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HOMEBREW Digest #0944
This file received at Sierra.Stanford.EDU 92/08/11 12:04:18
HOMEBREW Digest #944 Mon 10 August 1992
FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
Rob Gardner, Digest Coordinator
Contents:
Re: Counter Flow Chillers <rocket science> (Paul dArmond)
Milwaukee homebrew supply shops ("Deborah Poirier")
all malt vs extracts (Mark R. Garti)
Pale Malt Color (Martin Wilde)
British v Other pale malted grains (Brett Shorten)
History of Sparging and Mashout (Paul dArmond)
Mashers & Coolers from Micah Millspaw (BOB JONES)
SmartCaps Info (camartens)
re Wort cooling (added salt) (Chip Hitchcock)
RE: Infections with Tap Water Rinse (BELLAGIO_DAVID)
The Alien Retorts (Kinney Baughman)
Yeast reproduction and cold break formation figures (Kinney Baughman)
Ken Johnson, the lamest (Kevin L. McBride)
All-grain Smoked Porter recipe (Kevin L. McBride)
Cider Yeast, Coldbreak (Jack Schmidling)
Runoff temp, mashout (James Dipalma)
7 gallon carboys (Guy D. McConnell)
Soft water (how to get it?) (Phillip Seitz)
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1992 09:57:27 -0700 (PDT)
From: Paul dArmond <paulf@henson.cc.wwu.edu>
Subject: Re: Counter Flow Chillers <rocket science>
In HBD #941, on 3 Aug 92, Joe Rolfe asked about cutting down on water
usage and getting a lower output temperature from his counterflow chiller.
Here is the Rocket Science part.
My source is 'Cryogenic Engineering' by Russel B. Scott, D. Van Nostrand
Co. Inc. 1959. Heat exchangers are important to cyogenics because they
form a very important part of the refrigerators used to liquify gases. It
really is "rocket science", since you need lots of LOX and other gasses to
"make der rockets go up." Other engineering books on steam power, oil
refining and thermo-hydrodynamics will provide similar information.
I'm not going to go into the mathematics, but try to explain everything as
empirically as possible. Heat transfer equations are very heavy on
differential equations. This stuff is not only hard to type without a
mathematical typesetting system, but it isn't very accessible to most people.
Joe's questions get right to the nub of the tradeoffs involved in heat
exchangers. In the best of all worlds, you would use as little water as
possible, get the biggest temperature drop, and do it as quickly as
possible. Unfortunately, all three of these factors work against at least
one of the others. All of these factors are expressed in the
heat-transfer coefficient.
This coefficient is expressed as:
watts / [(cm**2)(deg K) in CGS Watts per square centimeter-degree Kelvin
That's how much heat flows into the wall of the heat exchanger tube from
the liquid in contact with the tube wall. The formulas assume that the
tube is straight, cylinderical, and smooth, and that the flow of the
liquid inside of it is turbulent (i.e. the tube is small enough that the
flow doesn't channel in the center.) The factors that determine the heat
transfer coefficient are:
The specific heat of the fluid - This is a measure of heat (as opposed to
temperature) and empirically is measured by how much ice is melted by a given
mass at a given temperature. Beer wort has a higher specific heat than
water. The concept of specific heat supposedly came from Count Rumford
burning his mouth on some apple sauce. The apple sauce was at the same
temperature as his tea which didn't burn. He had just got his first
thermometer and was measuring everything in sight.
The mass velocity of the liquid: g / sec cm**2 How much mass is passing
through a given cross section each second. For a given tubing size, this
is strictly determined by the available pressure and flow. For your water
supply this is effectively limited by the maximum pressure available.
The thermal conductivity of the liquid. Suprisingly, this is quite low
for most liquids. Water is nearly an insulator, if all convection is
supressed. I assume that wort has a low conductivity as well. Things
like mercury and sodium metal have high conductivity.
The diameter of the tube. For tubes that don't have a circular cross
section, this is replaced by the "hydraulic radius" which is defined as
the cross-sectional area divided by the wetted perimeter.
In designing a heat exchanger, there are only a few of these things that
we can influence. We can alter the mass velocity by turning up or down
the flow on the faucet or altering the siphoning height. We can pick the
diameter of the tube that we use.
Remember that we are looking at maximizing the heat-transfer coefficient
at one point of the tube in one direction (wort to tube or tube to water).
We are only dealing with a slice, so that if the tranfer coefficient is
maximized, then we will get the most heat transfer out of a given length
of tubing. The transfer coefficient will also set an upper limit on the
in/out temperature differential for a particular length. If the tube was
infinitely long then the water out temp and the wort in temp would be
equal, and the wort out temp would be the same as the water in. The
drawback with an infinitely long tube is that you would collapse both your
lungs before you could get the siphon started. Also for an immersion type
cooler, it would not be possible to fit an infinite amount of tubing in
your brew pot, no matter how tightly you coiled it.
At any rate, you want the coefficient as high as you can get it. It is
maximized when the tube is small (or the hydralic radius is small) and the
mass velocity is big. This has several implications:
1) better heat transfer means using more water (faster flow).
2) Smaller tubes are better than bigger ones. This makes sense, since
there is more surface area for the same amount of copper. It is limited
by the ratio of cross sectional area to wall thickness. The very small
tubes have a problem with this, in that their inside area is small
compared to the relative thickness of the wall. Heat transfer is
inversely proportional to wall thickness, so there is a limit to how small
is small enough.
Well, we don't want to use more water, so that's out. Joe is already
using 1/2" tubing in his cooler, so it would be rude to tell him to get
smaller tubing. Wasteful too. What we can do is decrease the hydralic
radius of his tube. A circular cross-section has the lowest possible
ratio of area to perimeter. This is why bubbles are round. So how about
making the copper tubing not round. There are some very high efficiency
florescent light tubes that have a rippled surface to increase the surface
to volume ratio. The tubes look pinched, the pinches alternating 90
degrees from each other. Maybe this could be done with a pair of
vice-grip plyers so the tube doesn't get pinched too much.
This high ratio of surface are to volume is why the breweries use flat
plate coolers, the transfer coefficient is quite high if you get away from
using tubes. Multiple small tubes in parallel are also used for high
efficiency heat exchangers.
If you are building a cooler, here are some things to consider:
* for the same price, more feet of small tube are better than fewer feet
of big tube.
* The coefficients in a counterflow exchanger need to match. The water
side will have to have a larger flow to match the lower specific heat of
water compared to wort.
* If you have a choice, thinner copper tube is better since heat flow is
equal to conductivity / thickness.
* When using an immersion chiller, stir the wort. This will raise the
mass velocity on the wort side and improve the heat transfer. Remember:
water and wort are poor conductors, heat transfer takes place by convection.
To get into the true "rocket science" of counterflow wort chiller design,
the specific heat, conductivity and viscosity of hot beer wort need to be
known. Can anybody help?
------------------------------
Date: THU, 06 Aug 92 14:46:56 EDT
From: "Deborah Poirier" <POIRIER@INRS-ENER.UQuebec.CA>
Subject: Milwaukee homebrew supply shops
Howdy folks
I have a buddy who'll be in Milwaukee at the end of the month. He'd like
to know if there are any good homebrew supply shops. I'd appreciate any
references, since I can get him to pick me up some cara-pils while there.
(Rare as hen's teeth here in Montreal).
Thank you in advance, kind souls who send me info!
Deb
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 6 Aug 92 16:16:50 EDT
From: garti@mrg.xyplex.com (Mark R. Garti)
Subject: all malt vs extracts
how do brews made from extracts stack up against all malt
brews? has recent extract technology made the difference
negligable. there is the obvious freedom to experiment
with flavour, colour and sugar content - is that the point?
can a great brew be made with extracts? or is all malt
brewing where it's at?
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 6 Aug 92 19:26:55 GMT
From: Martin Wilde <martin@gamma.intel.com>
Subject: Pale Malt Color
From: Brett Shorten <s05bas@cc.uow.edu.au>
Subject: British v Other pale malted grains
In Digest #942 Brett Shorten ask if British grains are darker than
American:
Yes they are, the color Lovibond/pound for British Pale is about 3.0.
For American Klages/Huntington (good old BudMillOors mix) it is 2.2.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1992 13:19:52 -0700 (PDT)
From: Paul dArmond <paulf@henson.cc.wwu.edu>
Subject: History of Sparging and Mashout
Sparging is a fairly recent technique. In Andrew Ure's 'Dictionary of the
Practical and Useful Arts', 184?, sparging is described as a process only
used in Scotland for producing high gravity ales. Traditional English ale
brewing used multiple mashes to get all the extract. Usually there were
three mashes: Strong Beer, Middle or Ordinary, and Small Beer. The
respective gravities were 1.060+, 1.030+ and 1.020-. Small beer was
sometimes called Table beer. It is also the source of the saying, "That's
small beer [compared to...]" Each of the three mashes was brewed and
fermented separately. Porter was the first English Ale that combined the
mashes. [See Terry Foster's 'Porter']
Ure's article on beer is very complete. The process of sparging is well
described. Ure even compared the yields of sparging vs triple mashing,
noting that sparging gave a better yield. He encouraged the adoption of
sparging as an improvement to the brewing process, and lamented that more
brewers didn't avail themselves of this technique.
