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HOMEBREW Digest #1326
This file received at Sierra.Stanford.EDU 94/01/17 00:53:50
HOMEBREW Digest #1326 Mon 17 January 1994
FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
Rob Gardner, Digest Coordinator
Contents:
Re: Dry hopping rate in cornelius kegs ("Stephen Hansen")
(Steve_Boylan.NOTES.LOTUS)
pressurized plane compartments (Chris Weight)
Plastic Carboys (John DeCarlo )
Transporting Homebrew/Alcohol (John DeCarlo )
Stuck high-gravity fermentations? ("McCaw, Mike")
Ale Fermentation Times (LUKASIK_D)
Beer of the month Clubs (Al Gaspar)
Sanitizing Tool/Judges sending beer/Plastic carboys (korz)
Sam Adams & the GABF (Mark Stickler Internet Mail Name)
RE: 5 gallon PLASTIC carboys ("conley")
Procedural differences ("DEV::SJK")
Heat of Slaking (BMOORE)
Where Should Judges Enter? (Martin Lodahl)
Bottle Hopping (Alan Edwards)
Re: Wyeast 3068 Weihensephen culture (Paul Crowell)
What? 80 articles ahead of mine? (Alan Edwards)
pot conversion... (Mark Stewart)
Information (Scott)
Immersion Refrigeration? (Louis K. Bonham)
Random misinformation (Ken Miller)
When to air and not to air. ("Steven E. Matkoski")
Wyeast Problem (George H. Leonard)
New homebrewer ("Daniel R. Sidebottom")
Don't know who to send this question to (Bob Ambrose)
Upper Canada (Alan_Marshall)
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 94 09:49:51 -0800
From: "Stephen Hansen" <hansen@gloworm.Stanford.EDU>
Subject: Re: Dry hopping rate in cornelius kegs
In HBD 1322 JC Ferguson <ferguson@zendia.enet.dec.com> writes:
> I recently cranked out yet another batch/variation of brown ale, accept
> this time, i did not add any finishing hops. Right now, the brew is
> in the fermenter (brewed it sunday night). I used 2oz of cascase for the
> boil, 2 cans of M&F light, and assorted adjunct grains (choco malt, crystal,
> roasted barley).
>
> I want to dry-hop when I keg, and I'm wondering the appropriate amount
> of hops to use. This will be for 4-5 gals - not sure if I'm going to bottle
> one gallon of it or not. I expect to condition it for 2-4 weeks, depending
> how fast I consume the keg ahead of it (3 gals). I'm thinking of 1oz
> of kent goldings (plug) in a muslin bag. Too much? Too little? I like a
> good hop aroma, so I don't want to be timid with the dry-hop addition.
>
> Littleton MA USA
> ferguson@zendia.dec.com
I'm halfway through a keg of Rye IPA that I dry hopped with 1 oz of
whole Cascades. The hop nose is very close to draft Anchor Liberty
Ale so I consider it a success. I put the hops in a small mesh bag
along with half a dozen marbles stolen from my kids. The marbles
help keep the bag and hops from just floating on top of the beer.
Some people might prefer a bit less hop aroma but I think that 1 oz
is a reasonable place to start. Of course the type and freshness of
the hops will affect the results.
Stephen Hansen
Homebrewer, Archivist, Hophead
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Stephen E. Hansen - hansen@sierra.Stanford.EDU | "The church is near,
Electrical Engineering Computer Facility | but the road is icy.
Applied Electronics Laboratory, Room 218 | The bar is far away,
Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-4055 | but I will walk carefully."
Phone: +1-415-723-1058 Fax: +1-415-723-1294 | -- Russian Proverb
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 94 13:03:44 EST
From: Steve_Boylan.NOTES.LOTUS@CRD.lotus.com
Subject:
In HOMEBREW Digest #1323, npyle@n33.stortek.com (Norm) comments:
> Chris Sack writes about an "immersion-in-ice-water" chiller:
>
> >My boss and I (both of us are chemists) talked about this very type of
> >cooler. Our reasons were the same as Bob's. Easy, good heat transfer etc
> >
> >We then did some quick, "back of the envelope" type calculations and
> >discovered that one would need at least 80# of ice to cool a 5 gal. batch
> >from boiling to 15 deg.C (60 deg.F). We did not take into account that
>
> Chris, I've done no calculations at all, but I don't think I use 80# of tap
> water to cool my 5 gallons of wort. I know you've already made your chiller,
> but you might check the decimal point on those numbers.
80 pounds of water is only 10 gallons ("A pint's a pound the world around!").
I suspect you might use a tad more than that to bring 5 gallons of boiling wort
down the 15 deg. C!
- - Steve
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 94 09:09:48 PST
From: Chris Weight <chriswei@microsoft.com>
Subject: pressurized plane compartments
| >... Has anyone
| > taken them in the unpressurized baggage compartment?...
| The baggage compartment is pressurized. It's at the same pressure as the
| cabin. (Remember that airlines transport animals in baggage!)
