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HOMEBREW Digest #0908
This file received at Sierra.Stanford.EDU 92/06/23 00:08:47
HOMEBREW Digest #908 Tue 23 June 1992
FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
Rob Gardner, Digest Coordinator
Contents:
Sterilizing counter-flow chillers (Kinney Baughman)
RE: Homebrew Digest #896 (June 05, 1992) (milbrandt_j)
bugs are eating my hop plants (John L. Isenhour)
Brewpubs in Santa Fe, etc... (sami)
Comments
Papazian at ZipCity, NYC (Charlie Papazian/Boulder)
Re: Aeration with aquarium pumps (Steve Dempsey)
Pitch in Brewkettle (Ruth Mazo Karras)
The Best Homebrewing Books (MR. WEATHER)
Priming Cherry Beer (Richard Goldstein)
Re: Jacksons 4 star beers (Scott J. Leno)
R.R. Ale ("C. Lyons / ASIC Device Development / x9641")
Fast Sparge Truth & Consequence (Larry Barello)
GENERIC ALE (Jack Schmidling)
NA beer, NOT from Micah Millspaw (BOB JONES)
pearled barley ("Brett Lindenbach")
G. Fix/Cambridge/CAMRA Good Beer Guide (Phillip Seitz)
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1992 10:45 EDT
From: Kinney Baughman <BAUGHMANKR@CONRAD.APPSTATE.EDU>
Subject: Sterilizing counter-flow chillers
>:Wort Chillers. OK, I am ready to take the step. The immersion
>variety seems more practical from a sanitation standpoint. I like the idea
>of keeping it clean, but sterilizing it just before use by inserting it into
>the boil for a few minutes before turning the water on.
Oh, well. Thought I'd do my part to dispel the ever-present notion
that counter-flow chillers are impractical or difficult to keep sterile.
When I finish using my counter flow chiller, I drain the chiller body
of water and siphon boiling hot water through the coils to cut the
malt sugars. I then follow with some of my clorox sterilant solution
and let it sit for about 30 minutes. Drain and store.
Before using the chiller for the next brewing session, I fill it with
sterilant again and let it sit for 30 minutes. As if this isn't
enough, before I actually start chilling the wort, I siphon the
boiling hot wort through the copper coils until the wort runs boiling
hot out the bottom. (If boiling hot wort is good enough to sterilize
immersion chillers, it's good enough to sterilize the counter-flow
chillers or else I'm missing something.) I then fill the chiller body
with water, return the collected wort back to the boiler and proceed
with the chilling procedure. I've used counter flow chillers for
eight years and have never had problems with contamination.
Add to this the fact that copper is used to sterilize swimming pools
because it has anti-bacterial properties (or so I'm told) and I've
never worried an iota about contamination with my chiller.
The following points are somewhat technical but I might add that
counter-flow chillers have several things in favor of them over
immersion chillers. (1) Shocking the wort cool produces better cold
break. (2) Since you can start siphoning immediately after finishing
the boil, it's a time saver. And finally (3) I'd argue that there is
less chance of bacterial infection with the counter-flow chiller
because any one drop of wort is going to go from boiling to pitching
temperature in about 6 seconds.
The down-side, of course, is that counter-flow chillers are both more
difficult to make and, if you buy one, are more expensive.
>From a purely technical point of view, I think counter-flow chillers
win out. But from an economic perspective, immersion chillers are the
winner.
But whatever the case, use one or the other. Wort-chillers are
essential to any homebrewery.
The AHA conference was indeed a blast. As mentioned by others, it was
great putting faces to email addresses. There must have been ten
times the number of online brewers at this conference compared to last
year so there's no way I can make disparaging comments about those I
met like I did last year. So count your blessings. :-)
Still I'd be remiss if I didn't say thanks to Martin Lodahl and Mike
Sharpe for their outstanding lambic beer tasting and the information
they provided to us regarding this most unusual of all beer styles. I
thought Mike's framboise was remarkably close to style. Thank you,
thank you, thank you for sharing that with us. It was nectar of the
gods as far as I was concerned and feel privileged to have gotten a
chance to taste some of it.
