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HOMEBREW Digest #1968
This file received at Hops.Stanford.EDU 1996/02/24 PST
HOMEBREW Digest #1968 Sat 24 February 1996
FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
Rob Gardner, Digest Janitor
Contents:
Stories of Fermentation ("Kelly C. Heflin")
RIMS, Stirring, Clear Wort (Kirk Fleming)
Kraeusening and Gyle (HuskerRed)
'splainin' Protein (Charlie Scandrett)
I dont know anything (likipiki)
Writing, typing, and the HBD (S29033)
calcium ion & head retention? (Dave Whitman)
mixed gases....continued ("Rich Byrnes")
Funky Bock (maxwell)
SA Hops, Them !MALTY! Scotch Ales, Al! (KennyEddy)
SUDS-Like Shareware for Mac? (TAyres)
Re: Kegging 101 Now in Session (Jeff Benjamin)
6 1/2 Gallon Carboys / The Results Are In! (Bill Rust)
chill out! ("Tracy Aquilla")
Re: Yeast sources (Jeff Frane)
Lager vs. Ale malt (Rob Reed)
Weight of coins (Roger Kohles)
Wanted: A fast recipe for St. Pats Day (Kevin O'Connor)
Help! Study guide for MAC (WALZENBREW)
Pitching Yeast from Corney Keg Secondary (LNUSCHV1.LZ5HGR)
Competition Announcement (Greg Holton)
Re: Scottish Ale (Robert Bush)
How not to suck. (long) (Russell Mast)
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 22 Feb 1996 22:11:24 -0500
From: "Kelly C. Heflin" <kheflin@monmouth.com>
Subject: Stories of Fermentation
- ----------
I've been reading a lot of people telling how there
primary's had the lids blown
off and clogged airlocks from intense fermentation.
This never happens to me.
Well it has happened where the regular airlock was
useless and I had to go to
a blowoff tube for a day or so, but I think I have
brewed about 40 beers and that
only happened twice. I allways use wyeast liquid yeast
and I get a steady slow
fermentation but usually end up with a higher finish
gravity than I should have.
I'm talking about a pilsner at 18 - 20. I usually do my ales
at 65 deg. And Lagers
start at the same and end up in the fridge at 35 deg.
I'm sure I'll get a bunch of "Don't Worries", but I feel
as this is the most important
part about this whole thing.
I never do yeast starters, I've allways heard with
wyeast it didn't matter, but now
I'm wondering. Do you really have to worry so much
about contaminated yeast when you make starters
and how long does it take.
Thanks
Kelly
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 22 Feb 1996 21:19:15 +0000
From: flemingkr@market1.com (Kirk Fleming)
Subject: RIMS, Stirring, Clear Wort
In #1966 Dion said:
> With a RIMS system, stirring of the mash should *never* be necessary
> and if it is, indicates something wrong with the design and/or
> implementation.
I agree it shouldn't be *necessary*; I would argue that mechanical
agitation (stirring, for example) will almost always produce a higher
yield though, regardless of how good flow thru the bed is. Can't prove
it in the general case, of course.
> Stirring defeats one of the major features of a RIMS
> system, that of the grain bed acting as its own filter and producing
> crystal clear wort.
This prompts a question I asked here before and got NO response to. I'll
try it again. Why is clear wort important?
Although I find it very pleasing to see lauter and sparge produce nice
crystal clear runnings into the kettle, on many, many occassions when
doing stovetop mashes the runnings into the kettle have been laden with
micro-particles, and even macro-particles (grain). There's never been
any detectable difference in the clarity of the final consumable, nor in
the taste. What's the deal?
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 23 Feb 1996 01:20:12 -0500
From: HuskerRed@aol.com
Subject: Kraeusening and Gyle
I was reading though the appendix of Papazian's NCJOHB and came across the
section of holding back a small amount of wort or gyle to prime with. He
says that this is kraeusening, although kraesening seems to generally
referred to when yeast is at it's most active stage. I don't really care
about the usage of the word as much as this technique.
I was think about doing it. I would use his formula to calculate the
amount of gyle required, freeze it in a clean plastic container. I would
then thaw it out in a pan and boil it. Allow it to cold. Then add it to
the wort in my bottling bucket. CP says to save in a sterile jar in the
refrigerator and then pitch. Is there any reason way freezing and
reboiling wouldn't be better? Or is this whole process just a PITA and
just not worth the trouble?
