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HOMEBREW Digest #0730
This file received at Mthvax.CS.Miami.EDU 91/09/24 03:10:00
HOMEBREW Digest #730 Tue 24 September 1991
FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
Rob Gardner, Digest Coordinator
Contents:
Guiness Stout Recipe Wanted (Steve Seaney)
re: large batches (Darryl Richman)
Re: large batches (Chris Shenton)
Priming with honey (J.N.) Avery <JAVERY@BNR.CA>
Re: SNRATIO (MIKE LIGAS)
Relax (Bob Hettmansperger)
Relax
Siphonless brewing and oxidation (BAUGHMANKR)
Benign infection? (Carl West)
Mead yeasts (Daniel L. Krus)
Flaming in the HBD, an apology, and discussion of a couple of points (rsd)
On Scales, significant digits, and reasonable expectations (Greg Roody - dtn 237-7122 23-Sep-1991 1203)
Kettle Alert! (Martin A. Lodahl)
Re: Sex and Beer (krweiss)
Homebrew buzz ("Cole Steven Franklin Jr.")
Sex and beer (Percy)
Lager questions (Bob Fozard)
flames (Jack Schmidling)
Siphon pump (Tom Hamilton)
24 hour fermentation ?? (Warren R. Kiefer)
Ta very much....!!!! (ANDY HILL)
Send submissions to homebrew@hpfcmi.fc.hp.com
Send requests to homebrew-request@hpfcmi.fc.hp.com
[Please do not send me requests for back issues!]
Archives are available from netlib@mthvax.cs.miami.edu
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 23 Sep 91 07:26:59 -0500
From: Steve Seaney <seaney@robios2.me.wisc.edu>
Subject: Guiness Stout Recipe Wanted
I am looking for a partial-mash recipe of Guiness Stout. Can anyone send
me in the right direction? I looked through the archives and only
found discussions on Guiness -- no recipes.
Thanks a lot!
Steve Seaney
- -- Steven Seaney (seaney@robios.me.wisc.edu)
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 23 Sep 91 06:05:42 -0700
From: darryl@ism.isc.com (Darryl Richman)
Subject: re: large batches
David, I use a food grade "trash" can for most primaries and then go into
3 carboys for secondary, although I have done it all in carboys in the past.
Since the amount f time and effort to make 15 gallons is the same as for
5 of all grain beer, it makes a lot of sense to make the larger size.
\
--Darryl Richman
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 23 Sep 91 09:40:57 EDT
From: Chris Shenton <chris@asylum.gsfc.nasa.gov>
Subject: Re: large batches
On Fri, 20 Sep 1991 16:13 EDT, HERREN%midd.cc.middlebury.edu@mitvma.mit.edu said:
David> [...] recipes are for batches as large as 15 gallons.
David> What the heck do you use for primary and secondary for a batch that
David> big? Is it all done in one vessel or do you use multiple carboys?
I mash in a large, rectangular, Coleman-style cooler (slotted pipe), boil
in a topless Bud keg, and ferment in a pair of carboys (typically one 7
gallon, one 5 gallon).
The amount of work/time seems to be only a little more than for a 5 gallon
batch, so I think this is a win.
------------------------------
Date: 23 Sep 91 09:42:00 EDT
From: Joel (J.N.) Avery <JAVERY@BNR.CA>
Subject: Priming with honey
>From: abirenbo@isis.cs.du.edu (Aaron Birenboim)
>Subject: priming with honey
>
>>From: bgros@sensitivity.berkeley.edu (Bryan Gros)
>>
>> if instead of priming with the usual 3/4 cup of corn sugar, I want
>>to prime with honey, how much do I use? 3/4 cup?
>
> I primed an x-mas beer with about 1 cup of honey. The carbonation
>ended up slightly high, but no exploding bottles. A word of warning:
>the beer tased awfull for about 2 months. In fact i threw some
>out when i needed botles. big mistake. I now consider it
>my best brew yet, but when fermenting honey BE PATIENT. It
>has an awful, vomit like, taste until it has aged a bit. I'd
>plan on bottle conditioning for at least 2 or 3 months.