Cheers, ya'll.
Kinney Baughman | Beer is my business and
baughmankr@conrad.appstate.edu | I'm late for work.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1992 10:08:22 EDT
From: milbrandt_j@wums.wustl.edu
Subject: RE: Homebrew Digest #896 (June 05, 1992)
Who can tells when it is okay to dig up hop rhizomes for transplant (we live in St. Louis)? Also, what size container is adequate for growing hops on the patio?
Signed, Tim and Scott.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1992 10:26:48 -0500 (CDT)
From: ISENHOUR@LAMBIC.FNAL.GOV (John L. Isenhour)
Subject: bugs are eating my hop plants
Some pests are eating the leaves off of my hop plants! I am looking for some
friendly pesticides or remedy, as one of the plants is almost gone. I'll check
the WAIS HBD archive for stuff, but I am looking for something like a cigar
nicotine extraction method to put on the plants, or something equally
innocuous. I have done this before for other plants, but want to collect net
wisdom before I do anything.
tnx - John
John - the HopDevil
hopduvel!john@linac.fnal.gov
john@hopduvel.UUCP
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1992 09:17:54 -0800
From: sami@scic.intel.com
Subject: Brewpubs in Santa Fe, etc...
John Costelloe asked if there are any brewpubs in Santa Fe. We just had
house guests from there and we discussed that subject. It seems that there
is a local microbrewery, but no brewpubs. They think the idea of opening
one there is great. Any takers?
Sam Israelit
Engineer, Businessman, . . . Brewer
Portland, OR
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 22 Jun 92 10:56:34 CDT
From: gjfix@utamat.uta.edu (George J Fix)
Subject: Comments
I am going to be off the network until next fall, so I wanted to take
this opportunity to make some brief comments.
(1) Jeff- Your comments in HBD #906 were generally on the mark, except
for the following to which I take great exception.
> Jack's beer wasn't contaminated (which is good, but I would expect
that of any brewer who had made more than a couple of batches....
Be prepared for a real flame from me on that one via a postcard from
England! For now a simple question will do. Why is it that two
brewers can use the same type and amounts of malt and hops, and have
very similar brewing procedures, yet one brews beers that generally
score in the low 30's and the other typically gets marks in the 40's?
Clearly massive infections or totally disfunctional yeast is not
relevant in either case. But what about minor imperfections? Some
times high hops levels and/or other things will mask these effects
in beers with higher flavor profiles. However, thanks to the judge
certification program, there are people out there (including yourself)
who seem to be able to taste their way through such things. One should
not be overly hyper about these matters, but neither should one take them
too lightly.
(2) Thanks for the great info from the UK. I have not been able to
respond to those whose e-mail address ends with uk. Our local mailer
goes berserk when it sees this.
(3) Larry- I see you have changed your e-mail address. Our local mailer
also does like "!". It is to software systems what Red Star is to yeast!
Feel free to use the material I have posted for your local beer club. Are
you still at Microsoft?
I have really enjoyed the lively discussion on HBD, and look forward the
joining the fray in the fall.
George Fix
------------------------------
Date: 22 Jun 92 12:06:48 EDT
From: Charlie Papazian/Boulder <72210.2754@compuserve.com>
Subject: Papazian at ZipCity, NYC
Howdy All,
I'll be in NYC for the day, this Thursday, June 25. I'll be at Zip City
Brewery that evening for sure from 5 to 7 p.m. and it is likely that I may be
there earlier and hang out there later.
Anyone out there interested in rendesvousing and sharing a few beers, I'll be
glad to see you there.
