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HOMEBREW Digest #1889
This file received at Hops.Stanford.EDU 1995/11/21 PST
HOMEBREW Digest #1889 Tue 21 November 1995
FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
Rob Gardner, Digest Janitor
Contents:
Son of FrankenBrau (Mike White)
black and tans (PPHA9648)
Fuuny translation (C. Rosen)
SA Oktoberfest (Todd W. Roat)
FrankenBrau/suckback (Algis R Korzonas)
Lauter tun manifold (dludwig)
Lauter tun manifold (dludwig)
Homebrew Digest #1886 (November 17, 1995) -Reply (Alan Deaton)
IBUs and utilization ("Dave Draper")
Mash/lauter tun (Fredrik Stahl)
RE: Lauter FAQ- POST PLEASE! (Rich Hampo)
SS airstones (Charles Wettergreen)
Re: Help - Really slow fermentation of first fruit beer (Aesoph, Michael)
Dioxins (Pierre Jelenc)
Yeast Lab ID?? (GEORGE DIETRICH - ACME)
Best Hop IBU Equations ("Palmer.John")
Frozen Yeast Summary (KennyEddy)
Muntons Malt (M&F) Help Needed (Jim Overstreet)
Teeth and hair (kit.anderson)
Re: Advanced BOP concepts (fwd) (Bill Countie)
Brettanomyces (Russell Mast)
Never say never. (Russell Mast)
Minimum water for all grain batch ? (Denis Barsalo)
Carbonation & Adding Yeast at Bottling (Randy M. Davis)
more dioxin misinformation ("Tracy Aquilla")
freezing yeast (Dan McConnell)
re: Beer Trivia Game (Kurt Dschida)
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!! November 5 thru November 11: The digest
!!! will be unmanned! Please be patient if
!!! you make any requests during this time
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 16 Nov 1995 16:37:51 -0600
From: mike@datasync.com (Mike White)
Subject: Son of FrankenBrau
On Tue, 14 Nov 1995 KennyEddy@aol.com wrote:
>But now there's two problems I'll throw at the collective to make this work.
>
>1) This wiring of the assembly to the bottle business is for the birds.
> Sure, duct tape might work too but I'm looking for that brilliant idea
>which will make this fast, clean, and simple.
To which I reply:
Will the wire assemblies already on Grolsch type bottles work to hold on the
valve/washer combinations if the ceramic lid is removed from the wire?
- ------------------------------------------------------------
Thought for the day:
Don't drink and park; accidents cause people.
- ------------------------------------------------------------
Mike White
mike@datasync.com
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 16 Nov 95 18:42:52 EST
From: PPHA9648@URIACC.URI.EDU
Subject: black and tans
Dear homebrewers-
Howdy. Just a quick question...I always thought that a "black and tan" w
as Bass and Guinness, where the Guinness is made to float on top of the Bass, a
m I wrong? Just wondering.
-Thanks for your help
Paula
PPHA9648@URIACC.URI.EDU
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 16 Nov 95 19:02 CST
From: crosen@wwa.com (C. Rosen)
Subject: Fuuny translation
This is part of something forwarded to me that was apparently taken from
"American Demographics" magazine:
Here's how shrewd American business people translate their slogans into
foreign languages:
...Coors put its slogan "Turn it loose", into Spanish, where it was read as,
"Suffer from diarrhea".
Need I say more?
Harlan
**********************************************************************
* *
* Harlan Bauer, usually at <blacksab@siu.edu> *
* ...but here <crosen@wwa.com> until Dec.1 or sooner. *
* *
**********************************************************************
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 16 Nov 1995 19:55:43 -0500
From: troat@one.net (Todd W. Roat)
Subject: SA Oktoberfest
I'd really like to try and brew Sam Adams Oktoberfest. Anyone who has
tasted (repeatedly) this brew have any guesstimate on ingredients. Label
says Hallertau Mittelfrueh and Saaz hops and 2-row summer barley. Anyone
with familiarity with this beer have educated guess on hop
schedule/quantity, specific type or grain and.or other special ingredients
that may help reproduce this brew. Thanks all.
PS - my steam beer that alot of you helped with turned out yummy, despite
temp variations.
"Too much of everything is just enough!"
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 16 Nov 95 13:16:56 CST
From: korz@pubs.ih.att.com (Algis R Korzonas)
Subject: FrankenBrau/suckback
Ken writes:
>A thousand thank you's to Mr. Longmore (is that right?), whose gadget article
>in a recent Zymurgy outlined the "FrankenBrau" capping system. It's intended
>for force-carbonating beer in PET bottles. For the uninitiated, it's just a
>tire valve stem crammed into a 1/2" hole drilled in the screw-on PET bottle
>lid. An air-chuck attachment on the CO2 tank allows one to pressurize the
>bottle (and carbonate the beer). Positively brilliant in its simplicity &
>effectiveness.
My concern with this system (and the first I saw of it was about three
years ago -- Randy Mosher brought one he made to a CBS meeting) is that tire
valve stem is not made of food grade material. In fact, if you smell it,
you can definately smell that butyl rubber (I think) aroma -- like a tire.