>
I've primed every batch with honey (which is only 15, all from malt
extract), and have never had this problem. I usually drink my first
beer one week after it has been in the bottle (it's still pretty
flat, but I can't wait the month that it takes to fully carbonate),
and have never noticed a vomit like taste. By the time the month
is up, the batch is usually more than half gone.
As for how much honey to use, I only use about four ounces (liquid
ounces), as I like my beer with less carbonation than my fellow
homebrewers with whom I compete. I find my beer has good carbonation
in the mouth, not that much head, and I don't get full (of gas) from
drinking it. I can also drink it at basement temperatures this way
(I don't always have the foresight to keep enough in the fridge).
Just to me on the safe side, I make sure that I boil the honey with
some water for at least 10 or 15 minutes to kill any wild yeast
that might be in with the honey.
Joel Avery
javery@bnr.ca
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 23 Sep 1991 10:05:00 -0400
From: MIKE LIGAS <LIGAS@SSCvax.CIS.McMaster.CA>
Subject: Re: SNRATIO
In HD729 arf@ddswl.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling) replied to a posting in HD728 by
rsd@silk.udev.cdc.com (Richard Dale). The following letter is in response to
Jack's letter to Richard. In HD729 Jack Says:
> .... I would like to point out that I am capable of learning
> as I go and do modify my thinking as I learn. ....
It is your receptiveness which makes replying to you, even in contradiction,
worthwhile.
> However, yesterday I taped a segment at the Baderbrau brewery (Jackson's
> favorite American beer) and saw something that seems to blow your whole
> argument to hell.
>
> Just before the caps go on, a very thin, high pressure stream of sterile
> water is squirted into the bottle. The result is immediate foaming and
> frothing, up and out of the bottle. This fills the headspace with CO2 and
> drives out the air.
This is a good lead-in to a discussion of what procedures are undertaken during
bottling to minimize oxidation. The beer to be bottled, unlike the beer being
racked and primed in Jack's first letter in HD727, is already carbonated. In
order to prevent foaming during the bottle filling process the automated bottle
filler will flush the bottle with CO2 and then raise the internal CO2 pressure
to 25-30 psi. The CO2 line is then shut and the line from the carbonated beer
is opened. The beer is under the same pressure at this point as the bottle. A
side valve then slowly bleeds off the CO2 from the bottle allowing the beer to
enter, displacing the CO2. This filling under a steadily decreasing pressure
prevents foaming and has the added benefit of filling the bottle in the absence
of oxygen. Once full the bottles are at the stage described above by Jack (with
the bottle filler now removed). The sterile water which induces a small release
of CO2 which "drives out the air" (containing O2) is itself deoxygenated. The
little bit of air surrounding the "high pressure stream of sterile water" is
probably carried into the beer by the process described by Richard in HD727 and
this is a small caveat.
The time that this stream is in contact with the beer is in the order of tenths
of a second and isn't comparable to the stream of beer filling the priming
bucket. To be fair Jack, you'd also need to flush your priming vessel with CO2
to draw an analogy since the small space between the miniscus of the beer and
the top of the bottle would also contain some CO2 from the filling process.
All this may seem petty but it seems that details need to be discussed to solve
an arguement which is growing more intense with each issue of HD. The bottle
filling process itself is a clear demonstration of the need to reduce oxidation
of fermented wort and further dispels the notion that reducing air contact with
fermented beer is a "Momily". Oxidation is a real phenomenon and reducing it
can only help improve your beer.
Try priming half of your next batch of beer using your usual method and the
other half by filling the priming vessel with the draining end of the syphon
tube submerged in the beer to reduce turbulence. A month of aging and a taste
comparison may provide interesting results. ;-) (BTW, I did this many moons
ago and noticed a difference...I noticed a slight cardboardy taste in my
'oxidized' beer but it was still drinkable). Anyways, experimenting is fun!
> I am not quite sure of your motivation but I appreciate the opportunity to
> exchange ideas and squash momilies.
I hope we are all motivated by the desire to brew better beer! Although momilies
do exist, avoiding oxidation never was one.