Lager on,
Jason Henning
huskerred@aol.com
Nobody will ever win the battle of the sexes. There's too much
fraternizing with the enemy. --Henry Kissinger
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 23 Feb 1995 10:31:37 +1100
From: merino@cynergy.com.au (Charlie Scandrett)
Subject: 'splainin' Protein
Algis Korzonas posted
>Charlie (Scandrett) writes:
>and 65C. It has a peak rate at about 58C to 60C, but it continues pretty
>rapidly anyway. Overnight mashes will have much higher protein levels than a
>mash of a few hours. It should be very noticible in the mouth feel.
AK>Something has gone very much askew here. <snip>
AK>Charlie's comment that "overnight mashes will have much higher protein
AK>levels than a mash of a few hours" sounds completely backwards to both
AK>everything I've read and all my brewing experience. <snip> There are
primarily two AK>types of proteolytic enzymes: one that turns large and
medium-sized proteins into AK>amino acids (really little "protein" bits)
Love the terminology, very accessible!
AK>and a second that chops large proteins into medium and small-sized
proteins. The AK>first (peptidase) works at cooler temperatures and is
denatured ("killed") quite AK>rapidly as temperatures rise too much above
122F (50C). The other (protease) is less AK>heat labile (can tolerate
warmer temperatures) and will work well up to 140F (60C). AK>If you have a
long protein rest at 122F (50C), you will cut up most of your large
AK>and medium proteins into amino acids. Your yeast will be happy with
AK>all the nutrients, but you'll have poor head retention and virtually no
AK>mouth feel (thin, watery beer -- just what we need more of, right?).
Yes, although your yeast will probably ferment funny with the over-rich diet.
AK>If you use well-modified malt, or even fairly well-modified malt, you
AK>should be able to get away without a protein rest at all, which is why
AK>Dr. George Fix says to omit that 50C rest for the more modified malts.
Actually G.Fix's 40-60-70 schedule contains a Proteinase rest at 60C to
break down the High Molecular Weight Proteins which were hydrolysed at malting.
AK>So, can you see now why Charlie's saying that a long mash would make
AK>for more protein is contrary to what I think will happen? Not all the
AK>enzymes will be killed and a long (overnight) mash will probably cut
AK>most of the proteins down to amino acids, leaving a watery, thin beer.
AK>I think you've got some 'splainin' to do Charlie...
OK. There are two basic assumptions in my overnight mash comment.
1/ The masher is not nocturnal and therefore sleeps, leaving the mash set at
one temperature.
2/ That temperature is above 60C, or at least has reached mashout and is
still warm.
The proteolytic enzymes will not survive in an overnight mash because they
are *progressively* denatured at temperatures over 55C-57C. The higher the
temperature, the shorter the survival time. While enzymes have an optimum
temperature, they will work well below that point, but not for long above it
as their structure literally falls apart, and for enzymes, structure
determines function. Above 60C, 10-30 minutes is all they are going to last.
Also enzymic modification of the protein profile is dominated by malting,
simply because before kilning there are simply lots more proteolytic
enzymes. A Kolbach index number tells you little about the molecular weight
profile.
The degree of modification figure (usually Kolbach's % of total soluble
protein) is only a guide and a figure arrived at by set laboratory
conditions. However protein dissolves in wort by enzymic and non-enzymic
hydrolysing and the brewer controls this.
One step mashers over 65C will get *less* protein dissolved than the
Kolbach indicates because *enzymic* hydrolysing (I'll explain that concept
in the FAQ) is restricted my rapid denaturing (<<20 minutes) of all
proteolytic enzymes. Only about 10% of the amino acid ("(really little
"protein" bits)"AK) content are produced in the mash using this method. The
rest are produced in malting.
Overnight mashers will get more total protein than the Kolbach figure for
their malt, because they extend non-enzymic hydrolysing of proteins for a
long time. Non-enzymic hydrolysing continues above about 30C to boiling.
Although there is a practical limit set by malting, extended high
temperature breaks down the proteinous gums releasing a little more soluble
protein.
Above proteolytic denaturing temperature, say 70C,(i.e. by non-enzymic
hydrolysing), a 2 hour mash produces ~5% more dissolved nitrogen, a 3 hour
mash, another ~4%, a 4 hour another ~3% and so on. This "little more",
overnight, would probably represent a few degrees Kolbach, but in the higher
molecular weight range. Unaffected by any proteolytic enzymes, this extra
protein would contribute to mouthfeel and haze. The overnight lipid
dissolving should just about kill the head?