The reason for sprinkling the sparge water over the top of the grain bed
is that the mash tun was not kept full of liquid during the sparge. About
half the wort was run out before the sparging was started. The
sprinkling was necessary to prevent channeling in the grain bed. No
mention of why this was done. The modern method of keeping the liquid
level above the grain only requires that the added water not disturb the
grain bed.
Why let the liquid level drop? My guess is that brewers were just
continuing to hold on to the old practices learned from the triple mash
method. If more than half of the liquid was drained the "goods" might get
too compact and stick. The liquid was needed to float the grains so they
didn't get too tight.
My next reference to sparging comes from the 1895 Encyclopedia Brittanica
(article on Brewing.) Now everybody is sparging and the description is
the same as Ure's. Ure is even cited as the source for improved yield for
sparging. No mention is made of the triple mashing method.
So in 50 years, sparging went from a curious custom of the savage Picts
(just kidding) to the standard brewing practice in England. Neither of
these two sources say anything at all about lager brewing. All references
are only to England. The inference is that lager brewing was a rarity in
England at the turn of the century.
So sparging is a recent practice, less than 150 years in widespread
usage.
Here's a puzzle: Neither of these two sources say anything about mashing
out. The descriptions are quite detailed as to temperatures and so forth,
so it's not an oversight.
Who can find an early reference to mashing out? What is the origin of
this curious custom?
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1992 14:42 PDT
From: BOB JONES <BJONES@NOVAX.llnl.gov>
Subject: Mashers & Coolers from Micah Millspaw
Wort chillers and igloo coolers.
Unless I misunderstood, several HBers are useing the round vertical
type ice chests as lauter vessels,that is something to sparge in.
Since these industious brewers have gone to the trouble of putting
a false bottom in the cooler why not use it as you mash tun as well,
these things are certainly well insulated.
Also I have seen 10 gallon metal coolers of this type at hardware stores
for around $50 they are galvanized on the outsie and have a food grade
coating on the inside. A fellow in my homebrew club made a mash\lauter
tun from one of these coolers and is very happy with it.
On to wort chillers, I am planning to build a newer, and I hope
better immersion chiller. The basis of my idea is that with a 1\2 inch
copper line with tap water running thru it picks up from the wort about as
much heat as is possible in the first nine feet. And so I intend to
build a chiller that uses 4 circuts each 12 ft long in parallel made
of 1\2 inch copper. I will have to use a manifold on both the inlet and
outlet and will probably add some temperature sensors and water pressure
guages, in hope that these may give some way to optimize the delta T by
varing the flow rate. Anybody try anything similar? If so please post
the pluses and minuses. Thanks
Micah Millspaw
8/6/92
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 6 Aug 92 15:18:41 PDT
From: camartens@ucdavis.edu
Subject: SmartCaps Info
TO: BEER NET MEMBERS
FROM: BRUCE ZENNER,
VICE PRESIDENT, RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
AQUANAUTICS CORPORATION
CONCERNING: USE OF SMARTCAPS*
Some friends and fellow brewers who are on BeerNet told me that there had been some
discussion of SmartCaps and how to use them effectively. Aquanautics developed these
crowns in collaboration with a closure manufacturer, ZapatA Industries. I headed the
development project.
These crowns have a liner material containing an oxygen scavenging formulation, and
can remove headspace oxygen and control oxygen permeation through the gasket material
for up to six months. The chemistry is a catalyzed oxygen reduction system, and is
generally regarded as safe (GRAS) by U.S. FDA criteria.
SmartCaps* are activated by exposure to high humidity, thus they are stable under
normal storage conditions, and activated by the moisture content in beer. However, they
should NOT be boiled to sterilize, since this will activate the oxygen reduction system
prior to use, and decrease the effectiveness of the SmartCaps following bottling.
If you sterilize your SmartCap crowns, do so by hypochlorite (bleach) or metabisulfite
treatment instead of boiling; you'll increase the effectiveness of the SmartCaps.
If you have any questions, or comments, I can be reached by calling Aquanautics at (510)
521-4331, or by writing to me:
Bruce Zenner
Aquanautics Corporation
980 Atlantic Ave., Suite 101
Alameda, CA 94501
Our technical services representative, Charles Benedict, can also answer questions if I am
not available.
Good luck and remember, there are no bad beers....some are just better than others!
Hi everyone. My name is Craig Martens. I am relatively new to brewing and
beernet. In response to Michael Lewandowski's inquiry about SmartCaps on
July 14, I asked Bruce if he would write a little blurb about their use being
that he is their inventor and also a homebrewer. I would just like to add that
I receive nothing for doing this etc. You can also reach Bruce through me
if you have any questions at camartens@ucdavis.edu. Brew long and prosper.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 6 Aug 92 17:22:08 EDT
From: cjh@diaspar.HQ.Ileaf.COM (Chip Hitchcock)
Subject: re Wort cooling (added salt)
Adding salt to the ice blocks used in chilling isn't going to help much
(if at all). What the salt does in icecream making is allow the water to
stay liquid (thus contacting more of the surface of the inner canister and
cooling it more effectively than straight ice) at temperatures below its
normal freezing point; you can produce horrid icecream by putting too much
salt in the freezer, which gets the mix too cold too quickly and produces
ice crystals instead of smooth-frozen cream.
Somebody who has a better grasp of munging specific heats might be able
to say whether having the ice become water at a lower temperature
represents an improvement in cooling; in a previous round I was told that
the specific heat of ice is much lower than that of water. But this isn't
likely to be a large effect, since the freezing point won't be depressed
very much---I think the limit for salty water is ~5 centigrade degrees
based on the freezing-point depression of water and the maximum solubility
of salt in water.
------------------------------
Date: 6 Aug 92 14:16:00 -0700
From: BELLAGIO_DAVID@Tandem.COM
Subject: RE: Infections with Tap Water Rinse
In reply to Phil Miller's query about infections from tap water, I will have
to start by saying that I am also a NOVICE with only 2.5 batches under my belt.
I have an R/O system for my water supply that I use for my brew water. It makes
a world of difference. I still boil all of my water, but I still rinse with
tap water. What I do is turn up my hot water heater the night before to its
hottest position. Then I rinse with this HOT water. I measured the temp and
it was between 160 and 170 degrees. You actually develop a tolerance to hot
water after numerous sprays on your body and hands. I figure that anything in
there was killed by the overnight increase in temp.
> Tap water (at least most taps) contain VERY few bacteria or fungi. You
> could hardly even find one at high magnification.
I think the idea of adding chlorine to the water is in order to kill bacteria.
I don't know if all bacteria is killed however.
> The things that I kept the _same_ were 1) I rinsed all my equipment with tap
> water after sanitizing and 2) I added 2 gallons of grocery store
> fill-it-yourself distilled water to my 3 gallons of wort after the boil.
> I figured that it's one or both of these things that's causing the infection.
I think the tap water rinse is probably OK, but would suggest at least doing
a hot water rinse. I think your problem is adding the unboiled grocery store
water. Even though it is distilled, the container you used may not have been
sanitized and/or the water coming out is not actually what you think. You
should simply boil it separately and let it cool covered, then add it in. This
is only my novice opinion.
Now a question for the more experienced. It seems that I have ran into my
first screw up as a brewer. I recently made a Christmas Ale which ended up
with a OG of 1.063. I racked the coolled wort into my primary 6.5 gallon
plastic fermenter and topped up with sanitized cool water to what I thought
was the 5 gallon mark, but then I worried I put too much in. I pitched the
yeast and figured Not to Worry. Well that was 8/2 and now on 8/6 the
kraeusen has gone into the airlock and clogged it. I assume this led to the
lid popping off the fermenter. I ferment under my house as it stays at 70
degrees during the summer and also has lots of bacteria present. My question
is what to do now? I think I have a few options:
1) Get pissed off more than I am now and chuck the whole thing and brew a new
batch and don't worry.
2) Rack some beer out and put the lid on and clean the airlock and then worry
about whether it is infected or not.
I used Wyeast 1007 and noticed that the description that someone posted before
stated that it has high flocculation compared to medium for all the other
Wyeast ale yeasts. Does this mean it will produce more kraeusen? The problem
also is I probably will take action before I get to hear any of your responses,
but will welcome them to help determine what to do if this happens again.
Super Dave
Bellagio_David@Tandem.Com
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1992 20:23 EDT
From: Kinney Baughman <BAUGHMANKR@CONRAD.APPSTATE.EDU>
Subject: The Alien Retorts
Re: Donald O'Connor's diatribe of yesterday
Gee, Don, my post evidently got under your skin. Sorry, Pal. I
ruined several batches of beer because I didn't change the o-rings and
was simply trying to keep a fellow brewer from making the same
mistake. It appeared to me that you were talking from a theoretical
point of view. I enjoy theoretical discussions as much as anyone but
experience is the final arbiter. I was just passing along my
experience.
So. While we're on the subject. Just what have you been doing? Have
you been kegging your beers using old o-rings? Have they been turning
out OK? For the record, the stouts I made suffered no discernible
Coke flavors. It wasn't until I made a lager that I realized
something was amiss.
As for the pot scrubber idea, I got it from my late brewing partner,
Mike Morrissey, the guy responsible for both bringing the Bruheat into
the U.S. and for helping me refine the bottomless fermenter which
eventually turned into the BrewCap. He said he didn't know where he
saw the idea first but he thought it was a good one. It could have
been Al Andrews. If you say it was, I have no reason to dispute it.