Ooh, I can't resist a story...A friend of a friend who used to work for
an air shipping company tells of a plane that arrived with a dead dog
because it was placed in the wrong (unheated, unpressurized) baggage
compartment. Well, they went searching for another dog that looked like
it and found one, but when the owner arrived to claim the dog, they
went hysterical because the dog was *supposed* to be dead; it was being
shipped home for burial.
So on commercial planes at least, the animal storage baggage
compartments are separate from the regular baggage compartment.
Apparently in modern passenger planes all the compartments are
pressurized and heated to roughly the same degree as the cabin, but
older planes may not be so kind. Seems a bit risky to me...and frozen
beer in the undies...yech.
Chris.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 94 13:05:53 EST
From: John DeCarlo <jdecarlo@homebrew.mitre.org>
Subject: Plastic Carboys
Try and find out what type of plastic is being used for the carboys. Some are
capable of leaching dyes or plasticizers into alcoholic liquids, while they
are perfectly safe for water. Others are great for beer and water both. Look
on the bottom for identification information. The manufacturer should be able
to tell you.
John DeCarlo, MITRE Corporation, McLean, VA--My views are my own
Fidonet: 1:109/131 Internet: jdecarlo@mitre.org
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 94 13:12:50 EST
From: John DeCarlo <jdecarlo@homebrew.mitre.org>
Subject: Transporting Homebrew/Alcohol
Capsule summary--I am not a lawyer.
USPS--They are restricted from shipping commercial alcoholic beverages. They
interpret this to mean *all* alcohol. A lawsuit might get them to give
homebrew an exemption from this policy.
UPS/RPS/Other shippers--They have to deal with the individual rules of each
state. This means most will just tell you they don't ship alcohol. Some may
tell you they can ship it to California but not Utah from Virginia (made up
examples) if they put in extra work.
Bottom Line--If you don't tell the shippers there is alcohol in there, and it
is packaged safely, you should be all set. Most of the restrictions are
because of local concerns with collecting taxes, which don't apply to homebrew
anyway (IMHO).
John DeCarlo, MITRE Corporation, McLean, VA--My views are my own
Fidonet: 1:109/131 Internet: jdecarlo@mitre.org
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 94 10:31:00 PST
From: "McCaw, Mike" <mccaw@wdni.com>
Subject: Stuck high-gravity fermentations?
HELP!!
I do 10 gallon mashes in a converted straight side keg with a false bottom.
PH checks out, I mash for 60 - 90 minutes at 150 - 153 deg F. and boil for
90 (high grav).
My pale ales, alts, etc come out fine, but my attempts at high gravity
styles all bomb.
I have an Imperial Stout and a Barleywine which both started off fine, blew
off the krausen, fermented handily for a week or so and then stopped dead at
about 1.040.
(They started at 1.12 and 1.13).
Worts were chilled in a pseudo counterflow chiller, with an aspiration setup
on the end of the line to the carboy for air introduction. It generates a
lot of foam, so I thought it was sufficient. I pitched a quart of starter -
a pint of Edme and a pint of Pasteur Champagne. The barleywine has now been
in tertiary for three months, still bubbles about once a minute, and is
still 1.040, and way too sweet..
Any suggestions??
I have considered racking, re-oxygenating and repitching, but don't want to
go to that trouble unless I know what is causing my problems. Fermentation
room stays about 65 deg (fluctuates down to 62, but the liquid crystal therm
on the carboy never seems to drop below 65). Lower gravity (1.045 - 1.06
o.g.) side by side do just fine.
Please pardon the rambling nature of this plea - I've been flagellating
myself over this for quite a few weeks. Any and all responses eagerly
anticipated.
Thanks in advance,
Mike McCaw
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 1994 13:35:23 -0500 (EST)
From: LUKASIK_D@sunybroome.edu
Subject: Ale Fermentation Times
According to Papazian all Ales will be totally fermented in 7 to 14 days and
there is no reason to store them (or even rack them to a secondary fermenter)
beyond this time frame. The batches that I have been making seem to be done
in about the 7 day time frame (some sooner) and are then racked into a
secondary for another weeks time. The racking creates a very cear/clean
finished beer/ale. My ending specific gravity has never dropped beyond
another .002 (usually .001 or less) in the secondary regardless of the
original gravity (i.e. works the same way for low and high original gravities).
My question is why do I keep seeing descriptions of long secondary time periods
(4 weeks or better) in the Ale discussions (yes, I realize lagers need these
periods since they ferment diferently)? Am I missing out on something? Are
you all waiting to empty bottles/kegs? Do you have so much done homebrew that
you don't need to bottle right away (I can only dream of that day!!!)? Any
comments????
Thanks.
