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HOMEBREW Digest #0542
HOMEBREW Digest #542 Thu 22 November 1990
FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
Rob Gardner, Digest Coordinator
Contents:
Small bottles,blue,head, newsgroup? (Bill Crick)
oak chips (again!) (Mark Stevens) <stevens@stsci.edu>
Re: Old Breweries (Chris Shenton)
Cincinnati Brewing Review (617)253-0885" <CASEY@ALCVAX.PFC.MIT.EDU>
Re: Old Breweries (Eric Pepke)
List of Hops (dreger)
Chilling Wort (BAUGHMANKR)
Hop measures (nntas)
Hazards in the Brewery (Dave Suurballe)
Re: Trub and Yeast (Mike Charlton)
Weihenstephan (Norm Hardy)
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: Wed, 7 Nov 1990 14:46:22 -0500
>From: hplabs!ames!gatech!bmerh399!bnr-rsc!crick (Bill Crick)
Subject: Small bottles,blue,head, newsgroup?
For small bottles, I know that the Canadian beer Old Vienna (OV)
is sold in 6oz. bottles in New York state.
Blue? What about food coloring? I assume that the commercially available
food colorings are stable in acidic environments, but I don't know. You could
add it late in the brew cycle, like just before bottling? I know the local
pubs use green food coloring to make green beer on St Patricks day?
If you want better head retention try adding some wheat in the form of
malted wheat, or just toss in a shredded wheat cereal biscuit (bale?)
or whatever you cal them;-)
Regarding size of postings? Maybe its time to create a real newsgroup
rec.homebrew? How many people read HBD? we inly need 200 votes to get a news
group? Are ther any advantages/disadvantages to being a mailing list over a
newsgroup, or viceversa??
If this were a newsgroup, each posting would be separate unto itself?
(Note: I read HBD just like any other newsgroup using rn. This may be due to
magic mumbo jumbo done behind the scenes by our local U**X guru/daemon
writer???)
Regarding the camden tablets in the mead? I was once told that wine yeasts
can live through 100ppm of SO2, but that beer yeasts can be stopped dead by
concentrations as low as parts per billion, so don't go near beer
with sulphate based sterilants? Is this true?
What kind of yeast was the meadman using?
Bill Crick ->Brewuis, Ergo Sum!
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 21 Nov 90 08:18:04 EST
>From: counsel@AcadiaU.CA (Counselling Centre - Acadia University)
subscribe homebrew-l
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 21 Nov 90 10:28:05 EST
>From: (Mark Stevens) <stevens@stsci.edu>
Subject: oak chips (again!)
Just thought I'd throw in my 2 cents worth on the oak chips discussion.
Lots of people have criticized American oak as lending off-flavors to
any beer in which it is used. Weeeelllll, as this discussion is taking
place now instead of last spring, I brewed up a batch of I.P.A. using
chips of wood that I hacked off a chunk of American oak. I then roasted
the chips in the oven for a while and steamed them for about an hour
and a half.
The beer turned out very well, thank you, and nobody has complained of
bad oak flavors. I submitted this beer to the AHA competition, and the
judges did not criticize the oak flavors. I also took a few bottles
to our local homebrew club (CRABS) and they seemed to like it, although
when I told them how it was made one fellow guffawed and gave me a
lecture about why I shouldn't have used American oak chips. This was
the first inkling I had that all oak chips are not created equal.
The bottom line in my humble opinion, seems to be that while American
oak chips may not be the brewers' preference (in theory), they probably
won't hurt your beer too much (in practice).
By the way, if anybody doubts my word, I still have about 10 bottles
of this beer and can prove that beer made with American oak chips is
not necessarily undrinkable swill....if anybody cares to come over a
beer....