RDWHAHB,
Mike
------------------------------
Date: 23 Sep 91 10:46:06
From: Bob Hettmansperger <Bob_Hettmansperger.DIVISION_2733@klondike>
Subject: Relax
Time: 10:19 AM Date: 9/23/91
Subject: Relax
Before I begin:
Please, please, please restrict the flame-fest to direct email. We are
AMATEUR brewers here. If you don't like Jack's video, please post TECHNICAL
problems with it. If you don't like Jack, either email him or post to
alt.flame.
Now, I have a number of items:
1) I just had to junk an entire batch of Canadian Ale. )-: I was suspicious of
it all along, because the primary fermentation was late and occurred while my
A/C was down. I'm guessing that bacteria managed to get a foothold before the
yeasties had a chance to do their duty. My question on this is whether you can
tell by tasting the "beer" before you bottle it whether it will be worth
bottling.
2) I HATE sanitizing my bottles. Can I run them through the dish-washer before
bottling (perhaps with no soap, or with B-Brite) instead of dunking and rinsing
by hand?
3) I recently toured the Happy Valley Brewery at Penn State (Good Scotch Ale,
but awful "Light" which tasted not unlike the Canadian Ale I pored down the
drain). The brewmaster made reference to the Seibul (sp?) brewing school in
Chicago (where he went) as well as apprenticing. Anyone have info on the
school
or how to get into an appretice position anywhere?
4) Does anyone know of any homebrewing clubs in North/Central Jersey? If not,
does anyone have any good ideas on how to start one?
That ought to do it for now...
-Bob Hettmansperger
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 23 Sep 1991 11:06 EDT
From: BAUGHMANKR@CONRAD.APPSTATE.EDU
Subject: Siphonless brewing and oxidation
>From: Sean Dyer <C03601SD@WUVMD.Wustl.Edu>
>Subject: If you build a better siphon the world will......
> I've noticed alot of recent discussion about oxidation of
>wort/green beer while racking. I am also concerned about this
>problem but have not yet figured out how to rack my siphon
>without a substantial amount of bubbling and obvious oxidation
>I have dealt with this problem by keeping racking to a minimum. That
>is I ferment only in a primary and rack only at bottling time. I would
>like to be able to rack my fermented beer to a new vessel and fine it
>but I can't seem to establish a bubble free siphon when the little cap
>is attached to my racking tube. The inadequate siphon that I am able
>to establish is rather slow and therefore increases exposure
>to infection. I would also like to be able to chill my unpitched
>wort for about 12 hours and rack it off the precipitated trub.
>Obviously oxidation would not be a problem but I am hesitant to expose
>the unpitched/unprotected wort to infection in the racking proccess.
>Does anyone have a better solution than siphoning or a better way
>to siphon?
Oh well, Sean, you asked. It was as a result of all the above concerns
that Mike Morrissey and I designed the BrewCap 8 years ago. You drain
the yeast away with the BrewCap instead of racking the beer away.
It's not a better way to siphon. It's the elimination of post-
pitching siphoning altogether. Bottling is more like draining than
siphoning the beer into the bottles.
My 2 cents worth on the splashing of post fermented wort:
I deep-sixed the first 3 or 4 batches of beer I kegged because I
oxidized the hell out of 'em when I drained them to the keg. Good
beer in the fermenter. Bad beer out the tap. I, therefore, take my
stand in the camp that says one must be EXTREMELY gentle with the beer
when you start moving it around after it's fermented out. Splashing
it around may form a CO2 layer above the beer. That still doesn't
mean that it hasn't picked up some O2 as it falls through the air.
I pour about a pint of boiled water into the bottom of my kegs after
injecting them with CO2 and begin the siphon GENTLY with the end of
the siphon hose beneath the surface of the water so that the new beer
exits the siphon hose into liquid instead of air. This has elminated
my oxidation problems. (BTW, good luck on the video, Jack. As you're
finding out, everyone has his opinions when it comes to the BEST way
to make beer.) :-)
Cheers ya'll,
Kinney Baughman | Beer is my business and
baughmankr@conrad.appstate.edu | I'm late for work
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 23 Sep 91 11:23:18 EDT
From: eisen@kopf.HQ.Ileaf.COM (Carl West)
Subject: Benign infection?