It is a good idea and kudos to Al. All I know is I've been using the
scrubber for years. The flourish I added was to wrap it in a fine
mesh hop bag which, for me, greatly increased the filtering action.
In the spirit of the digest, I passed it along. I sure wasn't trying
to slap myself on the back. That always throws my elbow out of joint
and I hate it when that happens!
Frankly, I'm irked by your claim that I'm not interested in any "facts
that contradict my truth". While you might truthfully say that of
yourself, I called on the chemists to settle the dispute on the blue
stuff on copper. I AM interested in knowing what the stuff is. I
HAVE seen it in my wort chillers and I DON't want to contaminate
anyone's beer. Jeez!
Aw. What the Hell. I can't resist...
>By the way Kinney, the next meeting in Austin for the support group
>for humans who have been abducted by aliens is September 13. (I'm
>not making this up.) Bring your o-rings.
That's OK, Don. You take my ticket. Texas is a long drive from here.
Just another cheap, boneheaded, heretical post from the Southland.
+------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Kinney Baughman Appalachian State University |
| baughmankr@appstate.bitnet Boone, NC 28608 |
| baughmankr@conrad.appstate.edu (704)963-6949 |
| |
| Bush/Quayle '92 "Just Say Noe" |
+------------------------------------------------------------------+
Sigh. It's times like these that make me wish for the good ol' days
in the HBD when the members of this forum were only interested in open
minded, friendly discussions of the issues; when we were all genuinely
concerned about helping each other in their quest for the world's
perfect beer. Remember when people used to commend us for being the
best-behaved bunch on the net? Remember when?
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1992 20:24 EDT
From: Kinney Baughman <BAUGHMANKR@CONRAD.APPSTATE.EDU>
Subject: Yeast reproduction and cold break formation figures
Now let's see if I can get in a post without being flamed...
HBD regular and Fidonet Zymurgy leader, John de Carlo asks:
>Can anyone point me to a reference that describes the typical
>yeast reproduction activity for homebrewers?
This may not be exactly what you want, John, but I finally found this
table when cleaning off my miserable excuse for a desk this past week-
end. Dave Logsdon gave it to me about 6 years ago as he was getting
Wyeast off the ground.
Yeast Reproduction Time
TEMPERATURE ALE LAGER
104 degrees F. 4.0 hr. no growth
95 " 2.0 4.8 hr.
91 1.4 1.8
82 1.6 2.0
68 3.2 3.7
50 11.0 9.0
45 42.0 24.0
As I understand this table, it effectively gives us a report on lag
time. The smaller the hour figure, the shorter the lag time. Clearly
both lager and ale yeast reproduce at faster rates at temperatures of
between 82 and 91 degrees. The reproduction rate is still vigorous
but starts falling off at temperatures between 68 and 82 degrees.
These are not recommended fermenting temperatures. I assume they
speak to the respiration phase when the yeast is/are reproducing and
have yet to start fermenting the wort. At least that's my
recollection of the conversation I had with Dave. (Yo, Jeff. If
you're listening, correct me if I'm wrong.)
It's as a result of this table that I've advocated pitching yeast at
around 70 degrees then moving the fermenter to the basement/
refrigerator. The yeast reproduces at a comfortable temperature and
should be hitting a reasonable population figure by the time the wort
cools to the ambient temperature of the fermentation room/chamber and
starts fermenting. Of course if you're pitching with an up and
running yeast starter with a sufficient yeast count, the pitching
temperature of the wort is not as critical.
Alan Edwards notes:
>Al Korzonas writes (in HBD #941):
>| In his talk on wort chillers at the Conference, Jeff Frane said the most
>| enlightening (to me) fact of the whole conference: that cold break begins
>| at 65F. Wow!
>Has anyone heard this statement made anywhere else? Anyone's experience
>bear this one out? I have a VERY hard time believing that you need to
>cool below 65F before you start getting cold break.
>Before I started using an immersion chiller, I had maybe half an inch of
>break material in my primary fermenter. Now that I chill the wort down
>to about 70F, I get at least three inches of cold break (after it settles
>for a few hours).
I decided to check my copy of _Malting and Brewing Science_ on this
one since I have the highest degree of respect for the opinions of
both Jeff and Al. There I found the following chart that may shed
light on this discussion.
300|
*
|
250|
|
|
200| *
|
|
150| *
|
| *
100|
| *
|
50| *
| *
|
0|_____|_____|______|______|______|______|______|______|______|
10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90
^ Temperature (degrees C.)
|
| 50 68 86 104 122 140 158 176 194
| Temperature (degrees F.)
|
Cold break (I added in the Fahrenheit temperatures -krb)
(mg/ml)
If I may interpolate, trub formation is relatively light, albeit
measurable, at temperatures above 100 degrees F. At temperatures
below 100 degrees the curve begins to steepen significantly. I also
think one could read the chart as saying that trub formation is
minimal until it reaches 64 degrees *Centigrade* rather than
Fahrenheit, at which point it begins increasing until it reaches 40
degrees C. where it begins increasing at a moderately faster rate.
Yet again, if you look at the curve at around 64 degree F., it really
starts taking off. So perhaps that's what Jeff was trying to say. I
didn't hear Jeff's talk so I'm not sure what he said or what his
sources are. Still, if this chart is to be believed trub formation
begins, although slightly, once the wort begins cooling, though
significant trub formation doesn't occur until wort temperatures drop
to around 100 degrees F., with exceptionally fast cold break
formation kicking in at 64 degrees F.
The text goes on to say,
"During the cooling of wort, cold trub progressively precipitates. It
is impossible to remove all the potential precipitate because the trub
continues to form during fermentation and subsequent beer cooling.
However, many breweries, especially those concerned with lager
fermentation, remove much of the cold trub...
A recent survey has shown that in Swiss breweries, the cold break
content of beers varied over a wide range...The effects on
fermentation, maturation and beer clarification were not significant.
Druing the course of successive fermentations, the preference of
tasting panels shifted from beers where cold trub had not been removed
to beers where partial removal had been practiced. The overall
impression from other studies is that the presence of cold trub may
stimulate the rate of fermentation, possibly by providing nuclei for
carbon dioxide release; on the other hand, with more delicate beers
there seems to be more possiblity of having unacceptable sulphury
aroma and taste.
.....
The production of cold trub has received little biochemical study.
Many years ago,it was claimed that to get maximum trub production it
was necessary to cool slowly over the range 120-80 degrees F., at
least 30 seconds being required, and mechanical agitation being
desirable. Later results described worts where the best cold trub
formation occurred when cooling from 140-70 degrees F. took place in 3
seconds or less." (pp. 523-524)
So there you have it according to Hough, Briggs, Stevens and Young.
Some cold trub is formed as soon as the beer begins cooling, with
significant trub production beginning around 64 degrees F. Not only
temperature but also the speed at which the wort cools appears to be a
factor according to some. Its removal seems to be more important when
brewing delicately flavored beers than with heavily flavored ones. At
least that's the way I read it.
Trubles on my mind,
Kinney Baughman
baughmankr@conrad.appstate.edu
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 6 Aug 92 21:13:50 EDT
From: klm@mscg.com (Kevin L. McBride)
Subject: Ken Johnson, the lamest
Warning: This article contains a mild flame. I tried to resolve this
matter by e-mail, but Ken seems to be either incapable or unwilling to
engage in a conversation where he might have to admit that he may have
stepped a little bit out of bounds.
I've kept it reasonably mild, but if you want to know what I really
think about this subject, ask me by e-mail.
I apologize in advance for the waste of bandwidth, but I needed to say
this. I'm pissed and I think that at least some of you are too. To
make up for this, I will post a recipe next.
On Thursday, July 30th, I sent the following letter to Ken Johnson in
response to his unnecessarily harsh statement:
> You write:
>
> > If your beer quality goes down when switching to full mash beers, then you
> > are lame.
>
> and you make yourself look like a jerk for posting such crap. One
> Jack Schmidling is enough, we don't need you posting flame bait too.
>
> Please consider posting an apology for this rash, completely
> unnecessary statement.
>
> The purpose of the Homebrew Digest is to share knowledge and
> experience. My first couple of mash experiences were miserable.
> People on the HBD helped me fix my problems and now my beers are fine.
> We don't want novices being scared off by self-proclaimed wizards who
> say that you are lame if you can't figure it out by yourself.
>
> You probably just encouraged several beginning all-grain brewers to
> switch back to extract brewing with your stupid comment.
I finally received a reply from Ken today, August 6th. His reply
consisted of a single word:
"bullshit"
Ken, I attempted to be reasonable about this. I contacted you by
e-mail and told you, without resorting to outright flaming, that I
thought you were out of line and that the Homebrew Digest deserved an
apology for your rash statement.
I now see that attempting to reason with you is like having an
argument with a tree stump. You have shown yourself to be an asshole
and I sincerely hope that you lose whatever credibility you may have
had in this forum.
F.O.A.D.
- --
Kevin
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 6 Aug 92 22:02:22 EDT
From: klm@mscg.com (Kevin L. McBride)
Subject: All-grain Smoked Porter recipe
The smoked porter served at Greg Noonan's Vermont Pub & Brewery
inspired me to brew this. I love Greg's version and tried to come up
with something similar.