Doug
SoDBuSTeR SuDS
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 1994 12:56:26 CST
From: Al Gaspar <gaspar@STL-17SIMA.ARMY.MIL>
Subject: Beer of the month Clubs
I have heard of a number of beer-of-the-month clubs. One posting on shipping
mentioned one called Beers Across America. I was thinking it might be worth
joining one to get at a wider selection of beers for comparison. Does anyone
have any addresses, prices, etc.? Thanks.
Cheers--
Al
- --
Al Gaspar <gaspar@stl-17sima.army.mil>
USAMC SIMA, ATTN: AMXSI-TTC, 1222 Spruce St., St. Louis, MO 63103-2834
COMMERCIAL: (314) 331-4354 AUTOVON: 555-4354
relay1.uu.net!stl-17sima.army.mil!gaspar
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 94 12:57 CST
From: korz@iepubj.att.com
Subject: Sanitizing Tool/Judges sending beer/Plastic carboys
Filip writes about using a fertilizer sprayer for sanitizing bottles.
I use something called a Viniator, which has made sanitizing bottles
a much easier job for me. Actually, I'm quite surprized that I've
been reading about all the brewers who use the oven to sanitize but
did not think of posting how I sanitize till now.
The Viniator sits atop my 90-bottle, orange plastic bottle tree and
is made of red, white and clear plastic. It works for all size bottles.
I fill it with about a quart and a half of sanitizing solution (I've
used bleach solution, Iodophor solution and most recently One-step
solution). I take two cases of clean bottles (I rinse immediately
after emptying the bottle) and set them next to the tree/rinser.
Then I grab a bottle, slip it over the nozzle of the Viniator and
pump down about 20 times. I put that bottle on the tree and repeat
this till I've done all 48 bottles. The bottles sit, neck down,
on the tree while I siphon my finished beer into the priming vessel.
Then I grab a bottle, rinse with my Jet Bottle and Carboy Washer,
fill and cap. Lather, rinse, repeat. Two cases of bottles in about
two hours -- BY MYSELF! It goes even faster if I have help. I usually
fill and have my helper rinse the bottles, trade for a full one and
cap.
*************
Steve writes:
>BTW - why doesn't that AHA have the first round judges (for the national)
>send their entries to a site different from the one they will judge at?
Well, judges are not allowed to judge categories in which they have entered,
so that eliminates the problem of someone judging their own beer, but if
I had the option of sending my beer to the East or to Denver and then
judging all the categories (including my favorites -- the ones in which
I usually enter beers), I'd have to think about it. There are pros and
cons.
Pros:
1. You get to judge your favorite categories (mine are the Belgians and all
the Pale Ales).
Cons:
1. Cost -- I live near Chicago and hand-carry the beer to Goose Island.
2. Mishandling -- hand carrying is going to result in much better beer
than that which has been shipped cross-country; on the other hand, if
my beer can't survive a journey, then does it stand a chance in the 2nd
round? Hmmm...
******
Andrew asks about plastic carboys.
You can use them, but you are back to a plastic fermenter and all its
associated problems (scratches harboring bacteria and oxygen-permiability).
Those containers are Polycarbonate, I would guess, and are quite oxygen
-permiable (which is good during respiration, but bad during fermentation
and after fermentation).
Al.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 94 14:23:42 EST
From: Mark Stickler Internet Mail Name <mstickle@lvh.com>
Subject: Sam Adams & the GABF
I was driving down the street this afternoon and was passed by a beer
delivery truck which had large Sam Admams Boston Lager bottles
painted on the side. Not unusual, however, each bottle had a medal
around its neck from the GABF. They looked like gold medals to me.
Hmm, I didn't know Boston Lager took first in any catagory at the GABF!
I guess its just creative advertising.
------------------------------
Date: 13 Jan 1994 14:59:14 +0300
From: "conley" <conley@macgw1.crd.ge.com>
Subject: RE: 5 gallon PLASTIC carboys
Andrew Pastuszak asks:
>We have these 5 gallon plastic carboys at work.
>Would these be suitable for fermenting beer? Could I lager in one of these?
>Is there a reason people always rack into glass?
Plastic is not a good oxygen barrier. Even soda bottles that have barrier
films are not as good as glass. Beer is much more sensitive to oxygen than
soda. (you ever leave a beer for a day and smell it? how about a cup at a
party?) Short term fermentation in a plastic bucket or carboy is OK because
oxygen during yeast growth can be consumed. However the plastic carboys are
harder to clean than the buckets. I would not lager in plastic or store beer
in plastic bottles for long. Others on HBD have used plastic bottles with
success.
>Nabbing a couple of these would save me a LOT of money.
Tisk Tisk...
I purchased 5 gal glass carboys from a Corning Glass Factory for $7.99. A
tip from past HBD. The stoppers that they take are smaller than those for
the 6.5 gal.