While there will be little contact between the rubber and the beer, there
will be contact between the headspace and any aromatics the rubber happens
to emit. On a big, dark, heavy beer, probably not noticable, but on a
lighter beer, I'll bet you can smell it. Just my theory...
>So what's new? Couple of things. I have seen comments here & elsewhere
>concerning PET-bottled beer shelf life. Seems PET is gas-permeable such that
>a bottle will go flat after several weeks.
It's the other way around. A lot of CO2 won't leak out, but O2 will leak
in.
***
Jeff writes:
>I have read all of the airlock suck-back posts recently and thought
>I would share my technique with the collective. I use the 3 piece
>airlocks and when I first attach one to a starter bottle or primary
>I assemble it as usual but don't add any water (yet). Instead I soak
>a cotton ball with vodka, squeeze out any excess, and place it just
>under the airlock's lid. They fit perfectly within the ID of the
>airlock and allow two-way flow thru the airlock. Once the temp
>stabilizes and/or fermentation gets going, just pop off the lid,
>pull out the cotton ball, fill to the line with water, and put the
>lid back on. Any air entering the fermenter thru the airlock should
>be sanitized on its way thru the vodka soaked cotton ball and there
>is no liquid to get sucked in.
I'm afraid that even if you could suck air through a vodka-soaked cotton
ball, it would be the cotton and not the vodka that removes potentially
infectious particulates. Just as bubbling air through alcohol or bleach
or iodophor or mercury will not sanitize the air, neither will the vodka
in the cotton ball. I like your cotton ball idea, however, it's just that
I think that it would work better if you simply used a sterile cotton
ball and left it dry. Also, just as Jeff says, don't forget to add water
or some liquid to the airlock before active CO2 production is over (or you
will risk having your alcohols oxidized to aldehydes -- yuk).
Al.
Al Korzonas, Palos Hills, IL
korz@pubs.att.com
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 16 Nov 1995 21:44:23 -0500
From: dludwig@ameritel.net
Subject: Lauter tun manifold
> A
>recent article in Brewing Techniques makes it more scientific by relating the
>total cross-sectional area of the cuts to the outlet area. If there's less
>area in the outlet than the slits, your flow rate will be limited. If you
>have the opposite condition, then your outlet is the only limiting factor.
> This is the condition you are after.
With water in the tun, can't argue with that too much but the grain bed
significantly changes the pressure drop across the slits which, in my
opinion invalidates any area matching (too many variables: type of grain,
crush, grain bed settling, etc). Like it was said in the rest of the post,
the false bottom design seems to offer the best choice as far as
distributing flow and preventing channeling. But I think the slotted
manifold with slots downward offers some clogging resistance. Picture this;
horizontal holes trap husks until the holes are blocked with the filtering
husks. Then finer materials like (gasp!) flour complete the job. The flow
through a slotted manifold is a little more complex and I'm going out on the
limb now. I believe that, as with the false bottom, layers of filter
material are established above the lautering device. With the false bottom
holes, it's easy to see how a piece of husk with some flour piled on top
would stop flow (stuck sparge). With described manifold, the flour is
trapped between layers all the way to the bottom. The filtered liquid can
channel across the bottom of the tun and exit up through the manifold slots
on the bottom.This is the key. My opinion is the manifold is less prone to
clogging. If you orient the slots upward, you defeat the purpose although,
depending on the length of your manifold (the area ratio), delta P may still
work for you. The manifold I built for my 5 Gal Gott, consists of 4 ft of
3/8 in copper(yes it will fit), two tees and four 90 deg elbows. Yes it's a
lot of tubing. I was trying to reduce channeling by more slot area over the
entire bottom of the cooler. I cut about 150 slots in the tubing (about 1/2
inch apart). I really don't think slot spacing is that important but more is
better in my opinion. The idea is to get good distribution throughout the
bottom of the tun. More tube, more slots, more well distributed intake area
results in near-false-bottom performance in terms of even flow through the
grain bed. Both ends of my four feet of tubing connect to a center manifold
to reduce bias in the outflow. I added a standpipe to the center manifold
which extends up through a hole in the cooler lid that I use to underlet the
grain bed when adding hot water. But the standpipe needs to be capped off
when the bed get compacted so as to get max gravity benefit from the fluid
column in the exit tube. Performance? With 2 or 6 row barley malts, flow is
too fast so I throttle it back to get about an hour sparge. Still working
out the procedures. Longer sparge definitely improves yield. I will post
some real performance numbers in the near future.
- Dave / dludwig@atc.ameritel.net
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 16 Nov 1995 21:48:15 -0500
From: dludwig@atc.ameritel.net
Subject: Lauter tun manifold
> A
>recent article in Brewing Techniques makes it more scientific by relating the
>total cross-sectional area of the cuts to the outlet area. If there's less
>area in the outlet than the slits, your flow rate will be limited. If you
>have the opposite condition, then your outlet is the only limiting factor.
> This is the condition you are after.
