listed as a
tourist attraction. Can anyone tall me any more about it.
Relax, don't worry and have a local brew :-)
Lloyd
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 17 Dec 90 16:35:43 CST
From: tamulis@dehn.math.nwu.edu (Andrius Tamulis)
Subject: Homebrew digest stack
Well, I worked and I worked and I wrote a stack for Hypercard on the Mac that
takes these digests and, well, digests them: puts then into a stack for easy
retrieval and perusal. A great way to keep all this wonderful information in
order. So, if anyone is interested, drop me e-mail at tamulis@math.nwu.edu,
I'll send a copy. And to the great grand Digest Gurus: Is this the sort of
thing that should be archived in miami? (certainly saves me from comtinually
mailing copies)
And if (once?) you happen to get a copy, of course bug reports and hints are
welcome. It hasn't been tested too well yet.
Andrius Tamulis
tamulis@math.nwu.edu
------------------------------
End of HOMEBREW Digest #556, 12/18/90
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