- ---Mark Stevens
stevens@stsci.edu
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 21 Nov 90 10:21:01 EST
>From: Chris Shenton <chris@asylum.gsfc.nasa.gov>
Subject: Re: Old Breweries
>>>>> On Tue, 20 Nov 90 13:37 EST, KXR11@PSUVM.PSU.EDU said:
Eric> Has anybody heard of a beer called Weihenstephan? I was looking at
Eric> a coaster from the brewery. It read (translations added using my
Eric> limited knowledge of deutsch):
Eric> Weihenstephan seit 1040 (since 1040)
Eric> Alteste Bier der Welt (Oldest beer in the world)
Eric> It's a helles beer brewed by nuns in Freising, Germany (near
Eric> Munich). My one report on the stuff says it's not real great.
Eric> Rather, not real great as german beers go. With as many people who
Eric> have gone to Germany, has anyone tasted it?
Yeah, I got some in Freising. Unfortunately, I drank so much beer in such a
short time in/around Munich that I don't remember the Weihenstephan too
distinctly. I tried to write brief descriptions of every beer I tried on
the back of the beer coasters. You can imagine how long that lasted,
after a liter or four!
I do remember that I liked it quit a bit (more than, say, Spaten, which I
enjoy but don't find as exciting as Paulaner). If you can find some
(dubious), give it a try, but like with the others, it won't be as good as
it is in Germany! Ah, well...
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 21 Nov 90 10:31 EST
>From: "JEFF CASEY / (617)253-0885" <CASEY@ALCVAX.PFC.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Cincinnati Brewing Review
Cincinnati Brewing Review (somewhat long).
On a visit to Cincinnati last week, we made two stops of interest:
Oldenberg Brewery (Kentucky)
Huedepohl-Schoenling Brewery (Cincinnati Brewing Co.)
Oldenberg: your typical microbrewery grown out of proportion. they are the
only brewpub in Kentucky (greater Cincinnati area), apparently taking some
wangling to change the laws forbidding brewing & serving under the same roof.
They are quite large, having a pub/restaurant, and a german beer hall. They
have a golden (lighter lager), "Vail Ale" (english bitter), "Premium" (a darker
german lager, but not as dark as a vienna style), stout in the winter, weiss in
the summer, and a special. We were too late for the weiss, and too early for
the stout. The special was a "red ale", and in my opinion, was undrinkable. It
was like batches of ale using Red Star that I've thrown out in the past due to
overly ambitious ester production. No other real errors, just way too fruity,
with a touch too much diacetyl as well. The golden was too light for my taste,
but was clean and smooth. The premium was very good, but the star was the "vail
ale", a superb bitter -- very well balanced body, malt, bitter, and finish.
We returned a second night and quaffed this stuff exclusively. The second
night, we also got a tour. Unfortunately, their tours are serious tourist
business, and the tourguide knew very little about brewing, aside from the rote
information. They have a single 1000gal capacity set of tubs (mash/lauter/
brewpot), and some number (10 or 14?) of fermenters. They claim to whirlpool
the wort on the way to the wort chiller to remove trub (this seems wrong, you'll
never get out the cold break sediment). They also seem to use Cascade hops for
bittering, Saaz for finish on all batches (that may be wrong, but that was the
impression of the tourguide). I don't know if they keep separate yeast
cultures for ales and lagers. It is possible that they lager everything. The
red ale was certainly consistent with some of my failed attempts to make a
steam beer from lager yeast fermented at room temp. As a note of interest,
they claim to have the largest collection of "beer paraphenalia" in the country
(world?). Many bottles, caps, coasters, trays, tap handles, etc. The
tourguide spent about 40 minutes on this before getting to the brewery, much to
our impatience.
Conclusion: a definite must if in Cincinnati, try the "Vail Ale".