Regards,
Douglas J Conley.
conley@crd.ge.com
GE Corporate Research & Development
------------------------------
Date: 13 Jan 94 15:14:00 CST
From: "DEV::SJK" <SJK%DEV.decnet@mdcgwy.mdc.com>
Subject: Procedural differences
Hullo,
Just had to respond to Keith MacNeal:
>I've been reading all this discussion of using an oven to sanitize bottles. I
>say why bother. When it's time to bottle I fill up my bathtub with cold water
>and add bleach and bottles (bottles have been delabled and rinsed earlier) and
>let soak along with my bottling bucket, hydrometer, hoses, racking cane, etc.
>Then I use a bottle washer and rinse the bottles out with hot tap water (just
Oh man! Are you saving time there or WHAT!? :-) Sounds to me like your
system is more complicated. Not only are you wasting gobs of water (a
concern for us here in CA), but in the time it takes to scrub the tub (I'm
assuming), fill it up, let everything soak, move 40-60 bottles plus the
other equipment from the bathroom to the kitchen, rinse the bottles and let
them dry (!?), said bottles could have been heated up and cooled down and
everything else could have become nice and sanitary in your bottling bucket
full of bleach-water. Not only does this take a lot of time, but a lot of
it is time spent rinsing bottles or whatever that could be spent doing
something else because the oven method does not require much attention.
That's OK with me, *I* just don't see how Keith's method is so much better
as to be worth a "why bother?".
>a couple of squirts) and allow the bottles to dry on a bottle drying rack.
Why bother? Wouldn't want to get a little water in your beer. ;->
>you'll see that counter-flow chillers are more efficient than immersion
>chillers (I won't bother with the equations here). Whether or not you need
Please bother. This doesn't make sense to me. 'Course, that shouldn't be
too surprising...
Oh, bother.
Scott Kaczorowski
sjk%c17fcs.decnet@mdcgwy.mdc.com
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 94 13:41
From: BMOORE.UNIX11@mailsrv2.eldec.com (BMOORE)
Subject: Heat of Slaking
>From: "Dave Suurballe" <suurb@farallon.com>
>The problem is that Barry's model is too simple. His formula
>says that the amount of heat lost by the hot water is equal to
>the amount of heat gained by the room-temperature grain.
>Real life is a little more complicated than that. The mash tun loses
>heat, too. The water and the mash tun are at strike temperature
>together, and the grain is at room temperature. They are mixed,
>and all reach the same temperature. The water cools down,
>the mash tun cools down, and the grain heats up.
>So my new formula derives from this:
>(the weight of the water times its temperature change times
>its specific heat) plus (the weight of the mash tun times
>its temperature change times its specific heat) is equal to
>(the weight of the grain times its temperature change times
>its specific heat) .
It is indeed true that my formula does not take into account the ther-
mal mass of the mash tun. My tun is a 6 gallon plastic bucket inside of
a 10 gallon diaper pail with polyester two-part foam in between. The
false bottom is preforated stainless. The thermal mass is evidently
quite low. Stainless steel mash tuns could cause a problem.
As stated above, real life is more complicated. I suspect that Dave's
entire mash tun is not gaining and loosing heat, just the inside. (unless
there is NO insulation at all). But the formula should work as long as the
thermal constant of the mash tun is calculated from actual trials at
mashing temperature.
Just to throw a wrench in the works, Nature provides another
messy detail when mashing. This is the HEAT Of SLAKING. When
dry malt is mixed with water, it actually GIVES OFF heat. Not a lot,
but enough to cause errors in strike temperatures - especially
with thick British-Style mashes. The mechanism is chemically
similar to the reaction that causes plaster of paris to
get warm when it is mixed with water.
This phenom was identified by British Brewers late in the last century.
They were having all sorts of headaches getting consistent mash
temperatures. As it turns out (another complication), the amount
of heat given off by malt is inversely proportional to it's moisture
content. Moist (slack) malt above about 6% moisture has very little
heat of slaking. In addition, moist malt contains more water, with
a higher specific heat which affects the thermal constant of the malt.
So, if we want to calculate mash temperatures out to 3 decimals,
we need to know the malt moisture content, as well as the thermal
mass of the tun etc. etc.
A simple answer to all these complications would be to calculate your
own thermal constant for malt based on your own measurements of
your own system. As long as you keep using the same tun, your
batch sizes don't vary widely and your malt is kept dry, you should
not have a problem. One could possibly calculate thermal constants
to use for "large" or "small" batches if desired.
For those who love complexity, a nifty spreadsheet model taking
into account all the variables would be fun. It could even be
incorporated into some of those handy computer brewing programs!
BTW, if anyone is interested, I can dig up a chart of malt moisture
content versus heat of slaking.
Barry T. Moore
bmoore@eldec.com
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 1994 15:01:28 -0800 (PST)
From: malodah@pbgueuze.scrm2700.PacBell.COM (Martin Lodahl)
Subject: Where Should Judges Enter?
In HOMEBREW Digest #1323, Steve Piatz asked:
> BTW - why doesn't that AHA have the first round judges (for the national)
> send their entries to a site different from the one they will judge at?