The smoke flavor is a little bit more assertive than in Greg's brew,
but is not so overpowering as to be unpleasant. The sweetness of the
crystal and cara-pils balance the bite of the dark malt so that the
beer is pleasantly bittersweet, as a porter should be, and the smoke
flavor just floats over your tongue. The finishing hops are barely
noticeable. The smoke masks most of the hop flavor.
The beer is 3 weeks old now. In a few more weeks it should be really
wonderful.
The name was supplied by Dan Hall. Don't ask. We were indulging in a
few bottles of really good Belgian beer at the time and I think we
were slightly buzzed.
"Clubhouse Poked Smorter"
=========================
The Grist:
8 lbs. M&F 2-row lager malt
2 lbs. hickory smoked M&F 2-row pale malt *
1 lb. Munich malt
1 lb. Crystal malt
1/2 lb. Choc. Malt
1/2 lb. Black malt
1/2 lb. Cara-pils
* (I had 2 lbs. of pale just lying around, so I used that as the smoked
grain for no particular reason other than to get rid of it.)
The smoked grain was done on a charcoal fired smoker with wet hickory
chips. Total smoking time was close to 45 minutes. I would have cut
the smoking time down, but I wet the grain first and it took that long
for it to dry on the smoker.
The Mash:
Struck mash at ~120F for protein rest. Pulled a single decoction,
brought to a boil, held for about 10 minutes, and re-infused to raise
temp. to about 155F which was held in a 5 gallon Igloo cooler until
conversion was complete.
Sparged with 4.5 gallons of 170F water. Yieled ~7 gallons of wort.
The Boil:
Total boil time about 70 minutes.
1 oz. (~30 IBU) Northern Brewer plug hops (boiling 60+ minutes)
1 oz. Cascade leaf hops (finishing ~5 minutes)
Chilled with Dan Hall's Immersion Chiller from Hell.
Original Gravity: 1.052 (Actual yield to the fermenter was about 5.5
gallons and this was after a good boilover where
I lost at least a quart)
Pitched a 16oz. starter of Wyeast 1028 London Ale made from a culture
that lives in my fridge and has served me faithfully for a number of
brews.
After 5 days in primary, I racked to a keg and refrigerated. I am
slowly artificially carbonating it and letting it settle and mature.
It won't be formally served until the September BFD meeting, but it is
already shaping up to be a fine brew. (I sneak a taste now and then.)
This beer should go great with sausage and other hearty foods.
Final Gravity: 1.016
- --
Kevin
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 6 Aug 92 21:19 CDT
From: arf@ddsw1.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)
Subject: Cider Yeast, Coldbreak
To: Homebrew Digest
Fm: Jack Schmidling
Date: Wed, 5 Aug 92 10:14:26 CDT
From: bliss@csrd.uiuc.edu (Brian Bliss)
Subject: yeasts/grain bag source
>I have an apple tree outside my apartment and I was wondering how to make a
hard cider. A friend has one of those juicer machines and I was thinking
that would be a good way to get the juice from the apples but where do you go
from there.
>
>If anyone has some recipes or suggestions please help and THANKS.
<don't use red star champagne yeast (ale yeast will
make a sweeter product).
That advice depends on a few variables not the least of which is the sugar
content of the juice. Most juice needs to have sugar added just to get
enough alcohol to preserve it and the high tolerance of champagne yeast would
not even enter the equation of most straight juice. It would run out of
sugar before even ale yeast got tired.
Secondly, one can always add sugar to adjust the sweetness after fermenting.
Thirdly, one usually will add lots of sugar to make a higher alcohol apple
wine and ale yeast would produce an undrinkably sweet wine.
>From: BOB JONES <BJONES@NOVAX.llnl.gov>
>Subject: Wort cooling
>I use a immersion chiller placed in my kettle to cool the wort. During the
summer months the tap water is warmer and I will use another immersion
chiller to pre-cool the water by placing this cooler in a 5 gal bucket of
cracked ice... I have wondered if it would help to add salt to the water
before it freezes. This works to lower the temperature when
freezing ice cream, so why not in cooling wort?
It will just make your freezer work harder freezing it. You should put the
salt in the chiller with the ice to lower the temp of the water but the ice
will melt faster so you will need more. You just can't get nothing fer
nothing no mo.
>From: rush@xanadu.llnl.gov (Alan Edwards)
>Subject: Cold Break Temperature
>Al Korzonas writes (in HBD #941):
| In his talk on wort chillers at the Conference, Jeff Frane said the most
| enlightening (to me) fact of the whole conference: that cold break begins
| at 65F. Wow!
<Has anyone heard this statement made anywhere else? Anyone's experience
bear this one out? I have a VERY hard time believing that you need to cool
below 65F before you start getting cold break.
I have neither heard it before nor does it match experience nor do I believe
a word of it. I think it can safely be identified as a MOMILY until further
evidence is offered.
js
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 7 Aug 92 08:53:00 EDT
From: dipalma@banshee.sw.stratus.com (James Dipalma)
Subject: Runoff temp, mashout
Hi All,
In HBD#941, I wrote:
I use both the hydrometer and the taste test to determine when to
quit sparging, and have found that the taste of tannin first becomes
noticeable around 1.020. At about 1.015 - 1.010, there is no longer
any detectable sweetness, this is when I stop. Surprisingly, these
three events (no sweetness in runoff, 1.010 on the hydrometer, and
full pre-boil volume achieved) all seem to occur at just about the
same time.
>In HBD#942, Gerald Winters wrote:
>I have read this from several different sources, that of
>terminating sparging at ~1.015, and was wondering if people were
>allowing the sparge runnings to cool to room temp or
>were adjusting to compensate for the heat of the sparge as the
>flow exits the sparger when checking for ~1.015. The temp of the
>sparge is quite hot compared to room temp and it seem some
>correction would have to be made if the reading was taken from
>the hot liquor.
Whenever specific gravity is measured with a hydrometer, the
reading must be corrected if the temperature of the solution is
other than 60F.
I sparge with water at 170F, the temperature of the runoff
is ~140F-150. (I really have to do something to insulate my
lauter tun a little better). According to the references I have,
this temperature requires a correction of, if memeory serves, 15-16
points. So, when I say I stop sparging at ~1.010 - 1.015, the
hydrometer is actually reading 0.995 - 1.000.
> In HBD#942, Larry Barello wrote:
<portions of thread regarding reasons for mashout deleted>
>This is the conventional wisdom. There is no way a 10 min mash
>out at 170f is gonna stop conversion. I can name at least two
>local breweries that MASH at 160-162f! (Thomas Kemper and Hales)
>and I suspect a lot more around the PNW do as well. Another
>8-10f isn't going to magically kill the enzymes.
A couple of months ago, I had an experience that would seem to
substantiate that statement. I arrived at my brew partner's house
a little late, as he had just started heating the mash up to the
sugar rest range. We started socializing, neither of us was paying
any attention to the mash. About 20 minutes later, we finally got
around to checking the temperature, and it was at 175F. I'm not
sure how much time it spent at that temp, probably 10-15 minutes.
We quickly added some cold water to get the mash temp down below
160F, we were both concerned that what we had made was a very
expensive batch of porridge. However, an iodine test done about
one hour later showed conversion was complete. The beer came out
fine. I had one other batch since then where the mash temp got
to 165F briefly, and that mash converted just fine as well.
The moral here is that the amalyse enzyme seems to be a little
tougher than we give it credit for. I still mashout every batch,
but I do it to get the grain to the same temperature as the sparge
water, and thus prevent too much heat loss in my not-very-well
insulated (for now) lauter tun.
Cheers,
Jim
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 7 Aug 92 8:58:12 CDT
From: guy@mspe5.b11.ingr.com (Guy D. McConnell)
Subject: 7 gallon carboys
I found a great deal on 7 gallon carboys. St. Patrick's of Texas has them
for $10.00 in the styrofoam jackets with screw-on caps. Their phone number
is: (512)832-9045. Get 'em while they're hot!
- --
Guy McConnell guy@mspe5.b11.ingr.com
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 7 Aug 92 13:37 GMT
From: Phillip Seitz <0004531571@mcimail.com>
Subject: Soft water (how to get it?)
Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury:
Next weekend I plan to try the extract triple recipe in Pierre Rajotte's
_Belgian Ale_. In his listing Rajotte specifies that this should be
brewed with soft water.
Several weeks ago I did what everybody always says to do, and contacted
my local water board (in this case the Washington Aquaduct, serving
Washington D.C. and Arlington, VA) for information on my water. I got
back three massive charts listing everything anybody could conceivably
want to know. Amidst this small print was the hardness table, stating
that on average our hardness was 110 (was this for calcium carbonate?).
According to Charlie, soft water is rated at 0-50. I've read that water
softeners don't actually remove the minerals but convert them, and I
don't have a water softener anyway. Would it make sense to use enough
distilled water to cut the value down to size (say, 3 gallons to two of
tap water)? Or am I missing something?
I'm also perfectly willing to use 100% tap water if the alternatives are
too complex.
Anyway, I am specifically appealing for help from any of our HBD chemists
or experienced brewers. Having seen some of the more technical posts
recently, I will ask that any explanations be kept to words of one
syllable or less for us members of the chemistry-impaired. Thanks!