If they step mash before going to bed they could produce up to 50% of their
final Amino Acid content in their mash, but after 55C, very few increased
AA's. A limit of about 300mg/litre would be prudent. I'm trying a simple
test for homebrewers.
I hope this is clear? I've never tried this overnight caper.
BTW, the bottle turned up!
Charlie (Brisbane, Australia)
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 23 Feb 1996 13:04:22 +0100
From: likipiki <irazusta@lander.es>
Subject: I dont know anything
hello, I am from Basque country and my english is very poor, first sorry.
I want to make beer but i dont find any information in my country.If someone
can help me
telling the first things i have to do,thank you. The level of the digest is
very high, maybe i must go to other list.If you think that i have to go tell
me and i unsuscribe.
thank you, gracias, eskerrikasko.
imanol
------------------------------
Date: 23 Feb 1996 07:50:24 -0500 (EST)
From: S29033%MOTHER@utrcgw.utc.com
Subject: Writing, typing, and the HBD
I am not one to pretend that I am the best at writing(typing) HBD articles.
Everyone, from time to time, tends to ramble on - it is easy to do with
computers and given the person is a good typist. A spelling error here or
THEIR is understandable. I hope the following post excerpt is not indicative
of where the HBD is going:
>I was reading HBD and somebody, not sure who sorry, wrote that the ideal
>grain bed depth was 6 inches. I have recieved different info. I went to
>Chicago about a month ago and visted the brew-who-who school Sibeil Institute
>of Tech. Da man there, who took me on the tour on the joint said puff away,
>not, but any ways said that ideal grain depth is 18 inches. He showed me a
>small, basically home brew set up, they have for there students. The
>mash-tun was a tall rectagular box about 20 inches high, 10 inches depth and 5
>inches in width.
> Now i would subscibe much more to the idea it has to do with
>proportionality. A small batch doesn't need to be that tall because the grain
>husks will and all the other particles will settle in a specific gradient
>according to particle size. So if your batch is small the area on the bottom
>which the grain husks will cover will be small and so on. With large batches
>sthe area which will be cover by the grain husks will be large.
> The thing that would be most important to consider would be depth of those
>grain husk areas. If your small batch was spread out over a larger surface
>area, the particle size distibution layers would all be thin.
> So aside from this babbling i've just spewed out,
Again, I understand that it is possible to blab away on the HBD but this is
garbage. I am not the HBD police but, if there were such a thing, I think many
sentences would be in order (or should I type scentances?). The author was
right - he did spew something out. Next time he should be sober while posting
or at least not drink so much as to cause him to SPEW!
Lance Stronk
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 23 Feb 1996 08:40:23 -0500
From: dwhitman@rohmhaas.com (Dave Whitman)
Subject: calcium ion & head retention?
(A copy of this message has also been posted to the following newsgroups:
rec.crafts.brewing)
I've been working on getting better head retention in my beers. About a
month ago, I reported on a factorial design where I got the suprising
result of seeing no effect on head retention upon adding 6% wheat malt to
my grain bill. This weekend, I continued my experiments by looking at
UNmalted wheat, and saw amazing head on the resulting wort. I was ready
to say that unmalted wheat was the real trick for getting better head.
However, an email discussion with Jeane-Pierre Boile (who sees a major
effect with malted wheat) has me wondering about the effect of dissolved
minerals. When we compared procedures, one of the things that jumped out
was Jeane-Pierre's use of relatively untreated water from a well
(presumably fairly hard), versus my use of reverse osmosis water
(essentially mineral-free). I've been wanting to look at doctoring my
water for some time, and it happens that I added some gypsum to my sparge
water in this latest batch where I saw such good head.
I can make a hand-wavy chemist's argument for divalent calcium ions
complexing to proteins in solutions to form ionic crosslinks, raising the
effective molecular weight of the proteins, and thus helping to support
foam.
The upshot is that I've got two possible contributors to the dramatic
improvement in head in this latest batch - unmalted wheat and gypsum -
plus the possiblity that the two interact to give an even bigger effect.
I also need to consider the possibility that the reason I didn't see any
effect with malted wheat was due to insufficient calcium.
In HBD1625, Victor (vialeggio@ccmail.sunysb.edu) speculated that poor head
retention in a bitter was caused by forgetting his normal addition of
gypsum to his very soft water. Has anyone else noticed or read about an
effect of dissolved ions on head retention?
- --
dave whitman "The opinions expressed are those of the
dwhitman@rohmhaas.com author, and not Rohm and Haas Company."