Not really necessary, but there's one powerful argument in its favor.
Today, the Site Judge Director, working from the list of judges and
the list of entrants sorted by category obtained from the Site Registrar,
assigns judges only to classes they have not entered. I am unaware of
any problems that would suggest a need for a higher level of "security."
The organizers, however (Site Director, Site Judge Director and Site
Registrar), send theirs to a neighboring site for judging. The argument
in favor of handling all judges' entries in that fashion is that it
would free judges to judge their specialties, as the chances are pretty
good that the styles they judge best are also the styles they
brew best, so they're likely to have entries there. The argument
against it is that there is considerable overlap between the set of
all judges and the set of all competitive brewers, so a large fraction
of the entries received by any one site would be from brewers in
the territory of a neighboring site. As this is really not that
big a deal, I suspect that the principal concerns may be over
increasing the (shipping cost) burden on the entrant, and making
last-minute additions to the judge pool virtually impossible.
Further, as some contestant/judges might view shipping their
beers to a more distant site as a handicap, it could reduce the
judge pool. Just my opinions ...
- Martin
= Martin Lodahl Systems Analyst, Capacity Planning, Pacific*Bell =
= malodah@pacbell.com Sacramento, CA USA 916.972.4821 =
= If it's good for ancient Druids runnin' nekkid through the wuids, =
= Drinkin' strange fermented fluids, it's good enough for me! (Unk.) =
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 94 15:34:04 PST
From: rush@xanadu.llnl.gov (Alan Edwards)
Subject: Bottle Hopping
Sean Taylor asked:
| I had a chance to talk to one of my old friends (and
| a homebrewer) over the holidays and we were talking about
| dry hopping. He mentioned that it might be interesting to
| try bottle hopping--that is, adding hops (one or two leaves,
| perhaps) directly to the bottle.
| Has anybody heard of or tried this before? Outside of possible
| contamination from the hops, would it add some negative aspect to the
| beer that we aren't considering?
I've bottle hopped on two different batches of IPA. In both cases, I've
only done this to part of the batch, for comparison.
I did this by adding one (or more) fresh willamette cones from my garden.
It's my opinion that one or two leaves won't do anything noticable.
In both cases, the bottle hopped beers were noticably more fragrant.
Like fresh hops. It went very well with the IPA.
There were no infections, but there is one problem you should be aware
of. My beers were a little overcarbonated (not having anything to do
with bottle hopping) for an IPA to begin with; and the hops in the bottle
created a unique problem. The hops act as a nucleation site for the CO2
coming out of solution. This makes the bottle foam immediately after
opening. You have to pour it fast, which can be a problem when the hop
cone decides to wedge itself in the neck of the bottle. It's no big deal
really, just pour it into a large glass and expect a lot of foam.
Note that this is definitely NOT an infection. I can see the bubbles
forming all around the hop cone; and there is NO noticable off flavors
or bacteria ring after many months in the bottle.
-Alan
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 94 16:30:09 MST
From: fmicos!trojan!crowell@uunet.UU.NET (Paul Crowell)
Subject: Re: Wyeast 3068 Weihensephen culture
Recently I asked:
> Anyone ever try brewing an ale using Wyeast 3068 Weihensephen lager
>yeast? I'm a wheat beer fan and don't have lagering facilities, but
>I'm tempted to give this a try. (This should fetch *real*
>controversy and debate!)
I finally did get the Wyeast folks on the phone today. What they
said about this yeast was that it is different from 3056 Bavarian
Wheat in that the 3056 is a mixture of S. cerevisae (ale yeast) and S.
delbrueckii (wheat yeast) and 3068 contains just S. delbrueckii. This
ought to be even more of an estery, "cloying sweetness" than the 3056.
They said it is neither an ale yeast nor a lager yeast; it is a
wheat yeast, in the strictest sense. Since I'm not set up to lager,
I'm happiy confident about using it at ale temperatures.
- --
- --
P a u l C r o w e l l Technical Lead, IC Development Group
________ Ford Microelectronics, Inc.
/ ___ ) 9965 Federal Drive
/ / ) / Colorado Springs, CO 80921-3698
/ /\__/ / TEL: (719) 528-7609
/ / / FAX: (719) 528-7635
/ \____/ internet: uunet!fmicos!crowell
\_________
*** Note the change of address. :-) ***
- --
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 94 16:03:13 PST
From: rush@xanadu.llnl.gov (Alan Edwards)
Subject: What? 80 articles ahead of mine?
Does this look familiar to any of you:
| (This message has been generated by a program, and is for your
| information only. No further action is necessary.)
|
| Your article has been received for publication in the Homebrew
| Digest. There are currently 80 article(s) ahead of yours in
| the queue that will be published first.
|
| Thanks for your submission and your support of the Digest!
80 ARTICLE(S)! Come on now, this is rediculous!
I proposed a solution to this problem several months ago and it seems
like no one was listening. (Yes, I first made my suggestion to
homebrew-request.)