Charlie Papazian
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 22 Jun 92 10:56:17 MST
From: Steve Dempsey <steved@longs.lance.colostate.edu>
Subject: Re: Aeration with aquarium pumps
In HBD #907, bwc@icd.ab.com (Barry Cunningham) writes
> In Homebrew Digest #906 (June 19, 1992) Bryan Olson (bryan@tekgen.bv.tek.com)
> asks:
>
> > Anyone have any phone numbers or addresses for somewhere that sells
> > the .1 or .2 micron air filters mentioned in the last couple of digests?
> > I.e. ones that can be attached to aquarium pumps.
>
> The 0.2 micron filters can be obtained from Alberta Rager, of course, at
>
> Bacchus & Barleycorn, Ltd.
> 8725Z Johnson Drive
> Merriam, KS 66202
> (913) 262-4243
>
> I got the impression from Alberta at her talk that one would have a lot of
> trouble finding these otherwise.
Maybe hard to get in single unit quantities. If you want 10 or 12 (box
quantity), they can be found at Carolina Biological and Cole-Parmer, both
of whom sell retail; addresses can be found in HBD back issues.
I missed Alberta's talk at the conference (had to make choices) but
from recent posts, it sounds like folks are waiting until the primary
is full or nearly full before aerating. This will surely cause problems
with foam blowing out. I start mine as soon as there is enough wort
in the carboy to cover the air stone and leave it in until the carboy
is about half full of wort and half full of foam. Then the air is
turned off and the foam subsides while the remainder of the wort is
siphoned in.
Another useful tip when working with a .2 micron filter: don't get it
wet. Once liquid gets in there, it's not coming out. The membrane area
is quite small and it's only good for filtering gases. It will merely
absorb liquids and expand, causing it to lock up.
Steve Dempsey, Engineering Network Services
Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523 +1 303 491 0630
INET: steved@longs.LANCE.ColoState.Edu, dempsey@handel.CS.ColoState.Edu
UUCP: boulder!ccncsu!longs.LANCE.ColoState.Edu!steved, ...!ncar!handel!dempsey
------------------------------
Date: 22 Jun 92 13:17:41 EST
From: Ruth Mazo Karras <RKARRAS@PENNSAS.UPENN.EDU>
Subject: Pitch in Brewkettle
In HB 904 Chris Lyons (lyons@adc1.adc.ray.com) asks:
>> 1) Does pitching the yeast into the brew pot (@80F) and siphoning
>> 2 hours later disrupt the fermentation process?
>>
>> 2) Is a significant amount of yeast left behind in the brew pot
>> along with the trub?
As noted in HB 907, a couple of months ago Josh Grosse
(jdg@grex.ann-arbor.mi.us) summarized the reasoning behind Miller's
recommendation that led me to this procedure:
Leave your wort sitting on top of the hot and cold break
material during the respiration phase (8-12 hours), then
rack off the sediment.
Josh goes on to say that he'd have to go back to the old HBD to look up
the specifics, but the generality is:
During respiration, cell production uses lots of trub components
and your lag time will be reduced. Afterwords, the trub is harmful
by contributing to overproduction of fusel alcohols and esters (which
are combinations of fusel alcohols and fatty acids).
For this reason, I have been pitching my yeast into the brewkettle and then
racking off into the primary. I have been waiting about two hours after
pitching to rack, but perhaps should wait longer. . . . From what I can
tell from the speed that fermentation progresses, there is no interruption
in the fermentation process. I am also under the impression that the active
yeast cells are in suspension (and therefore get moved with the racked wort)
and only the inactive cells drop to the bottom with the trub. Of course I
am only doing ales with top fermenting yeast this summer--bottom working
lager yeast may be a different story.
Chris Karras (RKarras@PennSAS.UPenn.edu)
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1992 13:51:07 -0500 (CDT)
From: RKB6116@RIGEL.TAMU.EDU (MR. WEATHER)
Subject: The Best Homebrewing Books
I need your opinions about which homebrewing book(s) are the best
ones to read. Also, I'd like information on whatever mail-order
catalogs anyone has had experience with, and if you liked or
disliked their service. Please e-mail replies to my address.