------------------------------
End of HOMEBREW Digest #944, 08/10/92
*************************************
-------
----- End Included Message -----
This file received at Sierra.Stanford.EDU 92/08/14 20:22:57
HOMEBREW Digest #944 Mon 10 August 1992
FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
Rob Gardner, Digest Coordinator
Contents:
Re: Counter Flow Chillers <rocket science> (Paul dArmond)
Milwaukee homebrew supply shops ("Deborah Poirier")
all malt vs extracts (Mark R. Garti)
Pale Malt Color (Martin Wilde)
British v Other pale malted grains (Brett Shorten)
History of Sparging and Mashout (Paul dArmond)
Mashers & Coolers from Micah Millspaw (BOB JONES)
SmartCaps Info (camartens)
re Wort cooling (added salt) (Chip Hitchcock)
RE: Infections with Tap Water Rinse (BELLAGIO_DAVID)
The Alien Retorts (Kinney Baughman)
Yeast reproduction and cold break formation figures (Kinney Baughman)
Ken Johnson, the lamest (Kevin L. McBride)
All-grain Smoked Porter recipe (Kevin L. McBride)
Cider Yeast, Coldbreak (Jack Schmidling)
Runoff temp, mashout (James Dipalma)
7 gallon carboys (Guy D. McConnell)
Soft water (how to get it?) (Phillip Seitz)
Send articles for __publication__ to homebrew@hpfcmi.fc.hp.com
(Articles are published in the order they are received.)
Send UNSUBSCRIBE and all other requests, ie, address change, etc.,
to homebrew-request@hpfcmi.fc.hp.com
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*********(They will be silenty discarded!)*********
**For Cat's Meow information, send mail to lutzen@novell.physics.umr.edu**
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1992 09:57:27 -0700 (PDT)
From: Paul dArmond <paulf@henson.cc.wwu.edu>
Subject: Re: Counter Flow Chillers <rocket science>
In HBD #941, on 3 Aug 92, Joe Rolfe asked about cutting down on water
usage and getting a lower output temperature from his counterflow chiller.
Here is the Rocket Science part.
My source is 'Cryogenic Engineering' by Russel B. Scott, D. Van Nostrand
Co. Inc. 1959. Heat exchangers are important to cyogenics because they
form a very important part of the refrigerators used to liquify gases. It
really is "rocket science", since you need lots of LOX and other gasses to
"make der rockets go up." Other engineering books on steam power, oil
refining and thermo-hydrodynamics will provide similar information.
I'm not going to go into the mathematics, but try to explain everything as
empirically as possible. Heat transfer equations are very heavy on
differential equations. This stuff is not only hard to type without a
mathematical typesetting system, but it isn't very accessible to most people.
Joe's questions get right to the nub of the tradeoffs involved in heat
exchangers. In the best of all worlds, you would use as little water as
possible, get the biggest temperature drop, and do it as quickly as
possible. Unfortunately, all three of these factors work against at least
one of the others. All of these factors are expressed in the
heat-transfer coefficient.
This coefficient is expressed as:
watts / [(cm**2)(deg K) in CGS Watts per square centimeter-degree Kelvin
That's how much heat flows into the wall of the heat exchanger tube from
the liquid in contact with the tube wall. The formulas assume that the
tube is straight, cylinderical, and smooth, and that the flow of the
liquid inside of it is turbulent (i.e. the tube is small enough that the
flow doesn't channel in the center.) The factors that determine the heat
transfer coefficient are:
The specific heat of the fluid - This is a measure of heat (as opposed to
temperature) and empirically is measured by how much ice is melted by a given
mass at a given temperature. Beer wort has a higher specific heat than
water. The concept of specific heat supposedly came from Count Rumford
burning his mouth on some apple sauce. The apple sauce was at the same
temperature as his tea which didn't burn. He had just got his first
thermometer and was measuring everything in sight.
The mass velocity of the liquid: g / sec cm**2 How much mass is passing
through a given cross section each second. For a given tubing size, this
is strictly determined by the available pressure and flow. For your water
supply this is effectively limited by the maximum pressure available.
The thermal conductivity of the liquid. Suprisingly, this is quite low
for most liquids. Water is nearly an insulator, if all convection is
supressed. I assume that wort has a low conductivity as well. Things
like mercury and sodium metal have high conductivity.
The diameter of the tube. For tubes that don't have a circular cross
section, this is replaced by the "hydraulic radius" which is defined as
the cross-sectional area divided by the wetted perimeter.
In designing a heat exchanger, there are only a few of these things that
we can influence. We can alter the mass velocity by turning up or down
the flow on the faucet or altering the siphoning height. We can pick the
diameter of the tube that we use.
Remember that we are looking at maximizing the heat-transfer coefficient
at one point of the tube in one direction (wort to tube or tube to water).
We are only dealing with a slice, so that if the tranfer coefficient is
maximized, then we will get the most heat transfer out of a given length
of tubing. The transfer coefficient will also set an upper limit on the
in/out temperature differential for a particular length. If the tube was
infinitely long then the water out temp and the wort in temp would be
equal, and the wort out temp would be the same as the water in. The
drawback with an infinitely long tube is that you would collapse both your
lungs before you could get the siphon started. Also for an immersion type
cooler, it would not be possible to fit an infinite amount of tubing in
your brew pot, no matter how tightly you coiled it.
At any rate, you want the coefficient as high as you can get it. It is
maximized when the tube is small (or the hydralic radius is small) and the
mass velocity is big. This has several implications:
1) better heat transfer means using more water (faster flow).
2) Smaller tubes are better than bigger ones. This makes sense, since
there is more surface area for the same amount of copper. It is limited
by the ratio of cross sectional area to wall thickness. The very small
tubes have a problem with this, in that their inside area is small
compared to the relative thickness of the wall. Heat transfer is
inversely proportional to wall thickness, so there is a limit to how small
is small enough.
Well, we don't want to use more water, so that's out. Joe is already
using 1/2" tubing in his cooler, so it would be rude to tell him to get
smaller tubing. Wasteful too. What we can do is decrease the hydralic
radius of his tube. A circular cross-section has the lowest possible
ratio of area to perimeter. This is why bubbles are round. So how about
making the copper tubing not round. There are some very high efficiency
florescent light tubes that have a rippled surface to increase the surface
to volume ratio. The tubes look pinched, the pinches alternating 90
degrees from each other. Maybe this could be done with a pair of
vice-grip plyers so the tube doesn't get pinched too much.
This high ratio of surface are to volume is why the breweries use flat
plate coolers, the transfer coefficient is quite high if you get away from
using tubes. Multiple small tubes in parallel are also used for high
efficiency heat exchangers.
If you are building a cooler, here are some things to consider:
* for the same price, more feet of small tube are better than fewer feet
of big tube.
* The coefficients in a counterflow exchanger need to match. The water
side will have to have a larger flow to match the lower specific heat of
water compared to wort.
* If you have a choice, thinner copper tube is better since heat flow is
equal to conductivity / thickness.
* When using an immersion chiller, stir the wort. This will raise the
mass velocity on the wort side and improve the heat transfer. Remember:
water and wort are poor conductors, heat transfer takes place by convection.
To get into the true "rocket science" of counterflow wort chiller design,
the specific heat, conductivity and viscosity of hot beer wort need to be
known. Can anybody help?
------------------------------
Date: THU, 06 Aug 92 14:46:56 EDT
From: "Deborah Poirier" <POIRIER@INRS-ENER.UQuebec.CA>
Subject: Milwaukee homebrew supply shops
Howdy folks
I have a buddy who'll be in Milwaukee at the end of the month. He'd like
to know if there are any good homebrew supply shops. I'd appreciate any
references, since I can get him to pick me up some cara-pils while there.
(Rare as hen's teeth here in Montreal).
Thank you in advance, kind souls who send me info!
Deb
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 6 Aug 92 16:16:50 EDT
From: garti@mrg.xyplex.com (Mark R. Garti)
Subject: all malt vs extracts
how do brews made from extracts stack up against all malt
brews? has recent extract technology made the difference
negligable. there is the obvious freedom to experiment
with flavour, colour and sugar content - is that the point?
can a great brew be made with extracts? or is all malt
brewing where it's at?
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 6 Aug 92 19:26:55 GMT
From: Martin Wilde <martin@gamma.intel.com>
Subject: Pale Malt Color
From: Brett Shorten <s05bas@cc.uow.edu.au>
Subject: British v Other pale malted grains
In Digest #942 Brett Shorten ask if British grains are darker than
American:
Yes they are, the color Lovibond/pound for British Pale is about 3.0.
For American Klages/Huntington (good old BudMillOors mix) it is 2.2.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1992 13:19:52 -0700 (PDT)
From: Paul dArmond <paulf@henson.cc.wwu.edu>
Subject: History of Sparging and Mashout
Sparging is a fairly recent technique. In Andrew Ure's 'Dictionary of the
Practical and Useful Arts', 184?, sparging is described as a process only
used in Scotland for producing high gravity ales. Traditional English ale
brewing used multiple mashes to get all the extract. Usually there were
three mashes: Strong Beer, Middle or Ordinary, and Small Beer. The
respective gravities were 1.060+, 1.030+ and 1.020-. Small beer was
sometimes called Table beer. It is also the source of the saying, "That's
small beer [compared to...]" Each of the three mashes was brewed and
fermented separately. Porter was the first English Ale that combined the
mashes. [See Terry Foster's 'Porter']
Ure's article on beer is very complete. The process of sparging is well
described. Ure even compared the yields of sparging vs triple mashing,
noting that sparging gave a better yield. He encouraged the adoption of
sparging as an improvement to the brewing process, and lamented that more
brewers didn't avail themselves of this technique.