With water in the tun, can't argue with that too much but the grain bed
significantly changes the pressure drop across the slits which, in my
opinion invalidates any area matching (too many variables: type of grain,
crush, grain bed settling, etc). Like it was said in the rest of the post,
the false bottom design seems to offer the best choice as far as
distributing flow and preventing channeling. But I think the slotted
manifold with slots downward offers some clogging resistance. Picture this;
horizontal holes trap husks until the holes are blocked with the filtering
husks. Then finer materials like (gasp!) flour complete the job. The flow
through a slotted manifold is a little more complex and I'm going out on the
limb now. I believe that, as with the false bottom, layers of filter
material are established above the lautering device. With the false bottom
holes, it's easy to see how a piece of husk with some flour piled on top
would stop flow (stuck sparge). With described manifold, the flour is
trapped between layers all the way to the bottom. The filtered liquid can
channel across the bottom of the tun and exit up through the manifold slots
on the bottom.This is the key. My opinion is the manifold is less prone to
clogging. If you orient the slots upward, you defeat the purpose although,
depending on the length of your manifold (the area ratio), delta P may still
work for you. The manifold I built for my 5 Gal Gott, consists of 4 ft of
3/8 in copper(yes it will fit), two tees and four 90 deg elbows. Yes it's a
lot of tubing. I was trying to reduce channeling by more slot area over the
entire bottom of the cooler. I cut about 150 slots in the tubing (about 1/2
inch apart). I really don't think slot spacing is that important but more is
better in my opinion. The idea is to get good distribution throughout the
bottom of the tun. More tube, more slots, more well distributed intake area
results in near-false-bottom performance in terms of even flow through the
grain bed. Both ends of my four feet of tubing connect to a center manifold
to reduce bias in the outflow. I added a standpipe to the center manifold
which extends up through a hole in the cooler lid that I use to underlet the
grain bed when adding hot water. But the standpipe needs to be capped off
when the bed get compacted so as to get max gravity benefit from the fluid
column in the exit tube. Performance? With 2 or 6 row barley malts, flow is
too fast so I throttle it back to get about an hour sparge. Still working
out the procedures. Longer sparge definitely improves yield. I will post
some real performance numbers in the near future.
- Dave / dludwig@atc.ameritel.net
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 17 Nov 1995 02:43:36 -0600
From: Alan Deaton <amdeaton@gw.hyatt.com>
Subject: Homebrew Digest #1886 (November 17, 1995) -Reply
I will be out of the office from Monday, 11/6 thru Tuesday 11/7. If
your problem is an urgent one, please contact Mark Herman.
/Alan
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 17 Nov 1995 22:55:22 +10
From: "Dave Draper" <david.draper@mq.edu.au>
Subject: IBUs and utilization
Dear Friends, if Glenn Tinseth has a post with the same message as
this before mine, I apologize. Several folks are (understandably)
confused about whether it is possible to get reasonably accurate IBUs
and if so, how. I'd just like to say that in my biased view the
state of the art is the dataset coordinated by Glenn Tinseth. Go to
his hop page:
http://www.teleport.com/~gtinseth
for the straight poop. For my setup, this is as close to The Truth
as anyone can get. My bias is that I was one of the late-stage "play
testers" for the data, but since Glenn is not earning any money from
these results, I hardly can! But it is definitely not true to say I
am wholly disinterested.
Cheers, Dave in Sydney
"Hops away! The more the better." ---Roger Deschner
- ---
***************************************************************************
David S. Draper, Earth Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney NSW Australia
Email: david.draper@mq.edu.au Home page: http://www.ocs.mq.edu.au/~ddraper
...I'm not from here, I just live here...
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 17 Nov 1995 13:14:35 +0100
From: fredriks@abel.math.umu.se (Fredrik Stahl)
Subject: Mash/lauter tun
I recently made a mash/lauter tun and thought I would share my
experiences. The tun is made out of an aluminium "milk vessel" - a sort of
big pot farmers used to put milk in for transport here in Sweden. The
volume is about 40-50 liters and the opening has a smaller diameter (about
21 cm) than the base diameter (about 34 cm). I usually brew in my apartment
so using gas is out of the question. Instead I use an electric kettle
element bought in England for about 10 pounds, and a false bottom above the
element to prevent scorching. Putting the element under the false bottom
resulted in a big dead space - about 7 liters. I was a bit worried about
this since it would mean a thin mash but it seems to be working alright.
The element and the tap are placed at an angle of 45 degrees to make easy
access to both. The vessel is insulated with an old sleeping mat. It seems
to hold temperature well.
For the false bottom I use a sturdy aluminium plate which I sawed in half
and fitted together again with a SS-hinge (I wanted to avoid brass or
copper for risk of corrosion) to make it fit through the opening. The
bottom rests on six 8 cm screws and makes a tight fit to the walls (I have
to push it in place with force). The plate is drilled with 3.2 mm holes 10
mm apart. No problem so far with stuck sparges.
ASCII art follows:
| |
| |
/ \
/ \
/ \
| |
| | false bottom with hinge
| | /
| | /
|------*------| -----/
kettle element ----- |SSS o| --------- tap
|_____________|
/Fredrik Stahl, FredrikS@abel.math.umu.se
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 17 Nov 1995 08:04:51 -0500
From: rhampo@ford.com (Rich Hampo)
Subject: RE: Lauter FAQ- POST PLEASE!