Huedepohl-Schoenling Brewery (Cincinnati Brewing Co.) This is a serious
quantity brewhouse, a scale below the big boys (Bud, Schlitz), but much larger
than a microbrewery (they said they had shipped 50000 cases in the week or two
before our visit). I would call them a mid level "variety" brewery. They do
not give tours as a rule, but we appealed to them as scientists and
homebrewers, and they gratiously offered us a private tour. They make about
thirty labels of beer (Christian Morelein, Little Kings, etc.). They were
quite friendly and hospitable to us, much to their credit. Most interesting
point: they only brew six recipes, all from starting gravities from about
1.050 to 1.070. These mash, cook, ferment, lager, then transfer to very big
(two story high, 20 feet dia?) holding tanks. They have a big manifold which
they use to mix various proportions from each tank to make each particular
label of beer. They are big on brewing "custom" recipes, as for local hotels,
etc. Sounds like a big deal, but they just offer a unique proportion of their
mixes. The gravities are high, since they mix with soda water at bottling time
for final dilution and carbonation. Their bottling plant is especially
flexible, allowing bottles from 6oz to half liter, as well as many cans. They
do a lot of switching of sizes during runs. They use the same yeast (lager) for
all batches, regardless of whether or not it says "ale" on the label. There
are many things they do that I personally wouldn't do to my beer: (tap water,
pellet hops and hops extract, use of Clusters hops, carbonation by dilution
with soda water), however I can also understand the economic pressures of a
commercial brewery. They do make a serious effort to put out a quality product
- -- careful adherence to recipes, low inventory to keep beer fresh, careful
cleaning and flushing of bottling system between mixes, etc. The tour was
fascinating -- not a canned tour behind glass walkways like at Coors. Since
they aren't in the tour business, we wandered all through the brewhouse and
bottling plant, ducking over and under lines, slipping on spilt beer, etc. It
was an interesting lesson in the realities of quantity brewing. I was
impressed. They didn't offer us tasting at the end, and I haven't been to the
liquor store yet to evaluate their products in the new light. I haven't looked
them up in Jackson's book yet either, so my impressions are all based on
watching production methods, not taste.
Conclusion: not your homebrew or microbrewery quality stuff, but a notch
above BudMilLob.
Jeff Casey casey@alcvax.pfc.mit.edu
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 21 Nov 1990 10:40:07 EST
>From: PEPKE@SCRI1.SCRI.FSU.EDU (Eric Pepke)
Subject: Re: Old Breweries
Amazingly, Weihenstephan was one of the beers I had when I was in Germany.
It is of average quality compared to other German beers. Of course, in
Germany "average" is very high. Bavarian Helles is kind of looked down upon
by most of Germany. But I like it.
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: Wed, 21 Nov 90 10:32:07 PST
>From: dreger@seismo.gps.caltech.edu
Subject: List of Hops
Hello everyone!
>Sparky asks about hops.
>and Eric responds:
>A partial list can be found in _Beer Kits and Brewing_ by Dave Line. It lists
>most of the commonly used hops, gives the alpha acidity, and very briefly
>touches on the flavor characteristics and the kinds of beers that use each
>kind.
I would just like to add that the latest Zymurgy Vol. 13 No. 4 is a
very comprehensive special issue on HOPS. The even discuss the various
HBU's of the different hopped malt extracts.
Doug
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 21 Nov 90 13:37 EST
>From: BAUGHMANKR@CONRAD.APPSTATE.EDU
Subject: Chilling Wort
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 21 Nov 90 12:06:30 PST
>From: nntas@robots.span.nasa.gov
Subject: Hop measures
In an attempt to determine a volumetric measurement for hop pellets I
opened a package identified as containing 1oz and measured it. The
volume, as close as possible, was 1/4 cup. This also seemed to be
equal to 4 tablespoons. Could someone confirm whether these
quantities are correct? Have other people measured pellets? What was
the result? What about leaf or whole hops? I know I should be a good
scientist and buy a scale, but I find brewing closer to cooking where
(generally) precise weights are not required.
Also, where can you buy maltose through mail order shops?
Thanks in advance
Tim Sauerwein
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 21 Nov 90 16:32:02 PST
>From: hsfmsh.UUCP!suurb@cgl.ucsf.EDU (Dave Suurballe)
Subject: Hazards in the Brewery
The three big hazards in every brewery are pressure, heat, and chemicals.