If anyone's interested, I'll post the results here after everything
comes in.
Thanks in advance,
Mr. Weather <> aka Ken Blair <> rkb6116@zeus.tamu.edu <> Aggieland USA
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 22 Jun 92 12:18:35 PDT
From: Richard.Goldstein@Corp.Sun.COM (Richard Goldstein)
Subject: Priming Cherry Beer
I am calling on the collective wisdom of HBD. I made a cherry wheat
beer several weeks ago, and it will be time to prime soon. Someone on
the net gave me the very interesting idea of priming with cherry juice
or cherry jam to add a little more fruit essence/flavor. So now the
obvious question:
How much?
Clearly that depends on the sugar content. I have been having a hard
time finding pure cherry juice, or perhaps cherry cider, in the bay
area. I can get Dole's Mountain Cherry juice, but that is a blend of
fruit juices. It lists the caloric content per fluid oz. Can someone
tell me how many calories are in an oz of corn sugar? Can I then use an
"equivalent" (calorie for calorie for say 3/4 cup of corn sugar) amount
of fruit juice? What's faulty with this reasoning?
If I use cherry preserves/jam/etc, how much do I use? In this case I
want to use a product that won't introduce fruit chunks into the final
brew. However, using these products would introduce pectin, and I of
course made every effort earlier in the process to not introduce pectin
into the beer. So what do I do to mitigate/remove/reduce this pectin
addition?
Anecdotal observations, experiences, and advice will be appreciated.
Thanks in advance.
Rich Goldstein
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 22 Jun 92 15:47:50 EDT
From: leno@grumpy.cray.com (Scott J. Leno)
Subject: Re: Jacksons 4 star beers
>Scotland
> Traquair House Ale
I had the fortune of trying this last Saturday while visiting the
Brickskeller (sp?) in DC. This is truly a great beer. If any one
knows more about this beer, please fill me in. I will check my copy
of Jacksons book tonight. I almost didn't shell out the $9 for it,
but decided hey what the hell, Imight never see this beer again.
The menu listed something about them getting most of the 250 cases
sent east of the Mississippi.
On another note, has anyone ever seen Younger's Tartan Special in
the states? I saw it in Toronto in early May. I had never seen it
outside of Scotland. The 'skeller had a can of it, but nothing for
sale. The can got my hopes up (not the metal, just the label).
All in all the 'skeller was overwhelming. I will go again next time
I visit DC.
Just Impressed,
Scott
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 22 Jun 92 14:14 EDT
From: "C. Lyons / ASIC Device Development / x9641" <LYONS@adc1.adc.ray.com>
Subject: R.R. Ale
>I've decided to make a batch a Charlie P.'s Rocky
>Raccoon Lager. However, I not setup for lagers so
>I'll be brewing R.R. Ale. Does anyone have any
>comments on what I should expect?
Expect a great ale. R.R. Ale is the basis for many of
my brews (including my hot-pepper ale). The only change
I've made with Charlie's receipe is to use 4lbs of dry
malt (rather than 3.5lbs) and 2lbs of honey (rather than
2.5lbs). I've found the use of less honey and more malt
avoids any cider like taste and gives a nice full flavor.
Following the remainder of the receipe will result in a
fantastic beer, which seems to improve with age (some how
I can't seem to let it age for more than one month). Using
this receipe as a starting point can lead to many
interesting brews. Happy brewing!
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 22 Jun 92 13:52:58 PDT
From: polstra!larryba@uunet.UU.NET (Larry Barello)
Subject: Fast Sparge Truth & Consequence
I brewed a vienna lager this weekend. Since I was rushed for time I just
trimmed here and there. In particular I sparged 6.25 gal in 20 minutes.