Last night I made up a starter of CWE yeast, which I pitched this morning.
No problem.
I looked at my starter bottle and said to myself,"Hey, there's enough yeast
left in there to make another starter if I just add some of my sterile wort
to that bottle, I'll have enough to start yet another batch". So I go grab
a bottle of sterile wort that I put up a month or two ago and open it.
PFFFFFFFFT! It ain't sterile!
It smells kinda like beer and doesn't taste at all bad. It has a medium-strong
honey taste which is surprising to me because there's only malt in there, and
it was over-carbonated which is no surprise because the entire `fermentation'
happened in a sealed container. There's little evidence of alchohol.
I'm thinking of trying to culture it if there's anything left alive in there.
Any good way of finding out what I've got?
Carl West
When I stop learning, bury me.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 23 Sep 1991 11:35:25 -0400 (EDT)
From: D_KRUS@UNHH.UNH.EDU (Daniel L. Krus)
Subject: Mead yeasts
I'm starting to work up a mead recipe. I figure if I start now it might be
ready for consumption by late next summer. I was wondering if there are any
suggestions on a good yeast. Since with my beers I no longer use dry yeasts,
I was hoping on some suggestions for liquid yeasts. I don't want a still
mead and I'm using about 7.5 lbs. of clover honey.
Any suggestions?
Thanks,
Dan
|**:**:**:**:**:**:**:**:**:**:**:**:**:**:**:**:**:**:**:**:**:**:**:**:**:**:|
| Internet: D_KRUS@unhh.unh.edu | Daniel L. Krus |
| Compuserve: 71601,365 | Parsons Hall |
|-----------------------------------------------| Department of Chemistry |
| "A good word is an easy obligation, but not | U of New Hampshire |
| to speak ill, requires only our | Durham, New Hampshire 03824 |
| silence, which costs us nothing." Tillotson | (603) 862-2521 |
|**:**:**:**:**:**:**:**:**:**:**:**:**:**:**:**:**:**:**:**:**:**:**:**:**:**:|
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 23 Sep 91 11:15:00 -0400
From: rsd@silk.udev.cdc.com
Subject: Flaming in the HBD, an apology, and discussion of a couple of points
This is out of order.
Jack says:
...And you are making personal attacks without trying to understand the person
you are attacking.
Agreed.
The tone of my post was generally inappropriate, and the attack at the
end was completely out of place in the digest. I appologize.
I agree with you that it is difficult to separate essentially
groundless "conventional wisdom" from "science."
Your goal in "BREW IT AT HOME" , "...to demonstrate a process that
works every time...", is certainly laudable, and everyone
Just before the caps go on, a very thin, high pressure stream of sterile
water is squirted into the bottle. The result is immediate foaming and
frothing, up and out of the bottle. This fills the headspace with CO2 and
drives out the air.
I am not a chemical engineer.
My knowledge of fluid mechanics is based entirely on a course I took
in grad school 15 years ago, so the following is "semi-informed"
and hardly authoritative.
If the column of water is moving at
high speed, and is thin, the flow will be characterized by a
high reynolds number and be what they call "turbulent". This means
that the water jet will tend to stir the surrounding air molecules
into eddies, rather than establish a nice laminar flow of air
molecules into the beer.
If the process you describe takes place in an ordinary atmosphere,
It can't help but introduce "some" air into the beer. The amount
could be very small. The brewer has surely determined analytically that vastly more
air was being eliminated than introduced and adjusted the techinque
as appropriate. Small refinements like --say-- bathing the jet of
water with CO2 could be employed if necessary.
As anyone knows, who HAS read the literature over the years, it is replete
with errors, myths and contradictions. I just finished reading Noonan's $20
tome and find it not only full of hard to find "facts" but just as full of
"momilies" as this digest and every other book I have read.
Ironic! Noonan was the book I had in mind. The life cycle of yeast
is (I think) well enough understood to not be characterized as
a momily. The description in Noonan explains why excess oxygen
at pitching time is not a problem later, and why oxygen introduced
at bottling time will not benifit the yeast. Other posts delt
with the mechanics of how oxygin introduced late introduces off
flavors.