My suggestion is simple:
SEND THE HBD OUT TWICE DAILY!
I know it can be done because the Brewer's Forum does that very thing,
with the same software the HBD is distributed with.
I don't know about the rest of you, but I feel that it is important to
have responses to questions as quickly as possible, in order to have any
kind of flow to the threads of discussion. Otherwise, they are not
threads at all, but more like...uh, LINT! (Yeah, broken threads...lint
...OK, I get it.)
Anybody have a better solution to the way-too-long backlog of articles?
Have a nice day,
-Alan
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 1994 17:06:08 -0800 (PST)
From: Mark Stewart <mstewart@scs.unr.edu>
Subject: pot conversion...
Anyone had any direct/indirect experience with regard to converting a 40
qt. Vollrath (10gl.) brewpot to a mash/lauter tun? I think I've found a
source for the SS screen, but need to know more about fitting it for a spigot
(i.e., where to drill the hole with regard to the bottom, etc.). Any and
all direct e-mail on issues related to this topic will be much appreciated.
**********************************************************************
** Mark Stewart "Hurry 'long quickly and don't take **
** Dept. of Psych. no shortcuts..." **
** mstewart@unssun -Virginia Reed, Donner Party survivor **
**********************************************************************
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 94 23:43:17 EST
From: Scott <CMSPSY50@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU>
Subject: Information
Hello,
I would be interested in any information or corespondence opporitunities
regarding homebrewing of beer.
Thank you
Scott
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 11 Jan 1994 21:38:43
From: lkbonham@beerlaw.win.net (Louis K. Bonham)
Subject: Immersion Refrigeration?
In making my semiannual run to my favorite surplus scientific
equipment source, I discovered that he had a load of used laboratory
immersion chillers (Lauda, Enkay, etc.) for $125 and up. (For those
of you not familiar with these, they consist of a small (15"x15"x15"
or so) compressor unit, connected by an insulated umbilical to a
stainless coil about the size of your fist. They run on 120 or 220
VAC, depending on the model, and can generally chill an insulated
sample to -77 F.)
I currently ferment 10 gallon batches in a 14 gallon stainless
fermenter. I would prefer to free up my current fermentation
refrigerator for lagering or serving, and use an immersion cooler to
control the temperature of the fermenter. The unit could,
theoretically, also be useful on a brew day to cool an insulated
glycol bath of say, 3 gallons, to sub-zero temperatures, which could
then flash cool 85F wort (the temp I usually get at the end of my
counterflow chiller) to 40-50F or below and thus force a really good
cold break.
According to my BTU calculations of my fermenter (based
on approximately a 1 sq. m. surface area), the BTU capabilities of
these units (>400 W at 20F) would be more than enough to maintain
just about any lager or fermentation temperature. However, as the
business end of the cooler can generate a *serious* cold spot, I
have a few questions for those of you familiar with their use:
1. Will the cold spot generated by the cooling element
deleteriously affect the yeast (lager or ale)?
2. Would gently agitating/stirring the fermenting wort (using, say,
a very slowly rotating paddlewheel) to facilitate uniform cooling
have any drawbacks? (Agitation would not begin until the ferment
is well underway and thus the air in the fermenter is almost all
CO2, and oxidation would not appear to be a problem.)
3. To anyone's knowledge, are immersion coolers used to control
fermentation temperatures of laboratory samples? If not, why not?
4. For the temperature control circuitry, geneerally how many
degrees F should I allow between the set point and "cutout" to avoid
burning up the compressor? (The technical term for what I'm
asking is something like hysteresus, but as you can see I cannot
spell. No guffawing from you EE's out there!)
Responses to any or all of the foregoing would be greatly
appreciated.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 94 23:26:12 PST
From: Ken Miller <KCMILLER%SJSUVM1.BITNET@cmsa.Berkeley.EDU>
Subject: Random misinformation
Norm writes:
>Chris Sack writes about an "immersion-in-ice-water" chiller:
>
>>My boss and I (both of us are chemists) talked about this very type of
>>cooler. Our reasons were the same as Bob's. Easy, good heat transfer etc
>>
>>We then did some quick, "back of the envelope" type calculations and
>>discovered that one would need at least 80# of ice to cool a 5 gal. batch
>>from boiling to 15 deg.C (60 deg.F). We did not take into account that
>
>Chris, I've done no calculations at all, but I don't think I use 80# of tap
>water to cool my 5 gallons of wort. I know you've already made your chiller,
>but you might check the decimal point on those numbers.
Well, water is awfully heavy stuff, as anyone who ever tried to
backpack a couple of sixers knows. One gallon of water weighs about
8 1/3 pounds/gallon. You say (in a later post) that you use 12 gallons
of water. Ergo you use 100 pounds of water. Still pretty damn good--that
Colorado water of yours must be hell cold.
** (This double asterisk is a great convention--simple, direct, effective--
thanks, Norm!)