In spite of the fast sparge time I achieved near 100% extract efficiency, as
compared to Dave Miller's numbers. (8.5lb of grain, about 50:50 pale
malt and lt munich/crystal, OG = 1.050/5.75 gal = 34 pt/lb/gal final)
My sparge technique is to open the drain cock wide and recirculate until
the flow rate slows down (compact the grain bed). This typically takes 10-
20 minutes. Then the sparge settles down to about 6-8 min/gal. With the
lager the sparge never seemed to slow down that much.
Anyway, I have always maintained that my extract efficiency seems to be more
related to the quality of my crush (the sparge rate as well!) than anything
else.
Many questions:
a: are there any negatives associated with fast sparging, other than loss
of efficiency?
b: Anyone have any opinions/data regarding the treatment
of sparge water vs mashing water? I always have measured out the
proper amount of water for my entire brew and treated it prior to
mashing. Hence the sparge water is treated with salts as well.
c: Do others on the net use Calcium Chloride? THe vienna lager was the
first beer of mine to use CaCl2 along with Gypsum. Even the small amount
I used (2 gm/7gal) seemed to make the resulting wort sweeter. Perhaps
it was the reduction of sulphate dryness? I used only 3gm of Gypsum in the
water.
Cheers!
- Larry Barello
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 22 Jun 92 13:04 CDT
From: arf@ddsw1.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)
Subject: GENERIC ALE
To: Homebrew Digest
Fm: Jack Schmidling
From: gummitch@techbook.com (Jeff Frane)
>Having not only tasted WGB, but.....
Now that my beer has not only been publicly proclaimed to be NOT the World's
Worst, in addition to being "clean", I will leave the "World's Greatest" fun
behind and return to what I originally was trying to produce and indeed
called it, i.e. Generic Ale.
I will use Jeff's comments to illustrate my discussion......
>Jack's beer wasn't contaminated (which is good, but I would expect that of
any brewer who had made more than a couple of batches)
In actual fact, I made many batches over many years and most of them were or
became contaminated. Without access to a forum such as this, I would never
have known that Red Star had problems nor would I have had a clue that most
of the experiments with different yeast were simply with re-packaged Red
Star. So your comment is misleading to say the least.
> but it also wasn't tasty.
Now we get to Generic Ale.
>More to the point, I think you are wrong in general: I think bitterness
is great but...
I discussed the reason for the excess bitterness yesterday....
> when it exists in a (sorry, Jack) thin and otherwise flavorless beer, you
don't get good beer.
>I think it could have been improved considerably--not necessarily by
adding a lot of malt--but simply by bringing in some other flavor
elements.
As a born-again brewer, with a scientific bent and perhaps a wooden tongue, I
decided that the best way to learn brewing was to start with the most basic
recipe and process and find out just what basic beer, i.e. Generic Ale should
taste like. Once I had that firmly established, I could then venture into
other "flavor elements" using Generic Ale as a standard.
Generic Ale was defined as:
American Pale Malt
Yeast
Hops
Water
More specifically, it is now for a 5 gal batch:
9 lbs 2 row Harrington
Edme yeast (pure cultured)
1 oz Chinook Hops
Chicago/Lake Michigan water, pre-boiled
OG 1.040
If that recipe produces a "not tasty, thin, flavorless" beer on the tongue of
an expert, I certainly will not argue nor try to defend it other than to say
that, that is what one gets when one uses those ingredients. That IS Generic
Ale and it is my starting point for new adventures. Everytime I try
something new, I have some GA as a standard to compare it with.
I might also add that I am glad that I am not expert enough to find it boring
and tasteless.
> With all that bitterness, a profundity of hop _flavor_ would
have made for a better beer.
Just as a point of interest, I always add 1/4 of the hops after the boil so a
nominal attempt at aroma is SOP.
js
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1992 15:42 PDT
From: BOB JONES <BJONES@NOVAX.llnl.gov>
Subject: NA beer, NOT from Micah Millspaw
I am going to apologize to all of you out there in HBD land.
About a month ago I said that I would post my notes on brewing low and
non alcohol beers, well, I can't find but only a few bits and pieces.