My impression of Noonan is not so much that it is filled with
momilies, as that it is the Readers Digest version of Malting
and Brewing Science. Noonan certainly does often make
pronouncements, for which he offers little support. I would be
interested to hear one or two examples (from Noonan) of what you
would consider "momilies."
__
Richard
rsd@silk.udev.cdc.com
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 23 Sep 91 09:42:50 PDT
From: Greg Roody - dtn 237-7122 23-Sep-1991 1203 <roody@necsc.enet.dec.com>
Subject: On Scales, significant digits, and reasonable expectations
Pardon my manners here, but I have been amused by all the discussion about
scales; particularly those folks discussing accuracies as high as 1/100th of
a gram. Come on guys, this isn't nuclear chemistry we are talking about.
Well, enough of this flame mongering.
Practically speaking, don't go out and spend money on these high precision
scales. Get whatever you can find that will be accurate to 1/4 oz for 1 to
six ounces of hops and 1/4 pound for 10 pounds of grain. It's all to
easy to spend money on brewing supplies anyway, so spend it wisely.
Why so grossly inaccurate?
Because your ingrediants (and your ultimate analytical tool - people) are
so variable themselves, thats why. Hops vary in HBU's from supplier to
supplier, and even from plant to plant; and extraction rates depend on your
technique and skill. Grains vary likewise in modification level and starch
convertability. Even your water supply will vary in analysis from season
to season. This variation is over such a wide range, that measuring to
1/100 th (or even +/- 1 gram) gram is a little like buying an oral fever
thermometer good to 1/1000th of a degree.
Well, I'm afraid I've offended enough people for one lunch hour (and I
didn't even throw in my anolagy about the type of stereos guys from MIT
buy).
/greg (and you can take this with +/- 1/4 oz of salt) %^)>
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 23 Sep 91 7:36:11 PDT
From: Martin A. Lodahl <hpfcmr.fc.hp.com!hplabs!pbmoss!malodah>
Subject: Kettle Alert!
A month or so ago there was a stimulating discussion in this forum
on the use of the commonly-available 33 qt enameled steel canning
kettles as boilers. One poster pointed out that the handles really
didn't seem up to the task of safely lifting a full kettle. He was
right.
Saturday I was mashing my Thanksgiving Scotch Ale in one of these
kettles; 12.5 pounds of grain and 18 quarts of water. As I started
to lift the kettle from the insulated box I use for mashing
temperature control, one of the handles simply came off in my hand!
The kettle was only about 3 cm off the floor of the box, so there
was no spill -- lucked out again! By sheer coincidence, this was
my first batch since an email discussion with Mike McNally had
produced a chiller configuration that made it possible to avoid
moving the kettle from the start of the boil until after the kettle
was empty, so there was no longer a potential for anything worse
than a very considerable mess, but still ...
Y'all be careful out there, y'hear?
= Martin A. Lodahl Pacific*Bell Systems Analyst =
= 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, 23 Sep 1991 13:01:54 -0800
From: krweiss@ucdavis.edu
Subject: Re: Sex and Beer
Norm Hardy writes:
>Date: Sun, 22 Sep 91 20:59:52 PDT
>From: polstra!norm@uunet.UU.NET (Norm Hardy)
>Subject: Sex and Beer
>
>While watching the Seahawks lose another game (ah, but those Huskies of
>Wash!), I was drawn to 2 beer advertisements; by Coors and Old Milwaukee (it
>doesn't get any better...). The two companies are REALLY pushing the skinny
>ladies with big busts and come-on faces with a lot of skin in an effort to
>sell their product.
>
>Yeah, it is nothing new, but somehow I am tired of the notion that if I
>drink their product good things will happen to me. Good food, good company,
>good sex, and bad beer. The Silver Bullet sure comes UP nicely at the end
>and finishes with a nice explosion of apparent pleasure. Hey, I'm not for
>censureship, but sometimes I wonder....
>
I've been working on the assumption that if I drink _any_ kind of beer I'll
get good food, good company and good sex. And what's more, I like looking
at "skinny ladies with big busts and come-on faces with a lot of skin."