They made me say that. Really.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 23 Feb 1996 09:40:00 EST
From: "Rich Byrnes" <rich.byrnes@e-mail.com>
Subject: mixed gases....continued
OK, there's been some good info on mixed gas usage being
posted in the last week and thanks to all who have
contributed to this thread! Now, from an economic and
complexibility standpoint, would it make sense to force
carbonate as usual and just dispense with the nitrogen mix?
I have the spare tanks to do so, or would it make more sense
to force carbonate as usual and push with pure nitrogen?
I haven't bought the regulator yet, nor have I bought the valve
for my "soon to be ex-fire-extinguisher" so I could go either
way at this point. FWIW the welding supplier I mentioned
yesterday will fill a 20lb tank with al-eh-gal (60/40) for
$12, not bad considering I've heard other places charge
upwards of $20 for a 5lb tank.
Also, is 70/30 any better of a mix than 60/40?
TIA
Rich Byrnes
Fermental Order of Renaissance Draughtsmen
"I'm not a beer connoisseur. I am a beer enthusiast,
and they are much nicer." Fred Eckhardt
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 23 Feb 96 08:41:43 cdt
From: maxwell@prisminfo.com
Subject: Funky Bock
Hi All!
I have a question that I *hope* someone will be able to help me with...
I grabbed a can of a New Zealand Bock kit off the shelf of my favorite
homebrew store. A 3lb bag of unhopped light DME later, and I was out the
door. I brewed this up and threw in ~1oz of Chinook hops just for grins
when I started the boil. I followed my normal procedures after that and
pitched a packet of dry Nottingham Ale yeast. Nothing for a couple of
days. On day 3, I got a seemingly normal ferment going, I racked to
secondary after a week and there it sat for about a month. The thing was
still fermenting as of Wed. nite but not too much. Maybe 2 bubbles a
minute or so. "Screw it" I said, and racked to a corny keg and put it
under about 30lbs of pressure and placed in the fridge. Last nite i took
my first draw and the taste was well.... Bad. This may be my first
undrinkable beer. It is extremely bitter, with some other tastes that I
cannot describe. I sense that it may be a strong alcohol taste, but I'm
not sure...
Any ideas of what I did? Better yet, any ideas of what I can do now to
improve it? Maybe some dry hops for aroma? It currently has very little
nose. That still leaves me with a bad taste though.
TIA,
Maxwell McDaniel
maxwell@prisminfo.com
http://www.prisminfo.com/users/maxwell.htm
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 23 Feb 1996 10:09:48 -0500
From: KennyEddy@aol.com
Subject: SA Hops, Them !MALTY! Scotch Ales, Al!
Dave Hinkle wrote:
> If you can wait a month ot two, just write to the Boston Beer Co.
> (address for brewery on the label!) and ask them for some hops.
> I did this, and a few weeks later, got a form letter asking for $12
> for a pound of their Hallertauer Mittelfrueh hops. With no further
> action on my part, about a month later I got 400g of hops in a
> mylar plastic pouch. I suppose if you actually send them the
> money they MIGHT send them sooner! If you are really bent on
> cloning SA Boston Lager, using THEIR hops would be the best
> way to go. So send those letters!
I made a aple ale last fall using copious amounts of this hop, and the
flaovr/aroma said "SAM" all over it. The hops were given to me by my partner
in crimes against brewing science Gerry, who paid for one pound, then had
another pound show up in the mail a few weeks later. Must be a trend.
Al K counters my Scotch Ale ranting with:
> My initial impression that Scottish Ales and English Bitters
> are far less different than the AHA and most books say is from personal
> experience tasting my way from Edinburgh to London via the Lake District,
> Burton-on-Trent, Wales, Southampton and Kent over the course of three
> weeks, two summers ago.
The part about the AHA guidelines being different than reality I WILL agree
with. After tasting the liquid-hop bitters and IPAs that my club members
were brewing "to style", I thought last summer that surely something must be
wrong with those so-called "bitters" I tried in England. While I can't claim
to have done as thorough a tour as Al, I still stand by these
"generalizations". And while Al started in southern-ish Scotland and went
south to England, we spent most of our two weeks north of Edinburgh. The
further we got from the "big towns" the more the local brews fell into the
stereotype.
Ken Schwartz
KennyEddy@aol.com
"Rome wasn't burned in a day" -- Abe Hirschfield, NY businessman and would-be
media tycoon
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 23 Feb 1996 10:13:21 -0500
From: TAyres@aol.com
Subject: SUDS-Like Shareware for Mac?