Howdy,
I just wanted to put in my $ .02 about lauter tun design.
I use a slotted copper manifold in a 5 gallon Gott cooler
for lautering. I added an uptube that is normally left corked.
After I pour the mash into the tun, I "underlet" by removing
the stopper and pouring a cup or two of sparge water down the
uptube. This clears out the slots and then I can start lautering.
An additional benefit of this uptube design is the ability to clear
stuck sparges. I had a sparge almost stick once (sparge water cooled down
way too much) and I cleared it up in a jiffy by 1) stopping the
liquor outflow, 2) re-underletting the manifold with 1-2 cups of
sparge water, 3) re-opening the outflow.
I had to recirculate maybe one quart before the liquor ran clear
again.
Two caveats. 1) Don't forget to use a rubber stopper in the uptube
or you'll lose the suction effect that helps draw liquor out of the tun
2) Don't drop the stopper into the mash (oops!) unless you have a spare
(which I didn't)
Thanks for compiling a FAQ, Charlie - I think it will be used often.
Best Regards,
Richard Hampo
H&H Brewing Ltd.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 17 Nov 95 07:34 CST
From: chuckmw@mcs.com (Charles Wettergreen)
Subject: SS airstones
To: homebrew@hpfcmgw.fc.hp.com
Brian J Walter (walter@lamar.colostate.edu) wrote:
HH> I'm thinking about getting an Oxynater from Liquid Bread. It is an
HH> oxygen tank, some sort of regulator deal, and SS diffusion stone. The
HH> price is $39.45 (including shipping). Their ad claims you can oxygenate
HH> 75-100 gallons of wort with 1 tank (extra tanks are $12).
The regulator and O2 tank look suspiciously like half of an oxy/acetelene
brazing kit at Sears available for about $25.
HH> Anybody have experience with these setups? If so, can you get the tanks
HH> filled somewhere, such as a medical place, welding place, etc?
Sears also sells O2 tanks for the kit above, I *think* at somewhat less than
$12.
My question is, where can I get the SS airstone. I called Brewer's Resource and
asked the size of their SS airstone. They said it was 33 microns! At that size,
I'll continue using my chrome plated copper diffuser from American Scientific.
Anyone know where to get something between a 1 and 2 micron airstone?
Chuck
chuck@mcs.com
Geneva, IL
* RM 1.3 00946 *
------------------------------
Date: 17 Nov 95 08:39:21 EST
From: aesoph%ncemt.ctc.com@ctcga.ctc.com (Aesoph, Michael)
Subject: Re: Help - Really slow fermentation of first fruit beer
Dear David Boyd:
I recently brewed my first fruit beer as well and had similar trouble...
I was expecting "explosive" fermentation as described in the recipe -
Strawberry Ale from Cat's Meow. However, after 1 day of nothing, I
repitched the yeast and a slow fermentation started and is still going,
but now even slower and may even be stopped. I may repitch again to make
sure it's not stuck. BTW, I'd rack after a week at the most, and expect
about a gallon of sludge for a 5 gallon batch so careful with that
siphon!!!
Also mentioned in the recipe is "Pectin Enzyme" to put in the secondary
to reduce pectin haze. Can anyone provide directions on how to use this
great stuff??? I've got some but not even Lord Charlie mentions it, and
no one at the brew store knows anything about it other than the price!!!!
Mike Aesoph
=========================================================
I'll go to graduate school when Creativity I & II, Advanced Imagination,
and Simple Solutions to Difficult Problems are on the curriculum.
=========================================================
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 17 Nov 95 9:50:06 EST
From: Pierre Jelenc <pcj1@columbia.edu>
Subject: Dioxins
In HOMEBREW Digest #1886 Tom Krivec <8935174@unileoben.ac.at> says:
> As Tim Lacy mentioned in HBD 1880 dioxins are a group of organic compounds.
> One of those compounds got very famous in the mid-seventies when there was a
> desaster
> in a chemical plant in Seveso, Italy. There about 100g (~4 ounces) of
> 2,3,7,8-Tetrachloro-dibenzo-para-dioxin (TCDD) were blown into the air.
>
> The people found out that something had happened when they found most
> of the cattle being dead the next morning.
Hardly. The plant blew up and everybody heard it. Some animals died
later, but they were not "most ... dead the next morning".
> In Seveso no human died, but the people had serious problems with their skin.
Chloracne. Granted, not very nice, but it is not caused by dioxins per
se: any organochlorine compounds in large quantities will cause chloracne.
> Furthermore the infant-mortality and the number of people suffering from
> cancer seems to be higher in the area around Seveso (not scientifically
> proofed).
Actually, the number of cancers around Seveso _decreased_ slightly. A
small increase in uterine cancer was more than offset by a larger
decrease in breast cancer, in women. There was little effect in men.
(Dioxins have small but noticeable oestrogen-like effects.)
> Nevertheless today it is known that dioxin is the most toxic substance that
> has ever been made by mankind.