The reason for sprinkling the sparge water over the top of the grain bed
is that the mash tun was not kept full of liquid during the sparge. About
half the wort was run out before the sparging was started. The
sprinkling was necessary to prevent channeling in the grain bed. No
mention of why this was done. The modern method of keeping the liquid
level above the grain only requires that the added water not disturb the
grain bed.
Why let the liquid level drop? My guess is that brewers were just
continuing to hold on to the old practices learned from the triple mash
method. If more than half of the liquid was drained the "goods" might get
too compact and stick. The liquid was needed to float the grains so they
didn't get too tight.
My next reference to sparging comes from the 1895 Encyclopedia Brittanica
(article on Brewing.) Now everybody is sparging and the description is
the same as Ure's. Ure is even cited as the source for improved yield for
sparging. No mention is made of the triple mashing method.
So in 50 years, sparging went from a curious custom of the savage Picts
(just kidding) to the standard brewing practice in England. Neither of
these two sources say anything at all about lager brewing. All references
are only to England. The inference is that lager brewing was a rarity in
England at the turn of the century.
So sparging is a recent practice, less than 150 years in widespread
usage.
Here's a puzzle: Neither of these two sources say anything about mashing
out. The descriptions are quite detailed as to temperatures and so forth,
so it's not an oversight.
Who can find an early reference to mashing out? What is the origin of
this curious custom?
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1992 14:42 PDT
From: BOB JONES <BJONES@NOVAX.llnl.gov>
Subject: Mashers & Coolers from Micah Millspaw
Wort chillers and igloo coolers.
Unless I misunderstood, several HBers are useing the round vertical
type ice chests as lauter vessels,that is something to sparge in.
Since these industious brewers have gone to the trouble of putting
a false bottom in the cooler why not use it as you mash tun as well,
these things are certainly well insulated.
Also I have seen 10 gallon metal coolers of this type at hardware stores
for around $50 they are galvanized on the outsie and have a food grade
coating on the inside. A fellow in my homebrew club made a mash\lauter
tun from one of these coolers and is very happy with it.
On to wort chillers, I am planning to build a newer, and I hope
better immersion chiller. The basis of my idea is that with a 1\2 inch
copper line with tap water running thru it picks up from the wort about as
much heat as is possible in the first nine feet. And so I intend to
build a chiller that uses 4 circuts each 12 ft long in parallel made
of 1\2 inch copper. I will have to use a manifold on both the inlet and
outlet and will probably add some temperature sensors and water pressure
guages, in hope that these may give some way to optimize the delta T by
varing the flow rate. Anybody try anything similar? If so please post
the pluses and minuses. Thanks
Micah Millspaw
8/6/92
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 6 Aug 92 15:18:41 PDT
From: camartens@ucdavis.edu
Subject: SmartCaps Info
TO: BEER NET MEMBERS
FROM: BRUCE ZENNER,
VICE PRESIDENT, RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
AQUANAUTICS CORPORATION
CONCERNING: USE OF SMARTCAPS*
Some friends and fellow brewers who are on BeerNet told me that there had been some
discussion of SmartCaps and how to use them effectively. Aquanautics developed these
crowns in collaboration with a closure manufacturer, ZapatA Industries. I headed the
development project.
These crowns have a liner material containing an oxygen scavenging formulation, and
can remove headspace oxygen and control oxygen permeation through the gasket material
for up to six months. The chemistry is a catalyzed oxygen reduction system, and is
generally regarded as safe (GRAS) by U.S. FDA criteria.
SmartCaps* are activated by exposure to high humidity, thus they are stable under
normalstorage conditions, and activated by the moisture content in beer. However, they
should NOT be boiled to sterilize, since this will activate the oxygen reduction system
prior to use, and decrease the effectiveness of the SmartCaps following bottling.
If you sterilize your SmartCap crowns, do so by hypochlorite (bleach) or metabisulfite
treatment instead of boiling; you'll increase the effectiveness of the SmartCaps.
If you have any questions, or comments, I can be reached by calling Aquanautics at (510)
521-4331, or by writing to me:
Bruce Zenner
Aquanautics Corporation
980 Atlantic Ave., Suite 101
Alameda, CA 94501
Our technical services representative, Charles Benedict, can also answer questions if I am
not available.
Good luck and remember, there are no bad beers....some are just better than others!
Hi everyone. My name is Craig Martens. I am relatively new to brewing and
beernet. In response to Michael Lewandowski's inquiry about SmartCaps on
July 14, I asked Bruce if he would write a little blurb about their use being
that he is their inventor and also a homebrewer. I would just like to add that
I receive nothing for doing this etc. You can also reach Bruce through me
if you have any questions at camartens@ucdavis.edu. Brew long and prosper.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 6 Aug 92 17:22:08 EDT
From: cjh@diaspar.HQ.Ileaf.COM (Chip Hitchcock)
Subject: re Wort cooling (added salt)
Adding salt to the ice blocks used in chilling isn't going to help much
(if at all). What the salt does in icecream making is allow the water to
stay liquid (thus contacting more of the surface of the inner canister and
cooling it more effectively than straight ice) at temperatures below its
normal freezing point; you can produce horrid icecream by putting too much
salt in the freezer, which gets the mix too cold too quickly and produces
ice crystals instead of smooth-frozen cream.
Somebody who has a better grasp of munging specific heats might be able
to say whether having the ice become water at a lower temperature
represents an improvement in cooling; in a previous round I was told that
the specific heat of ice is much lower than that of water. But this isn't
likely to be a large effect, since the freezing point won't be depressed
very much---I think the limit for salty water is ~5 centigrade degrees
based on the freezing-point depression of water and the maximum solubility
of salt in water.
------------------------------
Date: 6 Aug 92 14:16:00 -0700
From: BELLAGIO_DAVID@Tandem.COM
Subject: RE: Infections with Tap Water Rinse
In reply to Phil Miller's query about infections from tap water, I will have
to start by saying that I am also a NOVICE with only 2.5 batches under my belt.
I have an R/O system for my water supply that I use for my brew water. It makes
a world of difference. I still boil all of my water, but I still rinse with
tap water. What I do is turn up my hot water heater the night before to its
hottest position. Then I rinse with this HOT water. I measured the temp and
it was between 160 and 170 degrees. You actually develop a tolerance to hot
water after numerous sprays on your body and hands. I figure that anything in
there was killed by the overnight increase in temp.
> Tap water (at least most taps) contain VERY few bacteria or fungi. You
> could hardly even find one at high magnification.
I think the idea of adding chlorine to the water is in order to kill bacteria.
I don't know if all bacteria is killed however.
> The things that I kept the _same_ were 1) I rinsed all my equipment with tap
> water after sanitizing and 2) I added 2 gallons of grocery store
> fill-it-yourself distilled water to my 3 gallons of wort after the boil.
> I figured that it's one or both of these things that's causing the infection.
I think the tap water rinse is probably OK, but would suggest at least doing
a hot water rinse. I think your problem is adding the unboiled grocery store
water. Even though it is distilled, the container you used may not have been
sanitized and/or the water coming out is not actually what you think. You
should simply boil it separately and let it cool covered, then add it in. This
is only my novice opinion.
Now a question for the more experienced. It seems that I have ran into my
first screw up as a brewer. I recently made a Christmas Ale which ended up
with a OG of 1.063. I racked the coolled wort into my primary 6.5 gallon
plastic fermenter and topped up with sanitized cool water to what I thought
was the 5 gallon mark, but then I worried I put too much in. I pitched the
yeast and figured Not to Worry. Well that was 8/2 and now on 8/6 the
kraeusen has gone into the airlock and clogged it. I assume this led to the
lid popping off the fermenter. I ferment under my house as it stays at 70
degrees during the summer and also has lots of bacteria present. My question
is what to do now? I think I have a few options:
1) Get pissed off more than I am now and chuck the whole thing and brew a new
batch and don't worry.
2) Rack some beer out and put the lid on and clean the airlock and then worry
about whether it is infected or not.
I used Wyeast 1007 and noticed that the description that someone posted before
stated that it has high flocculation compared to medium for all the other
Wyeast ale yeasts. Does this mean it will produce more kraeusen? The problem
also is I probably will take action before I get to hear any of your responses,
but will welcome them to help determine what to do if this happens again.
Super Dave
Bellagio_David@Tandem.Com
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1992 20:23 EDT
From: Kinney Baughman <BAUGHMANKR@CONRAD.APPSTATE.EDU>
Subject: The Alien Retorts
Re: Donald O'Connor's diatribe of yesterday
Gee, Don, my post evidently got under your skin. Sorry, Pal. I
ruined several batches of beer because I didn't change the o-rings and
was simply trying to keep a fellow brewer from making the same
mistake. It appeared to me that you were talking from a theoretical
point of view. I enjoy theoretical discussions as much as anyone but
experience is the final arbiter. I was just passing along my
experience.
So. While we're on the subject. Just what have you been doing? Have
you been kegging your beers using old o-rings? Have they been turning
out OK? For the record, the stouts I made suffered no discernible
Coke flavors. It wasn't until I made a lager that I realized
something was amiss.
As for the pot scrubber idea, I got it from my late brewing partner,
Mike Morrissey, the guy responsible for both bringing the Bruheat into
the U.S. and for helping me refine the bottomless fermenter which
eventually turned into the BrewCap. He said he didn't know where he
saw the idea first but he thought it was a good one. It could have
been Al Andrews. If you say it was, I have no reason to dispute it.