Norm also writes:
>COYOTE writes about the Crown Brewery:
>
> Stout. Ok stout. Not very heavy. Almost porter-like.
>
>I may be putting words into his mouth, but it seems that he is saying that
>porters are lighter than stouts. (pardon me if I'm misreading you). I don't
>think this is true, from the samples of both that I've tried. Guiness draft is
>quite light bodied compared to lots of porters I've had. I was reading in
>Brewing Techniques about stouts (I missed the issue with the article about
>porters), and I couldn't find anything that distinguishes the two (stouts and
>porters). I once thought that it was unmalted roasted barley that made a stout
>a stout. According to the article, only dry stouts have roasted barley, not
>sweet stouts, oatmeal stouts, etc. Well? Is there *anything* that
>distuinguishes a stout from a porter?
Norm, you have opened a can of worms. There are *violent* disagreements
as to what constitues a proper porter. The question of whether or not to
accept roasted barley as an ingredient of porters is in itself sufficient
to start a medium-sized flame war. The short and oversimplified answer to
your question is *no*, there is no single component that distinguishes a
stout from a porter.
To quote from Terry Foster, in _Porter_:
"It is not always a simple matter to precisely define a beer style,
particularly a long-established one. There are always ambiguities....
there is considerable variety in the modern versions (of porter)....
"Since almost all other versions are revivals, they represent each
brewer's opinion of what a porter should be....Brewers, and particularly
microbrewers, are individualistic people, so it is not surprising that
their beers do not always fit into clearly-defined niches. For example,
I would define some modern porters as really being stouts, although
others would say that if the brewer calls it porter, that is exactly
what it is!"
Bear in mind that modern porter is a *revival* style. The original
fell into disfavor at the end of the 19th century and by and large
ceased to be readily available commercially until relatively recently.
As with any reinvented style (in any craft or art) it is what its
practitioners say it is.
**
Douglas Conley writes:
>Do any of you keggers (brewers that keg) use your kegging system for soda as
>well? I would like to set up a keg tap and a soda tap combo and appreciate
>any help/experience.
>
>Are the 3 pin lock kegs that Rich Ryan talks about good for this?
I haven't yet, but I've considered it. (Call me palatally challenged, but
I love root beer almost as much as my favorite foamy beverage.) Seems to
me there shouldn't be any problem--to a keg, one carbonated beverage is
the same as another--but I offer one caveat: you may have to dedicate
one (or more) kegs to soda exclusively. As I learned to my sorrow (can
you say, "Mr. Pibbs Dunkel?"), once a keg has held soda, it is inclined
to contribute unwelcome flavors to beer. (Unless you have one hell of a
standard keg cleaning procedure.) Three-pin locks are functionally no
different than ball-locks, assuming you have the proper connectors.
**
Bob Jones wants to know:
>
> Why do brewers enter out of state competitions, I'm speaking of non-national
> competitions? I'm sincerly interested, the Bay Area Brewoff always gets
> entries from far far away. Reasons that occur to me are...
>
<opinionated, mildly offensive speculations deleted>
Probably for the same reasons they enter local competions, viz.,
1) feedback from the judges (applies mostly to us rookies)
and 2) recognition from fellow brewers (applies mostly to experienced
brewers)
As far as feedback goes, I say the more the better. Considering the amount
I spend per batch of beer, it's worth a few bucks to ship the beer somewhere
else if I eventually get some comments that help me improve my beer.
As far as recognition goes, it's not important but it's nice. Those who
can brew competetively superior beer are quite properly accorded respect,
especially if they choose to compete in competitions which are universally
(not just regionally) accorded respect.
**
Andrew Pastuszak writes:
>We have these 5 gallon plastic carboys at work. They look just like
>the glass ones, except they're made of clear plastic. They have to be
>food grade, because they hold water. Would these be suitable for
>fermenting beer? Could I lager in one of these? Is there a reason
>people always rack into glass? Nabbing a couple of these would save
>me a LOT of money.
Disclaimer: This is not something I know about. I'm just passing on
stuff I've heard. BUT...
1) Drinking water is usually not acidic, but beer is. Components of the
plastic carboy which do not leach into water might leach into beer,
adversely affecting the flavor.
2) Glass carboys are not oxygen permeable, but plastic carboys may be.
This is not an issue during primary fermention, when the fermenting
beer is throwing off CO2, but it could be an issue during secondary
fermentation, when CO2 evolution dies down.
As far as saving money goes, this is a subject on which I fundamentally
disagree with many homebrewers whom I greatly respect. I heartily dislike
spending more money that is necessary to achieve gratifying results.
However...when I multiply the fixed costs per batch times the number
of batches I brew per year, I find that the cost of good (and sturdy)
equipment is relatively minor. Why should I take the risk of having to
drink awful beer for a couple of months just because I didn't want to
spring a few bucks for some decent equipment?