> Only 0.0000000000005 g (!!!!!) of TCDD will have toxical effects on a human
> being.
Like what?
There was a long review article in Science a few years ago that went over
all the Seveso data in details. Well worth reading.
That said, dioxins are quite toxic to cold-blooded animals, especially
fish, so they should be handled carefully. But the hysteria that
surrounds them is totally out of place compared to the damages that
alcohol and tobacco wreak around us.
Pierre
------------------------------
Date: 17 Nov 95 10:09:39 EST
From: GEORGE DIETRICH - ACME <GEORGE@acmemill.mhs.compuserve.com>
Subject: Yeast Lab ID??
In HBD 1884 Jeff Renner (nerenner@umich.edu) says:
>Yeast Lab A09, English Ale, is Ringwood. London Ale, A03, is
Whiteshield.<
Then in the same issue Dan McConnell (danmcc@umich.edu) says:
>Corection: English Ale-A10 is Ringwood (the source was an East Coast
brewery, BTW).not London-A03.<
Okay, which is the correct ID for the Ringwood strain from Yeast Lab.
George
74543.310@compuserve.com
***************************************************************
You can't have everything...Where would you put it?
***************************************************************
------------------------------
Date: 17 Nov 1995 07:50:54 U
From: "Palmer.John" <palmer@ssdgwy.mdc.com>
Subject: Best Hop IBU Equations
Over the past couple days, several people have inquired about the best
equations or methods to calculate IBUs. I was talking with a brewer at a
brewpub yesterday and he mentioned that there were very detailed equations used
by the Germans (I assume he was referring to Weihenstephen). I have never seen
those and wondered if any of our more traveled members are familiar with them?
Anyway, when it comes to homebrewing, the IBU equations have been developed and
massaged over the past 15? years by notables like Byron Burch, Jackie Rager,
Randy Mosher, et al. At the moment, it is my opinion that the best model,
backed by the most data, is that of Glenn Tinseth, former Hop researcher at
Oregon State Univ. His model is posted on his WWW page at:
http://www.teleport.com/~gtinseth/index.html
His model takes Wort Gravity into account more realistically, describing
decreasing utilization versus wort gravity in an exponential manner, which is
consistent with other types of chemical reactions.
Check it out,
John J. Palmer - Metallurgist for MDA-SSD M&P
johnj@primenet.com Huntington Beach, California
Palmer House Brewery and Smithy - www.primenet.com/~johnj/
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 17 Nov 1995 10:48:36 -0500
From: KennyEddy@aol.com
Subject: Frozen Yeast Summary
I received two excellent responses from my request for further verification
of the frozen-yeast storage technique posted by a few HBD's ago. One was
from a homebrewer who has been doing this for a while; the other was from a
real live yeast geneticist who does this routinely in the lab.
Briefly, the common denominators of the three techniques look like this.
Make a starter (1 liter) and wait for high kreusen. Add sterile glycerol
(the original posting suggest microwaving for 60 sec) at the rate of 10-20%
(100 - 200 ml glycerol in 1 liter of starter). Mix well (swirling or
shaking). Cut up into bite-size portions (say 100 ml), into screw-top test
tubes or vials. Cap/stopper securely. Freeze quickly.
The freeze quickly part was made easier by a clever suggestion of dunking the
test tube or vial in a bath of isopropyl alcohol that has been sitting in the
freezer (and would still be liquid even at 0F to -10F). The drastically
higher heat transfer of the alcohol versus air will make for much faster
freezing (a good thing apparently). The yeast lab freezes to -94F but I
doubt most of us can do better than zero to -10F. Also, the point was raised
about self-defrosting freezer temperature cycles being hard on the yeast.
The homebrewer has maintained viable cultures for up to 15 months (he uses
1/3 glycerol and 2/3 DI water in a test tube; add just slurry to 1/2" of the
top; this still works out close to the 10%-20% glycerol concentration), and
limits propagation to 3 generations. The yeast lab guy claims "several
years" of viable storage. For us mere mortals, a year or more is probably
realistic.
To use, remove a vial from the freezer. Thaw to room temp (use body heat to
accelerate thawing) and pitch into your favorite starter as you would any
other liquid culture. Because some of the yeast will inevitably not survive
the freezing, a starter is madatory.
Ken Schwartz
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 17 Nov 1995 09:37:57 -0700
From: wa5dxp@mail.sstar.com (Jim Overstreet)
Subject: Muntons Malt (M&F) Help Needed
I just purchased a sack of Muntons Pale and a sack of Muntons Lager malts.
Anyone have any technical info on these malts? What would be the best
mash schedules for use with these malts? Are they highly modified?
Anybody actually brew with these before? Any suggestions appreciated. TIA.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 17 Nov 95 13:11:11 -0500
From: kit.anderson@acornbbs.com
Subject: Teeth and hair
Greg King asks:
>I have a question of my own: is there any correlation between
>drinking homebrew and sudden (and rather complete) loss of teeth and
>hair?
As the resident dentist 'round these parts, I will field part of this.
Tooth loss and homebrewing are related in several ways.
1)If you bring the bottle or mug to your lips too suddenly, you can
experience tooth loss.