It is a good idea and kudos to Al. All I know is I've been using the
scrubber for years. The flourish I added was to wrap it in a fine
mesh hop bag which, for me, greatly increased the filtering action.
In the spirit of the digest, I passed it along. I sure wasn't trying
to slap myself on the back. That always throws my elbow out of joint
and I hate it when that happens!
Frankly, I'm irked by your claim that I'm not interested in any "facts
that contradict my truth". While you might truthfully say that of
yourself, I called on the chemists to settle the dispute on the blue
stuff on copper. I AM interested in knowing what the stuff is. I
HAVE seen it in my wort chillers and I DON't want to contaminate
anyone's beer. Jeez!
Aw. What the Hell. I can't resist...
>By the way Kinney, the next meeting in Austin for the support group
>for humans who have been abducted by aliens is September 13. (I'm
>not making this up.) Bring your o-rings.
That's OK, Don. You take my ticket. Texas is a long drive from here.
Just another cheap, boneheaded, heretical post from the Southland.
+------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Kinney Baughman Appalachian State University |
| baughmankr@appstate.bitnet Boone, NC 28608 |
| baughmankr@conrad.appstate.edu (704)963-6949 |
| |
| Bush/Quayle '92 "Just Say Noe" |
+------------------------------------------------------------------+
Sigh. It's times like these that make me wish for the good ol' days
in the HBD when the members of this forum were only interested in open
minded, friendly discussions of the issues; when we were all genuinely
concerned about helping each other in their quest for the world's
perfect beer. Remember when people used to commend us for being the
best-behaved bunch on the net? Remember when?
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1992 20:24 EDT
From: Kinney Baughman <BAUGHMANKR@CONRAD.APPSTATE.EDU>
Subject: Yeast reproduction and cold break formation figures
Now let's see if I can get in a post without being flamed...
HBD regular and Fidonet Zymurgy leader, John de Carlo asks:
>Can anyone point me to a reference that describes the typical
>yeast reproduction activity for homebrewers?
This may not be exactly what you want, John, but I finally found this
table when cleaning off my miserable excuse for a desk this past week-
end. Dave Logsdon gave it to me about 6 years ago as he was getting
Wyeast off the ground.
Yeast Reproduction Time
TEMPERATURE ALE LAGER
104 degrees F. 4.0 hr. no growth
95 " 2.0 4.8 hr.
91 1.4 1.8
82 1.6 2.0
68 3.2 3.7
50 11.0 9.0
45 42.0 24.0
As I understand this table, it effectively gives us a report on lag
time. The smaller the hour figure, the shorter the lag time. Clearly
both lager and ale yeast reproduce at faster rates at temperatures of
between 82 and 91 degrees. The reproduction rate is still vigorous
but starts falling off at temperatures between 68 and 82 degrees.
These are not recommended fermenting temperatures. I assume they
speak to the respiration phase when the yeast is/are reproducing and
have yet to start fermenting the wort. At least that's my
recollection of the conversation I had with Dave. (Yo, Jeff. If
you're listening, correct me if I'm wrong.)
It's as a result of this table that I've advocated pitching yeast at
around 70 degrees then moving the fermenter to the basement/
refrigerator. The yeast reproduces at a comfortable temperature and
should be hitting a reasonable population figure by the time the wort
cools to the ambient temperature of the fermentation room/chamber and
starts fermenting. Of course if you're pitching with an up and
running yeast starter with a sufficient yeast count, the pitching
temperature of the wort is not as critical.
Alan Edwards notes:
>Al Korzonas writes (in HBD #941):
>| In his talk on wort chillers at the Conference, Jeff Frane said the most
>| enlightening (to me) fact of the whole conference: that cold break begins
>| at 65F. Wow!
>Has anyone heard this statement made anywhere else? Anyone's experience
>bear this one out? I have a VERY hard time believing that you need to
>cool below 65F before you start getting cold break.
>Before I started using an immersion chiller, I had maybe half an inch of
>break material in my primary fermenter. Now that I chill the wort down
>to about 70F, I get at least three inches of cold break (after it settles
>for a few hours).
I decided to check my copy of _Malting and Brewing Science_ on this
one since I have the highest degree of respect for the opinions of
both Jeff and Al. There I found the following chart that may shed
light on this discussion.
300|
*
|
250|
|
|
200| *
|
|
150| *
|
| *
100|
| *
|
50| *
| *
|
0|_____|_____|______|______|______|______|______|______|______|
10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90
^ Temperature (degrees C.)
|
| 50 68 86 104 122 140 158 176 194
| Temperature (degrees F.)
|
Cold break (I added in the Fahrenheit temperatures -krb)
(mg/ml)
If I may interpolate, trub formation is relatively light, albeit
measurable, at temperatures above 100 degrees F. At temperatures
below 100 degrees the curve begins to steepen significantly. I also
think one could read the chart as saying that trub formation is
minimal until it reaches 64 degrees *Centigrade* rather than
Fahrenheit, at which point it begins increasing until it reaches 40
degrees C. where it begins increasing at a moderately faster rate.
Yet again, if you look at the curve at around 64 degree F., it really
starts taking off. So perhaps that's what Jeff was trying to say. I
didn't hear Jeff's talk so I'm not sure what he said or what his
sources are. Still, if this chart is to be believed trub formation
begins, although slightly, once the wort begins cooling, though
significant trub formation doesn't occur until wort temperatures drop
to around 100 degrees F., with exceptionally fast cold break
formation kicking in at 64 degrees F.
The text goes on to say,
"During the cooling of wort, cold trub progressively precipitates. It
is impossible to remove all the potential precipitate because the trub
continues to form during fermentation and subsequent beer cooling.
However, many breweries, especially those concerned with lager
fermentation, remove much of the cold trub...
A recent survey has shown that in Swiss breweries, the cold break
content of beers varied over a wide range...The effects on
fermentation, maturation and beer clarification were not significant.
Druing the course of successive fermentations, the preference of
tasting panels shifted from beers where cold trub had not been removed
to beers where partial removal had been practiced. The overall
impression from other studies is that the presence of cold trub may
stimulate the rate of fermentation, possibly by providing nuclei for
carbon dioxide release; on the other hand, with more delicate beers
there seems to be more possiblity of having unacceptable sulphury
aroma and taste.
.....
The production of cold trub has received little biochemical study.
Many years ago,it was claimed that to get maximum trub production it
was necessary to cool slowly over the range 120-80 degrees F., at
least 30 seconds being required, and mechanical agitation being
desirable. Later results described worts where the best cold trub
formation occurred when cooling from 140-70 degrees F. took place in 3
seconds or less." (pp. 523-524)
So there you have it according to Hough, Briggs, Stevens and Young.
Some cold trub is formed as soon as the beer begins cooling, with
significant trub production beginning around 64 degrees F. Not only
temperature but also the speed at which the wort cools appears to be a
factor according to some. Its removal seems to be more important when
brewing delicately flavored beers than with heavily flavored ones. At
least that's the way I read it.
Trubles on my mind,
Kinney Baughman
baughmankr@conrad.appstate.edu
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 6 Aug 92 21:13:50 EDT
From: klm@mscg.com (Kevin L. McBride)
Subject: Ken Johnson, the lamest
Warning: This article contains a mild flame. I tried to resolve this
matter by e-mail, but Ken seems to be either incapable or unwilling to
engage in a conversation where he might have to admit that he may have
stepped a little bit out of bounds.
I've kept it reasonably mild, but if you want to know what I really
think about this subject, ask me by e-mail.
I apologize in advance for the waste of bandwidth, but I needed to say
this. I'm pissed and I think that at least some of you are too. To
make up for this, I will post a recipe next.
On Thursday, July 30th, I sent the following letter to Ken Johnson in
response to his unnecessarily harsh statement:
> You write:
>
> > If your beer quality goes down when switching to full mash beers, then you
> > are lame.
>
> and you make yourself look like a jerk for posting such crap. One
> Jack Schmidling is enough, we don't need you posting flame bait too.
>
> Please consider posting an apology for this rash, completely
> unnecessary statement.
>
> The purpose of the Homebrew Digest is to share knowledge and
> experience. My first couple of mash experiences were miserable.
> People on the HBD helped me fix my problems and now my beers are fine.
> We don't want novices being scared off by self-proclaimed wizards who
> say that you are lame if you can't figure it out by yourself.
>
> You probably just encouraged several beginning all-grain brewers to
> switch back to extract brewing with your stupid comment.
I finally received a reply from Ken today, August 6th. His reply
consisted of a single word:
"bullshit"
Ken, I attempted to be reasonable about this. I contacted you by
e-mail and told you, without resorting to outright flaming, that I
thought you were out of line and that the Homebrew Digest deserved an
apology for your rash statement.
I now see that attempting to reason with you is like having an
argument with a tree stump. You have shown yourself to be an asshole
and I sincerely hope that you lose whatever credibility you may have
had in this forum.
F.O.A.D.
- --
Kevin
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 6 Aug 92 22:02:22 EDT
From: klm@mscg.com (Kevin L. McBride)
Subject: All-grain Smoked Porter recipe
The smoked porter served at Greg Noonan's Vermont Pub & Brewery
inspired me to brew this. I love Greg's version and tried to come up
with something similar.