As soon as I locate the missing disks I will put what I have together
and post it. Unfortunatly it may be a while before I have an opportunity
it get at it, I've very busy since returning from Milwaukee. Also I had
a great time at the conference, it was nice meeting everyone and seeing
what they looked like ( but everyone seemed older and taller than they
should have been!). Oh, and just for the record I thought that Jacks
beer was okay.
Micah Millspaw 6/22/92
------------------------------
Date: 22 Jun 1992 20:03:57 -0600
From: "Brett Lindenbach" <Brett_Lindenbach@qms1.life.uiuc.edu>
Subject: pearled barley
Subject: Time:7:58
PM
OFFICE MEMO pearled barley
Date:6/22/92
Hey brewheads. I was recently in my local bulk-food store and noticed a
bin of pearled barley. I thought this might come in handy, so I bought
a pound. Well, I checked all my mash recipes and could not find any
mention of this stuff. Does anybody have any suggestions? Brett
Lindenbach
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 23 Jun 92 01:46 GMT
From: Phillip Seitz <0004531571@mcimail.com>
Subject: G. Fix/Cambridge/CAMRA Good Beer Guide
Our story so far: In issue 904 George Fix, a hearty traveler, inquired where to
find a good beer in Cambridge, England. In issue 905 Chuck Mryglot suggested
the Mill and also the Anchor. While I haven't been beer drinking in that part
of the world (yet), I did look up the area in the 1991 CAMRA _Good Beer Guide_.
The following Cambridge pubs, all serving real ale from hand-pumped kegs, are
recommended:
Ancient Druids (Napier Street)--a brew pub with a wide selection
Bird in Hand (73 Newmarket Road)
Cambridge Blue (85 Gwydir Street)
Cow & Calf (St Peters Street) -- "Smashing little pub"
Free Press (Prospect Row)
Panton Arms (Panton Street) -- "Excellent pub"
Tap & Spile/The Mill (13-14 Mill Lane) -- "Ever changing range of ales from
independent brewers" "six guest beers"
Tram Depot (5 Dover Street)
White Hart (2 Sturton Street) -- "The landlord has won several cellarmanship
awards, as reflected in the quality of the beer"
White Swan (109 Mill Road)
In addition, Cambridgeshire does have a local brewery making real ale: Elgood &
Sons Ltd, in Wisbech. The make a bitter (OG 1.036, 4.1% by lume) and Greyhound
Strong Bitter (GSB) (1.045, 5.2%).
This might be a good time to mention the _Good Beer Guide_ which is published
annually by CAMRA. The pub section of the guide contains detailed listings
with descriptions of all the pubs that local CAMRA chapters have deemed to be
zymologically correct, including information on parking, food, lodging, decor,
etc. Also included is an apparently comprehensive listing of all breweries and
beers in the UK, with tasting notes, original gravity, and alchohol by volume.
This stuff is great reading--I mean, why can't WE have beers named Maiden's
Ruin, Old Fart, or Santa's Revenge. Finally, there's a series of essays
detailing current status of the battle for real ale, and a listing of prize
beers over the years. All this is packaged in a 500+ page guide that is
absolutely required reading for anybody interested in British beer--and believe
me, it's great fun to read. In fact, I'm using it as a tourguide to plan an
upcoming trip to Suffolk (home of seven breweries making real ale, including
the Greene King brewery of Abbott Ale fame). The problem is how to get a
copy. I did see one at the British Travel Bookshop ((800-448-3039), and when I
called today they said they still had it. They also say they are the only
source for copies in the U.S. and that they may or may not be able to get more.
The cost was $17.95. If your interested, send them a note at 40 W. 57th St.,
New York, NY 10019. I think they need to realize that this publication isn't
just a sop for people visiting merrie olde England for a week during the
summer. So how come we don't have a guide like this for the U.S.?
Thanks George, wherever you are, for this opportunity to mount the soapbox.
------------------------------
End of HOMEBREW Digest #908, 06/23/92
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