2)If you drink a little too much and forget to brush your teeth, you
can lose teeth. Remember to brush only the ones you want to keep.
3) If you are "bottle-opener-challenged", do not use your teeth unless
you are a trained professional. In other words, "Don't try this at
home, kids".
My knowledge about hair loss is from experience and not from a
professional standpoint. The hair loss I have experienced associated
with homebrewing has been sporadic and ,thankfully, not progressive.
1) During the judge exam, the proctor said, "You are half way through
you time". I had just finished question two.
2) I had spent a year waiting on some brettanomyces to have its way
with a Flanders Red. It tasted like hyena spoor.
Kit Anderson
Bath, Maine
<kit.anderson@acornbbs.com>
The Maine Brew Page http://www.maine.com/brew
*
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 17 Nov 1995 13:44:32 -0500 (EST)
From: Bill Countie <wgcount@husc.harvard.edu>
Subject: Re: Advanced BOP concepts (fwd)
Hello All,
Mike Swan saw my post on the BOP page and asked me to repost it here.
This is my first posting to the Homebrew Digest and this was my first
posting to the BOP page.
I have been a brewer at The Modern Brewer from the start. I was
the 2nd or 3rd customer at this brew on premises and have continued brewing
there making all grain batches. This is the general layout:
8 kettles, forced hot water heated. All of these can be used for brewing
but only 2 of these kettles can be used for grain. They put a slotted
piece of stainless that has been cut to fit the base of the kettle. Sparging
occurs by hooking up 170F water to a pipe that is attached to this
stainless steel filter. This pipe is perforated to spray this liquor
over the mash, and the sweet wort is drawn out from the bottom (as
expected). There is no way to treat the sparge water with this system. To
recirculate the sparge there used to be a pump. This pump used to
cavitate and areate the wort causing DMS especially if it was throttled
down for a slow sparge. This pump was retired and a hand method was
employed. That is, a hose was attached to the base of the kettle, and a
pitcher was filled by the brewer (me) and poured over an upturned bowl that
was in the mash to recirculate or poured through a strainer (to catch
grain) into the kettle. Not quite as elegant, but it did the job. The
problem with pouring through a strainer is that the hot wort is areated.
Next time I will pour into the kettle holding the strainer in the kettle
to minimize this. The kettle holds about 19 Gallons (U.S.). Hops are
added directly to the kettle in pellet form, or in muslin bags for loose
or plug hops. Water treatment can be added to the boil or the mash and
are found near the kettles at the brewers work station. Hot or cold
water can be added at anytime by a faucet nearby attached to a garden
sprayer.
The hopped wort can now be pumped through a nylon mesh filter
in which leaf hops may be placed for a hop back but not if pellet hops
were used in the boil. Then it goes through a heat exchanger and fills a
plastic fermenter. Yeast is added at this point. For me, at The Modern
Brewer, yeast is a tricky thing. I have had two bad batches this year.
One caused by yeast failure, the full batch liquid yeast started too
slow. The other caused by operator failure, a staff member cast the yeast
the next day as there was a tasting going on after hours and they wanted
me out. This may have worked if he used a starter, but a smack pack
(Wyeast Bavarian Lager) does not work too quickly. In each case I was
given a new session.
The fermenter is moved to a room where it is stacked up into rows
pertaining to when it was made (Sunday to Saturday). The Ale room is at
store temperature and the lager room is at about 40F but I'm not sure to
the exact temp. Here it stays for a week to 10 days. Then it is moved to
a cold room where it sits for the balance of the 2 weeks for ales or 3
weeks for lagers. The brewer can request any duration in any of the
rooms but the extra time will be charged to the brewer.
The new beer is pumped from it's place in the cold room to a 15
gallon cornielius keg with a stone in it. The brewer can filter his/her
beer with the system provided. My first porter (O.G. 1066) had the body
stripped from it by using a 1 micron filter. I also lost about 1 gallon
of beer. I could read through it, but it wasn't what I intended.
The filling stations are 4 sinks with 2 faucets and a beer tower on
each sink. One of the faucets has the usual hot /cold tap water and the other
faucet can be connected to Idophor/water mix that comes from a 5 gallon
cornielius keg. This faucet is attached to a "Jet Spray" and bottles are
rinsed and put on a bottle tree for drying. The bottle tree is moved (tricky
part this) by the brewer to the cold room and the bottles are cooled to lessen
fobbing. The beer is decanted by placing the bottle under the beer tower tap.
The bottle is in this way filled from the top down. Fobbing is a problem,
especially with the fisher/grolsch swingtop bottle.
Consistant results IMHO cannot be trusted to occur until the bugs
are worked out of this system. I have not brewed with the same method
twice in the many times I have brewed there. The staff are helpful and
are really interested in helping the brewer achieve a good product, but
they have to ask what is "the way we are doing it now".
Cheers,
Bill Countie
e-mail wgcount@husc7.harvard.edu
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 17 Nov 1995 13:53:13 -0600
From: Russell Mast <rmast@fnbc.com>
Subject: Brettanomyces
Kids, it's time to brush up on your Latin.
myces = fungus
I'm pretty sure Brettano is a reference to Briton, but it might also be
some Latin reference for Belgium. Saccharo = sugar, btw.