Oh yeah, and I'm still skinny after 20 years of dedicated consumption of
both commercial and homebrewed beer. Of course, I don't eat... Don't
concentrate too well anymore either. What were we talking about??
So relax, Norm. It's possible to enjoy looking at the women on your TV
without actually purchasing the products for which they shill. You can even
smile about it if ya want to :-)
Ken
Ken Weiss krweiss@ucdavis.edu
Computing Services 916/752-5554
U.C. Davis
Davis, CA 95616
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 23 Sep 91 13:09:19 -0700
From: "Cole Steven Franklin Jr." <eapu081@orion.oac.uci.edu>
Subject: Homebrew buzz
I was wondering if anyone knew what causes the weird "happy hyper" buzz that
my friends and I get from drinking homebrew. I know it's not entirely due to
alchol because the effects are different and nearly instaneous.
I read that by using a blow out tube at the begining of fermentation you will
get rid of something that is known to cause "beer headaches" is this the same
little something that causes the homebrew buzz.
Relaxing nicely
p.s. Has anyone made banana beer? How did it turn out?
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 23 Sep 91 17:08:30 EDT
From: t13329@Calvin.EDU (Percy)
Subject: Sex and beer
Funny someone should mention the crappiness of beer
commercials. The topic reared its specious head in our marketing class
today. Yeah, like any of those babes in the Miller commercials would
actually be caught dead drinking beer; and a cheapo, domestic brand at
that. NOT! Seltzer water is more their thing, methinks. Or the Swedish
bikini team REALLY exists and they go for for overweight,
beer-guzzling guys whose idea of a good time is sitting by a river and
drinking Keystone. What is it they're trying to say here? We all know
that regular beer consumption is nothing if not deleterious to one's physical
appearance.
Su Misra
- --
| \ | / \| \| | \| |\ | | \| \|
| /| /\ \|/ \|\ |\ . |\ \|\ |/ | /|| /|\|\ |\
|/ | / \ | |\ | . |/ |\ |\ |/ ||/ | |\ |
|/ \ | | | | | | \ | | | |
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 23 Sep 91 13:07:03 PDT
From: rfozard@slipknot.pyramid.com (Bob Fozard)
Subject: Lager questions
I've been brewing at home now for about 6 months, and have recently
tried my first grain batch, also my first lager. It's the "Vienna" recipe
from Winner's Circle. I've been thru Papazian, Miller, and Noonan,
and now would like to hear from you folks concerning the following
items that seem to be mostly having to do with lager brewing:
1) Yeast starter. To avoid shocking the yeast, I would think that
the yeast starter should be generated and kept at about the
same temperature as you intend on pitching, in this case, about
50F. This would probably mean that you have to plan the brew
3 or 4 days ahead, as the starter would likely be slow to start.
I didn't. I had the starter going at room temp., and pitched at
50F. Lag time was about 25-30 hours.
How do _you_ do it?
2) Diacetyl rest. Noonan suggests that it's common to raise the
fermentation temperature to 52F just after the krausen has
fallen, to aid in diacetyl reduction. This is to go on for a
few days, after which you would go back down to 40F or so and
continue with a racking/secondary fermentation. It's supposed to allow
the lagering period to be significantly reduced. Do any of you
have experience with this? I have the Hunter Air-stat controlling
the fridge, so it's really no trouble.
3) Bottling/Lagering. I believe it's Miller that suggests lagering
_after_ bottling. This seems to me to be a better way, in that
there are likely to be more yeast in suspension just after
fermentation has finished, that will aid in carbonating in the
bottle. If I lager at 35-40F for 6 weeks or so in the secondary,
it seems there would be quite fewer (and sleepier) yeasts to take
care of carbonation once I bottle.
ps. This batch was weeks in the planning, as I was studying and
fashioning my equipment. I used a cardboard box and had some
friends spray insta-foam into it in a perfect-fit mold around
my mash tun (a 5.25 gallon enamel pot) for holding mash temps.