The smoke flavor is a little bit more assertive than in Greg's brew,
but is not so overpowering as to be unpleasant. The sweetness of the
crystal and cara-pils balance the bite of the dark malt so that the
beer is pleasantly bittersweet, as a porter should be, and the smoke
flavor just floats over your tongue. The finishing hops are barely
noticeable. The smoke masks most of the hop flavor.
The beer is 3 weeks old now. In a few more weeks it should be really
wonderful.
The name was supplied by Dan Hall. Don't ask. We were indulging in a
few bottles of really good Belgian beer at the time and I think we
were slightly buzzed.
"Clubhouse Poked Smorter"
=========================
The Grist:
8 lbs. M&F 2-row lager malt
2 lbs. hickory smoked M&F 2-row pale malt *
1 lb. Munich malt
1 lb. Crystal malt
1/2 lb. Choc. Malt
1/2 lb. Black malt
1/2 lb. Cara-pils
* (I had 2 lbs. of pale just lying around, so I used that as the smoked
grain for no particular reason other than to get rid of it.)
The smoked grain was done on a charcoal fired smoker with wet hickory
chips. Total smoking time was close to 45 minutes. I would have cut
the smoking time down, but I wet the grain first and it took that long
for it to dry on the smoker.
The Mash:
Struck mash at ~120F for protein rest. Pulled a single decoction,
brought to a boil, held for about 10 minutes, and re-infused to raise
temp. to about 155F which was held in a 5 gallon Igloo cooler until
conversion was complete.
Sparged with 4.5 gallons of 170F water. Yieled ~7 gallons of wort.
The Boil:
Total boil time about 70 minutes.
1 oz. (~30 IBU) Northern Brewer plug hops (boiling 60+ minutes)
1 oz. Cascade leaf hops (finishing ~5 minutes)
Chilled with Dan Hall's Immersion Chiller from Hell.
Original Gravity: 1.052 (Actual yield to the fermenter was about 5.5
gallons and this was after a good boilover where
I lost at least a quart)
Pitched a 16oz. starter of Wyeast 1028 London Ale made from a culture
that lives in my fridge and has served me faithfully for a number of
brews.
After 5 days in primary, I racked to a keg and refrigerated. I am
slowly artificially carbonating it and letting it settle and mature.
It won't be formally served until the September BFD meeting, but it is
already shaping up to be a fine brew. (I sneak a taste now and then.)
This beer should go great with sausage and other hearty foods.
Final Gravity: 1.016
- --
Kevin
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 6 Aug 92 21:19 CDT
From: arf@ddsw1.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)
Subject: Cider Yeast, Coldbreak
To: Homebrew Digest
Fm: Jack Schmidling
Date: Wed, 5 Aug 92 10:14:26 CDT
From: bliss@csrd.uiuc.edu (Brian Bliss)
Subject: yeasts/grain bag source
>I have an apple tree outside my apartment and I was wondering how to make a
hard cider. A friend has one of those juicer machines and I was thinking
that would be a good way to get the juice from the apples but where do you go
from there.
>
>If anyone has some recipes or suggestions please help and THANKS.
<don't use red star champagne yeast (ale yeast will
make a sweeter product).
That advice depends on a few variables not the least of which is the sugar
content of the juice. Most juice needs to have sugar added just to get
enough alcohol to preserve it and the high tolerance of champagne yeast would
not even enter the equation of most straight juice. It would run out of
sugar before even ale yeast got tired.
Secondly, one can always add sugar to adjust the sweetness after fermenting.
Thirdly, one usually will add lots of sugar to make a higher alcohol apple
wine and ale yeast would produce an undrinkably sweet wine.
>From: BOB JONES <BJONES@NOVAX.llnl.gov>
>Subject: Wort cooling
>I use a immersion chiller placed in my kettle to cool the wort. During the
summer months the tap water is warmer and I will use another immersion
chiller to pre-cool the water by placing this cooler in a 5 gal bucket of
cracked ice... I have wondered if it would help to add salt to the water
before it freezes. This works to lower the temperature when
freezing ice cream, so why not in cooling wort?
It will just make your freezer work harder freezing it. You should put the
salt in the chiller with the ice to lower the temp of the water but the ice
will melt faster so you will need more. You just can't get nothing fer
nothing no mo.
>From: rush@xanadu.llnl.gov (Alan Edwards)
>Subject: Cold Break Temperature
>Al Korzonas writes (in HBD #941):
| In his talk on wort chillers at the Conference, Jeff Frane said the most
| enlightening (to me) fact of the whole conference: that cold break begins
| at 65F. Wow!
<Has anyone heard this statement made anywhere else? Anyone's experience
bear this one out? I have a VERY hard time believing that you need to cool
below 65F before you start getting cold break.
I have neither heard it before nor does it match experience nor do I believe
a word of it. I think it can safely be identified as a MOMILY until further
evidence is offered.
js
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 7 Aug 92 08:53:00 EDT
From: dipalma@banshee.sw.stratus.com (James Dipalma)
Subject: Runoff temp, mashout
Hi All,
In HBD#941, I wrote:
I use both the hydrometer and the taste test to determine when to
quit sparging, and have found that the taste of tannin first becomes
noticeable around 1.020. At about 1.015 - 1.010, there is no longer
any detectable sweetness, this is when I stop. Surprisingly, these
three events (no sweetness in runoff, 1.010 on the hydrometer, and
full pre-boil volume achieved) all seem to occur at just about the
same time.
>In HBD#942, Gerald Winters wrote:
>I have read this from several different sources, that of
>terminating sparging at ~1.015, and was wondering if people were
>allowing the sparge runnings to cool to room temp or
>were adjusting to compensate for the heat of the sparge as the
>flow exits the sparger when checking for ~1.015. The temp of the
>sparge is quite hot compared to room temp and it seem some
>correction would have to be made if the reading was taken from
>the hot liquor.
Whenever specific gravity is measured with a hydrometer, the
reading must be corrected if the temperature of the solution is
other than 60F.
I sparge with water at 170F, the temperature of the runoff
is ~140F-150. (I really have to do something to insulate my
lauter tun a little better). According to the references I have,
this temperature requires a correction of, if memeory serves, 15-16
points. So, when I say I stop sparging at ~1.010 - 1.015, the
hydrometer is actually reading 0.995 - 1.000.
> In HBD#942, Larry Barello wrote:
<portions of thread regarding reasons for mashout deleted>
>This is the conventional wisdom. There is no way a 10 min mash
>out at 170f is gonna stop conversion. I can name at least two
>local breweries that MASH at 160-162f! (Thomas Kemper and Hales)
>and I suspect a lot more around the PNW do as well. Another
>8-10f isn't going to magically kill the enzymes.
A couple of months ago, I had an experience that would seem to
substantiate that statement. I arrived at my brew partner's house
a little late, as he had just started heating the mash up to the
sugar rest range. We started socializing, neither of us was paying
any attention to the mash. About 20 minutes later, we finally got
around to checking the temperature, and it was at 175F. I'm not
sure how much time it spent at that temp, probably 10-15 minutes.
We quickly added some cold water to get the mash temp down below
160F, we were both concerned that what we had made was a very
expensive batch of porridge. However, an iodine test done about
one hour later showed conversion was complete. The beer came out
fine. I had one other batch since then where the mash temp got
to 165F briefly, and that mash converted just fine as well.
The moral here is that the amalyse enzyme seems to be a little
tougher than we give it credit for. I still mashout every batch,
but I do it to get the grain to the same temperature as the sparge
water, and thus prevent too much heat loss in my not-very-well
insulated (for now) lauter tun.
Cheers,
Jim
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 7 Aug 92 8:58:12 CDT
From: guy@mspe5.b11.ingr.com (Guy D. McConnell)
Subject: 7 gallon carboys
I found a great deal on 7 gallon carboys. St. Patrick's of Texas has them
for $10.00 in the styrofoam jackets with screw-on caps. Their phone number
is: (512)832-9045. Get 'em while they're hot!
- --
Guy McConnell guy@mspe5.b11.ingr.com
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 7 Aug 92 13:37 GMT
From: Phillip Seitz <0004531571@mcimail.com>
Subject: Soft water (how to get it?)
Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury:
Next weekend I plan to try the extract triple recipe in Pierre Rajotte's
_Belgian Ale_. In his listing Rajotte specifies that this should be
brewed with soft water.
Several weeks ago I did what everybody always says to do, and contacted
my local water board (in this case the Washington Aquaduct, serving
Washington D.C. and Arlington, VA) for information on my water. I got
back three massive charts listing everything anybody could conceivably
want to know. Amidst this small print was the hardness table, stating
that on average our hardness was 110 (was this for calcium carbonate?).
According to Charlie, soft water is rated at 0-50. I've read that water
softeners don't actually remove the minerals but convert them, and I
don't have a water softener anyway. Would it make sense to use enough
distilled water to cut the value down to size (say, 3 gallons to two of
tap water)? Or am I missing something?
I'm also perfectly willing to use 100% tap water if the alternatives are
too complex.
Anyway, I am specifically appealing for help from any of our HBD chemists
or experienced brewers. Having seen some of the more technical posts
recently, I will ask that any explanations be kept to words of one
syllable or less for us members of the chemistry-impaired. Thanks!
------------------------------
End of HOMEBREW Digest #944, 08/10/92
*************************************
-------