Come to think of it, maybe Myces is Greek. The Myceleum? Isn't that a
Greek thing? Or am I confused? Well, one of those two.
Parthenomyces - the yeast of death.
-R
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 17 Nov 1995 14:13:14 -0600
From: Russell Mast <rmast@fnbc.com>
Subject: Never say never.
I think most people who've ever brewed one all-grain batch brew most of
their beers from then on with all-grain. Since I went all-grain, uh, over
two years ago (or is it three? sheesh, I don't wanna think about it), I've
only brewed one all-extract and one or two partial mashes. (Though I have
done a few experimental 1-gallon extract beers, playing with new additives
or hop varieties.)
- ---
I often repitch primary dregs with no washing and no problems. (And I often
post to that effect. Sorry to be redundant.)
- ---
> From: Tom Krivec <8935174@unileoben.ac.at>
> Subject: RE: Bleach/Dioxin
>
> Nevertheless today it is known that dioxin is the most toxic substance that
> has ever been made by mankind.
I've read in numerous places that it's Plutonium. Still, I don't think anyone
uses plutonium to sanitize their equipment. (Though it would probably work
pretty well.)
> But I don`t think that you can get dioxin into your homebrew if you use
> bleach-solution to sanitize your equipment.
That's not the worry. The worry is that when we dump the bleach down the
drain, we're wrecking the planet for everyone else. Still, all the bleach
from homebrewers in a year is probably less than what a small paper mill makes
in a day.
I asked a friend of mine who's in environmental chemistry about it. She said
that there is a chance that bleach use might become subject to regulation in
a few years, but will probably still be pretty cheap and available for our
uses. Her advisor believes "Don't pour anything down the drain that you're
not prepared to drink" and she and I both believe that's too radical. (I
mean, if I wanted to drink it...)
To do all the sanitizing for a single batch of beer, including carboys, racking
equipment, etc., I probably use less than 1 cup of bleach, which is what a lot
of people use in a single load of laundry. I'm not worried.
I am a little tired of the incessant rinsing, though.
-R
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 17 Nov 1995 15:29:57 -0500
From: denisb@CAM.ORG (Denis Barsalo)
Subject: Minimum water for all grain batch ?
I've made a couple of partial mashes in the past months and now I'm
planning to tackle a simple all-grain recipe. Papazian's "Olde 33" on page
310 of TNCJOHB seemed like an easy one to start with. My problem is that my
brewpot can't hold all that water! The recipe calls for 1.75 gal. to start
mash, almost another gal. for stepping up to 150F, and another 3.5 gal. for
sparging.
Where could I cut back so that I could use my 4 gal. brewpot? I
thought I would use a bit less to start, say 1.5 gal., then step up the
mash by turning up the heat instead of adding boiling water, and then
finally, sparge with only 2.5 gal. Will this screw up the recipe? Am I
better off cutting back on the grain as well and just make a smaller batch?
If I was to break down and buy another brewpot for mashing and
boiling all grain batches, what would you recommend? 6 gallon stainless
steel? 8 gallon stainless steel? 10 gallon stainless steel?
Thank You All
Denis Barsalo
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 17 Nov 1995 14:14:51 MST
From: Randy M. Davis <rmdavis@cal.mobil.com>
Subject: Carbonation & Adding Yeast at Bottling
In issue 1886 Larry N. Lowe asked about adding yeast to beer at bottling
time after a period of lagering. I have often wondered where this concern
with not having enough yeast for conditioning originated. I have never
added yeast to a batch of beer after the initial pitching and I more often
than not have a problem with over carbonation. Rarely under carbonation.
As an example, my most recent lager was held at around 40 deg.F. for 46
days prior to bottling/kegging. The result has a very polished appearance
and although I reduced the amount of priming sugar to account for the lower
temp. ferment, it is still slightly over carbonated. Why would one ever
need to add yeast when priming with sugar?
As for the question of natural carbonation being superior to "forced"
carbonation, I firmly believe that this is simply false. I have heard the
same theory mentioned by some members of the local homebrew club and I
have decided to put it to the test in the near future. I plan to devise
a blind taste test using bottle conditioned and counterpressure filled
samples of the same beer to (hopefully) prove my point. If I get this
together I will post the results.
---
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Randy M. Davis rmdavis@cal.mobil.com Calgary Canada (403)260-4184 |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 17 Nov 95 17:06:30 CST
From: "Tracy Aquilla" <aquilla@salus.med.uvm.edu>
Subject: more dioxin misinformation
In Digest #1886:
Tom Krivec <8935174@unileoben.ac.at> says:
>One of those compounds got very famous in the mid-seventies when there was a
>desaster in a chemical plant in Seveso, Italy. There about 100g (~4 ounces) of
>2,3,7,8-Tetrachloro-dibenzo-para-dioxin (TCDD) were blown into the air.
[snip]
>In Seveso no human died, but the people had serious problems with their skin.
>Today twenty years after the desaster a lot of people suffer of
>consequential diseases.