Worked like a charm! (insta-foam is the stuff they sometimes
use in packaging electronic equipment). For wort-chilling,
I made a simple coiled 25' copper tubing unit. Immersed in
2 bags of ice (14 lbs) in a 5 gallon plastic bucket, topped
off with cold tap water, it cooled my hot wort down to 70F
in less than 10 minutes. No kidding!
Thanks for any info,
Bob Fozard - rfozard@pyramid.com
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 23 Sep 91 19:29 CDT
From: arf@ddsw1.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)
Subject: flames
To: Homebrew Digest
Fm: Jack Schmidling
Subject: Flaming in the HBD, an apology, and discussion of a couple of points
Just before the caps go on, a very thin, high pressure stream of sterile
water is squirted into the bottle. The result is immediate foaming and
frothing, up and out of the bottle. This fills the headspace with CO2 and
drives out the air.
>If the process you describe takes place in an ordinary atmosphere,
It can't help but introduce "some" air into the beer. The amount
could be very small. The brewer has surely determined analytically that
vastly more air was being eliminated than introduced and adjusted the
techinque as appropriate. Small refinements like --say-- bathing the jet of
water with CO2 could be employed if necessary.
Jack says:
You make an excellent case for the fact that what actually works isn't always
theoretically correct (TC?). Just as many "momilies" are right for the wrong
reasons, as are just simply wrong and many of them are wrong for the right
reasons but work anyway, (most of the time).
Everything I described in that particular Baderbrau process seems to invite
disaster according to theory but it is an incredibly simple solution to a
very complex problem and it works.
I suspect I can prove with a lighted match in the primer that it is full of
CO2 and my aesthetically pleasing video shot is no worse than what Baderbrau
is doing.
As anyone knows, who HAS read the literature over the years, it is replete
with errors, myths and contradictions. I just finished reading Noonan's
$20 tome and find it not only full of hard to find "facts" but just as full
of "momilies" as this digest and every other book I have read.
>Ironic! Noonan was the book I had in mind. The life cycle of yeast
is (I think) well enough understood to not be characterized as
a momily. The description in Noonan explains why excess oxygen
at pitching time is not a problem later, and why oxygen introduced
at bottling time will not benifit the yeast.
>My impression of Noonan is not so much that it is filled with
momilies, as that it is the Readers Digest version of Malting
and Brewing Science. Noonan certainly does often make
pronouncements, for which he offers little support.
Jack says:
My impression is that it is book covering very technical material, written by
a person with little technical background. He is simply parrotting the
words of scientists without really understanding what he/they is/are saying.
Whenever he attempts to ad lib an explanation, he makes little or no sense at
all.
> I would be interested to hear one or two examples (from Noonan) of what you
would consider "momilies."
I was afraid you were going to ask that but I did highlight a few of the more
obvious.
p. 70 Top fermenting yeast strains are only effective at 55 to 70 degs F.
p. 79 ...no pathogenic bacteria can survive in beer.
p. 151 ...it {foam/scum} must be eliminated from the fermenter by skimming.
p. 131 his explanation of the terms hot break and cold break are not only
incomprehensible but also leave one wondering how the hell to apply them to
the procedures he attempts to describe.
p. 142 He implies that too much water in the fermentation lock can put
enough pressure on the beer to ruin it.
p. 159 Secondary fermentation should be conducted... as low as 30 degs F.
p. 202 The beer must be below 50 degs F for the {gelatin} finings to have
any effect.
I can't find it at the moment, but somewhere he describes a procedure using
the terms hot and cold break as though they were things you walk around with
and decant from one test tube to another.
The index sucks and I never found a single word I was interested in, in the
glossary.
The book purports to be a handbook for the pro but describes homebrew
process, the equipment for which is only poorly described in the text.
Many of the drawings and sketches either are not captioned or don't make much
sense.
The fact that he devoted 33 pages to water and only 9 pages to hops leads one
to believe that filling pages was more important the telling readers what
they really need to know.
Aside from all that, assuming it is correct, I gleaned enough new information
from the book to justify the $20 I spent on it.
I was particularly delighted in the description of the crystal malting
process because it explains why my homemade malt tastes sweet and malty. It
also explains why it makes such lousy beer.