Having said that, I will admit that some of the best brewers I know are
past masters of the art of making do. Knowledge, intuition, and talent
are far more important than gadgets. Alas, I can't buy the first three....
Hoppy brewing to all,
Ken Miller
kcmiller@sjsuvm1.sjsu.edu
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 14 Jan 1994 07:53:02 -0500 (EST)
From: "Steven E. Matkoski" <sematkos@syr.edu>
Subject: When to air and not to air.
I have been seeing alot of talk about aerating the wort and the beer. I
am still a little confused on this. When I brew I try not to aerate at
anytime in my process. Is this wrong to do? If so, then when do I aerate
and when don't I?
Also, I have only been single fermenting (out of fermenting bucket and
into bottling bucket), and I have been noticing a yeasty aftertaste on
most of my Ales. If I change to using a secondary fermenter will this
lighten the aftertaste? or does time? The aftertaste does mellow with
time, but takes a very long time. Thanks for your help!
-steve. "reach out your hand if your cup be empty,
Steven E. Matkoski if your cup is full, may it be again."
sematkos@mailbox.syr.edu GratefulDead.
------------------------------
Date: 14 Jan 1994 13:37:42 GMT
From: George_Leonard@brown.edu (George H. Leonard)
Subject: Wyeast Problem
I have been brewing for 2 years and have used Wyeast throughout without any
problems. My last was (actually it still is) a lager. After it cooled I
added Wyeast American Lager yeast but noticed that the container had not
swelled as much as usual. I had broke the inter bag about 30 hours before.
I decided to add it anyway and three day later the brew still showed no
signs of life.
In a panic (I know I should have relaxed, etc.) I added the dry yeast that
had come with the malt extract. Within 24 hours it was bubbling away and
now all seems fine.
Question: Has anyone else had this problem? Is it possible that
fermentation could take over 3 days to begin when using Wyeast? Do you
really need to wait until the Wyeast package is about to explode before
pitching? Is there any reason I shouldn't just use dry yeast, which _does_
seem easier? If so, what types of dry are of high quality? Any answers,
posted here or to me at George_Leonard@brown.edu would be appreciated.
Thanks in advance.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 14 Jan 1994 08:59:42 -0500 (EST)
From: "Daniel R. Sidebottom" <SIDEBODR@SCOBVA.COBLESKILL.EDU>
Subject: New homebrewer
Hello All,
I am a new homebrewer and have just finished brewing my
first batch. I tried my first bottle and the results where
positive. The amber lager I brewed had I little bite to it
but all in all was good beer. I would like to know where
and if I should buy some groulch (? spelling) bottles. And
also where I can purchase supplies (are there cat. of supplies)
for them? Also, I have a starter brew kit, where can I
purchase kit supplies.
Thank you
Dan Sidebottom
Warnerville New York
Daniel R. Sidebottom
Coordinator of Computer Services
Phone: (518)234-5258
Decnet: scobva::sidebodr
Bitnet: sidebodr@snycobva
Internet: sidebodr@scobva.cobleskill.edu
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 14 Jan 1994 09:48:54 -0500
From: ambroser@apollo.dml.georgetown.edu (Bob Ambrose)
Subject: Don't know who to send this question to
Yesterday, I sent a reply about sending "stuff" through the mail.
The HBD sent back a message saying it was received and that "57 articles are
ahead of you". Well, my question is: What happened to my reply and all of the
other replies. I see only 28 replies in todays HBD.
Is there a default limit and 28 is the cut-off point, throwing out the other
29 replies? What happend to my reply?
Bob
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 14 Jan 1994 09:57 EDT
From: Alan_Marshall <AK200032@Sol.YorkU.CA>
Subject: Upper Canada
In HBD 1324, /R=HERLVX/R=AM/U=KLIGERMAN/FFN=KLIGERMAN/@mr.rtpnc.epa.gov
writes:
> Conley asked if anyone has visited the Upper Canada brewery. I was
> there sometime in the '80's and remember the beer was good, the tour fair,
> and the guide less knowledgable than most novice homebrewers. The thing
> I remember most about the brewery is a lot of broken glass on the bottling
> line.
I posted a review of Upper Canada's product line and their tour about
2 months ago in alt.beer. It is also in the latest CABA Newsletter.
I tend to agree with this poster (Don't you hate these cryptic email
names that make it impossible to refer to the poster by name? :-), the
tour was fair. On the tour I took, the guide was the least
knowledgeable of the four of us (two homebrewers and I). The samples,
both before and after where given generously, but I suspect if someone
was trying to get tanked up, they would cut them off.
On the bottling line, It is true that UC's bottling line is old (they
bought it used), but I think they have managed to would out the bugs,
and the the breakage is minimal. It may also be due to their bottles
- -- UC bottles are the favourite among homebrewers in Ontario, because
they are so rugged. A typical UC bottle lasts 16-17 refilling cycles,
compared to about 6 cycles for most other bottles.
------------------------------
End of HOMEBREW Digest #1326, 01/17/94
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