The incident in question sheds some light on the issue of dioxin toxicity.
If dioxin were acutely toxic (like for example methylisocyanate-remember
that one?), those people involved in the accident would have died instantly.
They were literally soaked with dioxin, not just exposed to a few micrograms
of the stuff. After extensive surveillance for nearly 20 years, the
resulting health consequences of this accident were far below expectations,
which was a big surprise to those scientists who believed dioxin was highly
toxic. Dioxin is not acutely toxic.
>Nevertheless today it is known that dioxin is the most toxic substance that
>has ever been made by mankind.
>Only 0.0000000000005 g (!!!!!) of TCDD will have toxical effects on a human
>being.
As usual, I'm writing this from memory without the aid of any references, so
I might be wrong (as I have before...recently), but I think this is false.
Based solely on the industrial accident mentioned, it seems clear that
dioxin is not acutely toxic, although there may be some long-term effects of
exposure. It is definitely not the most toxic synthetic substance. I believe
that distinction is held by some of the organophosphates.
>For that reason it is a little bit strange if Tracy Aquilla says in HBD 1880 :
>>Recent estimates of the world-wide production of dioxin are about 35 pounds
>>per year.
>You could kill more than the whole population of the earth with that 35
>pounds!!!
If being sprayed in the face didn't kill anyone, I doubt 35 pounds would
kill the entire population.
>I hope I did not make anyone of you go wild, by talking about chemistry in
>this forum, but I think it is important to know all that dioxin-stuff.
Me too.
Tracy in Vermont
aquilla@salus.med.uvm.edu
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 17 Nov 1995 17:19:21 -0500
From: danmcc@umich.edu (Dan McConnell)
Subject: freezing yeast
From: KennyEddy@aol.com
>
>Doug Roberts in HBD #1879 reports on his technique of freezing yeast cultures
>in glycerol for future use. I was intrigued by this and even more so after
>reading of his continuing success with it.
>
>I would like to see any comments, caveats, yeah-but's, or whatever from those
[snip]
>Seems like a great way to stretch one's yeast dollar.
It is.
His technique appears sound. It is rather similar to routine methods of
freezing yeast with the exception that his volumes are 100-fold greater
than normal. The bottom line is 1) does it work and 2) does it save
time/money.
I would offer a few suggestions to fine tune this procedure......
*I find that it is hard to pipette straight glycerol, so I dilute it with
an equal volume of dH2O. Much easier to pipette or pour. So in Doug's
case, he would need to add twice the amount to arrive at the same final %.
This may not be an issue when pouring 100 mL.
*Get a pressure cooker and sterilize everything. (ok, that's just my
bias/problem)
*10% glycerol is on the low side. 15-20% is better. Glycerol is sold as
"finishing formula" for winemakers because it adds a sweetness and
mouthfeel to cheap wine. It's non-toxic, but adding it to beer may effect
head retention (I'm guessing here).
*It is important to keep these cultures as cold as possible, either in a
non-defrosting deep-freeze or buffered from temperature fluctuations
(defrost cycles) as much as you can. Placing the bottles inside a sealed
container with blue ice helps but it takes up more space (I can see it
now.....Dear, I had to throw out the ice cream, my beer stuff wouldn't fit
in the freezer). The viability will decrease over time and this decrease is
exacerbated at higher temperatures. Freeze/thaw cycles are deadly.
In any case, you should be able to easily preserve a single culture for a
year with this method. Depending on the temperature of your freezer, they
may last years.
Of course, it you repitched between starts................oh no, not that again
DanMcC
------------------------------
Date: 17 Nov 95 17:35:35 EST
From: Kurt Dschida <76132.733@compuserve.com>
Subject: re: Beer Trivia Game
In HBD 1886 Mark DeWeese asks:
>Fellow beer aficionados, let me start this post by saying this
>IS NOT a shameless promotional tactic, but merely an attempt
>to get some straight-forward feedback on my idea.
>
>I have a patent pending on a beer trivia/educational board game that
>I developed as a fun way to learn about beer and brewing while at the
>same time testing one's knowledge of the subject.
>
>Before proceeding any further with development and manufacturing, I would
>like to check market viability. I feel that this is an excellent forum
>in which to take a sample survey.
>
>I would pose two questions:
>
>1) Have you ever seen or heard of such a game ?
>2) Do you think it will sell ?
A: question "1)". YES, Mark I have...
In HBD 1810 Ray Ownby wrote:
>Hi All,
>
>I'm wanting to put together a door game for my small, local BBS that focuses
>on beer, but I'm short on trivia questions for this little project. Anybody
>have a Beer Trivia file they would like to share? Just trying to do my part
>to educate these Coors Light (shudder) swilling local yokels. TIA from the
>Beer Wastelands,
A: question "2)". I don't think non-brewers would have a chance or much fun
(unless the novice questions are REALLY easy!), but sounds like fun to me;
let me know if/when it comes out on the market.
Kurt Dschida
76132.733@compuserve.com or kdschida@vines.dsd.litton.com
I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy!!
------------------------------
End of HOMEBREW Digest #1889, 11/21/95
*************************************
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