To wit... Normal malt is bone dry before kilning. Crystal malt is cured at
155 degs F while still containing 50 moisture. It is essentially, mashed in
the husk and requires only a short boil in the wort to extract it.
In summation, I fully expect that "Brew It Home" will have its share of
critics and criticisms but it is my intent to make sure they are limited to
issues about which rational people can agree to disagree.
jack
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 23 Sep 91 19:03:40 PDT
From: Tom Hamilton <tlh@ISI.EDU>
Subject: Siphon pump
>From the neat little homebrew gizmos file,
I actually showed and explained this at a Maltose Falcons meeting a
while back but even my best brewing buddy still sucks on his hose (I
beg your pardon!) to get a siphon started. At any outboard motor
(the kind that go on boats) dealer you should be able to purchase for
$5-10 a rubber primer bulb that is used to pump gas from a remote fuel
tank to prime the carb. The bulb has two barbed ends which fit
perfectly into 3/8" plastic hose which is typically the size used for
bottling and racking. It even has a little arrow in the rubber that
shows the direction of flow. Inside the bulb is a check valve that
will keep your wort/beer from running backwards while you position the
hose into whatever you are filling. Also helpfull is one of those
plastic pinch thingies that will keep the hose primed while you set up
the sterilized bottles that you just kicked over while looking for
your beer. Usually two pumps of the bulb will fill about 5' of 3/8
hose and if you do get over zealous and pump a little wort through the
bulb, just rinse it by pumping through some tap water or the beer will
stick the check valve open as it dries. I got mine at an Evinrude
dealer 2 years ago and it has survived numerous abuses and
sterilizations (back when I used to bleach EVERYTHING). Try it you'll
like it!
PS. Bill Thacker asks about 58 million pounds of hops in a 5 gallon
batch. It might get you the hopiness of a Liberty Ale but it
might have a little too much mouth feel :->
Tom U of So Cal Info Sci Inst
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 23 Sep 91 22:17:17 -0600
From: oopwk%msu.dnet@terra.oscs.montana.edu (Warren R. Kiefer)
Subject: 24 hour fermentation ??
Howdy,
And how are we all doing today ??
I have a question about repitching yeast slurry, I fermented a batch of
porter with the liquid British ale yeast, then made up a batch of my annual
Christmas cheer ( actually this is the first year :'). The ingredient list is
something like this :
7lbs. malted barley
1 lb. crystal malt
1 lb honey
4 orange rinds
1 lemon rind
3 cinnamon sticks
1/2 tsp cardamom
1/2 tsp cloves
12 oz. huckleberries
Soooo, after dumping the slurry from the porter batch into this
surprisingly great smelling mess around 6:00pm that night, I went onto other
things and checked the batch around 11:00am the next day. There was only about
1 bubble every 30 seconds out of the airlock. The next time I checked was
somewhere around 6:00pm that night and the airlock wasn't gurgling at all.
I could make out the ring from the krausen about 1 to 1 1/2 inches above the
beer in the fermenter. I used a plastic 7 gallon fermenter for this batch since
I was afraid the huckleberries may clog my usual blow-off tube set up on the 5
gallon carboy. To sum up what I'm wondering is if anyone has had a 24 hour
fermentation when repitching yeast slurry from a previous batch, there was a
significant amount of slurry from the bottom of the porter primary fermenter.
I have heard that honey is notoriously slow to ferment, so I was kind of
shocked to say the least. The temp. has been steady at 65 F so I don't think
that's the problem. Anyone have any ideas ???
Thanks to all for the info on all-grain brewing and the procedures for
using liquid yeasties. My first 5 all-grain batches have turned out really
great. So many thanks to the contributors and also to Rob for doing such an
excellant job !!!!!!!!!!!
I think a homebrew is now in order --- cheers to all !!!
Warren R. Kiefer
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 24 Sep 1991 17:43:41 NZST
From: ANDY HILL <violator@matai.vuw.ac.nz>
Subject: Ta very much....!!!!
hiya,
just like to say ta for everyone who answered my plea for help with
regards to converting the archive files. it was so simple, just by
using the 'decompress' command - i kicked myself...!
thanx again
Andy
------------------------------
End of HOMEBREW Digest #730, 09/24/91
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