A brewery may have additional big hazards, like asphyxiants.
For example, if you are using CO2 equipment in a basement room, and
there's a little, tiny leak in one of your connections, and
you forget to turn off the gas when you're done, and
the room is not vented, the next time you enter that room,
it might be full of CO2, and a big whiff of that can drop you
to your knees, and once you're submerged under that stuff,
you're a goner.
Don't let this be said about you, "He said he was going downstairs for a beer.
Half an hour later I went down to see what he was doing, and he was
laying on the floor, all blue, and dead."
Think about the hazards in your brewery. Think about how to neutralize
them so nothing bad happens. Be prepared for the quick actions that are
required if something bad does happen. Do this as a gift to your spouse.
Or your parents. Or whoever else would be devastated by your demise.
Ours is a wonderful hobby. I love it. But it's not a safe one, like
chess or stamps. Think about that every time you pick up a carboy full of
sterilant or a kettle full of beer, etc, etc, no matter who is yakking
your ear off at the same time.
Upon rereading this, I wonder if it is too dramatic. But I'll leave that as
an exercise for the reader.
Suurballe
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 22 Nov 90 0:00:19 CST
>From: Mike Charlton <umcharl3@ccu.UManitoba.CA>
Subject: Re: Trub and Yeast
Hello. Here I am talking about trub again :-). I have followed Miller's
suggestion of chilling the wort, letting it warm up to fermentation temps,
racking the wort off of the trub, and then pitching the yeast with some
success. It does make a difference. I have, however, decided (rather
arbitrarily) that it is not really necessary to get all the way down to
35 degrees F. In fact, I'm not really sure how it can be done in a
reasonable time frame (maybe a really good pump to circulate ice water
through the chiller). I have been able to obtain temperatures of 40-48
degrees F on even the hottest days of summer (Winnipeg is really cold in
the winter (-40), but really hot in the summer (100+)) in about 70 minutes
of chilling (I usually stop at 70). I find this acceptable because the
difference in average temperature of the warming wort in a 70 degree
room starting from 45 degrees as opposed to 35 degrees is probably
pretty minimal (I haven't bother to figure it out -- I'm on vacation
from calculus). With an immersion chiller, this type of cooling is easy
to achieve. First run water from the tap through the chiller until, the
rate of change of temperature is down to about 1 degree every couple of
minutes. Make sure that you collect this water and use it for something
constructive (like washing dishes or taking a bath). Turn off the tap
making sure that the end of the hose that is dispensing the hot water
is submergred. Remove the other end of the apparatus from the tap and
quickly submerge it in a bucket of ice water. This will start a sipon of
ice water through your wort chiller. Just keep adding ice and water
to the bucket until your wort is down to the required temperature
(I usually pour the water collected after the switch to ice water back
into the bucket so as to conserve water and ice).
Hope this helps
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 21 Nov 90 19:23:02 PST
>From: polstra!norm@uunet.UU.NET (Norm Hardy)
Subject: Weihenstephan
Yep, it is the oldest brewery running. In Germany I had a bottle of the
Helles and found it to be an ordinary lager beer, that is to say, quite
excellent from a world standpoint, but average for Germany. I'd be happy
to buy some in Seattle if I knew where to get it. Ahh, but Andechs....
Actually, my Andech's wannabee is carbonating slowly in the bottle at
fridge temperatures. I got impatient and took a few out to sit at 60f for
a few days to allow the yeast to speed up the CO2 production and was
rewarded with a very clean malty lager (OG 1.052) with a real nice flavor.
My wife and I tasted it side by side with a Warsteiner and preferred the
aroma of the homebrew. The Warsteiner has a grainy flavor but is quite
nice tasting. My homebrew is now over 3 months old, 6 weeks of it in the
bottle. Patience....
Homebrew naked? You've got guts.
Norm Hardy
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End of HOMEBREW Digest #542, 11/22/90
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