I've recently had occasion to make a fair amount of use of a friend's SUDS
4.0 recipe formulator, downloaded from the 'Net (AOL, actually) as shareware.
I really like SUDS, but primarily I run a Mac Quadra (the SUDS is on my work
computer, a 486). Does anyone know of any SUDS-like shareware for the Mac.
I'm aware of Darryl Richman's Crafty Fox software, but I'd like to try
something in downloaded Mac-compatible shareware first, to see if it works.
I'm an AOLer, so if anyone knows of anything that would do the trick in the
AOL "beer" software library, let me know.
Thanks!
Tom Ayres
TAyres@aol.com
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 23 Feb 96 8:59:46 MST
From: Jeff Benjamin <benji@hpfcbug.fc.hp.com>
Subject: Re: Kegging 101 Now in Session
> Almost immediately I noticed that bringing beer to club meetings, giving
> away bottles, and just letting brew sit long enough to age properly
> became difficult/impossible. Sure, there's Frankenbrau and
> counterpressure and all that but it seems bottling a dozen homebrews
> from a keg is more hassle than bottling four dozen out of the secondary
> ever was.
For long term storage, I agree. However, for near-term consumption,
like taking beer to club meetings or parties, it's easy! Just fill
a thoroughly washed half-gallon or gallon juice jug right out of the
tap. You don't even need to sanitize if (though you can if you're
paranoid). As long as the beer will be drunk within a day or two, it
will be fine.
Several local breweries who don't bottle (O'Dells, Coopersmith's) sell
their beer this way, and it works quite well if all you want is a gallon
or so instead of an entire keg.
- --
Jeff Benjamin benji@fc.hp.com
Hewlett Packard Co. Fort Collins, Colorado
"Think! It ain't illegal yet." -- George Clinton
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 23 Feb 1996 11:10:18 -0500
From: Bill Rust <wrust@csc.com>
Subject: 6 1/2 Gallon Carboys / The Results Are In!
Wow, did I get a lot of responses to my query about 6 1/2 gallon carboys!
Regarding siphoning...
-) about a 50/50 split between a turkey baster / vinyl hose arrangement and
a wine thief. I may go with the wine thief, just because I also make the
occasional wine / still mead. One said that he's been brewing so long, he
just doesn't check any more. Mmmm, sounds a little familiar...
Regarding HSA when transferring hot wort...
-) All responders reminded me that shattering glass was a much worse danger
than HSA!! (Doooooop!!) Otherwise, chill. Choose your favorite method.
Regarding headspace and weizzen...
-) Some said 'Don't worry'. More said 'I'll need a blow-off'. Best advice
was essentially, 'Better safe than sorry'...
- ---------------------------------
Neal Christensen writes...
>Just a clarification here: N2O (nitrous oxide) is laughing gas and is
>generally not sold to the public (hence the raised eyebrow)...
** (snip) **
> ...I am not sure what N2O would do to beer, but it sounds interesting
> - has anyone tried?
Would you use a laughter-tun??
Sorry couldn't resist...
------------------------------------------------------------
Bill Rust | Kwa afya yako Kenya
Master Brewer | Slainthe Gaelic
Jack Pine Savage Brewery | Stin Ygai-sou Greece
Shiloh, IL (NACE) | Cheers Great Britian
------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 23 Feb 96 11:27:13 CST
From: "Tracy Aquilla" <aquilla@salus.med.uvm.edu>
Subject: chill out!
In Digest # 1964:
korz@pubs.ih.att.com (Algis R Korzonas) wrote:
>>
>>Tracy writes:
>>The CF chiller should only produce more cold break if you chill the wort to
>>a lower temperature than you did with your immersion chiller (which is often
>>the case when using CF chillers; who wants to wait 45 minutes or more for
>>their immersion chiller to do the job?). The final temperature reached is
>>really what counts; the rate of cooling generally isn't significant.
>
>I would really need to do more experimentation with the settling rates of
>the cold break as a function of speed of cooling, but very unscientifically,
>I've found that I've gotten *more solid* cold break when chilling quickly.
>Furthermore, I use an immersion chiller and with a small amount of agitation,
>I get from 212F to 70F in 15 minutes with Chicago tapwater in the wintertime.
>To say that immersion chillers take 45 minutes is incorrect and very unfair.
>The speed of chilling is dependent on the temperature of the coolant and the
>relative rates of flow of the wort and coolant. There is nothing inherently
>faster about cooling with either an immersion or counterflow chiller if there
>is a reasonable amount of circulation of wort around the immersion chiller.
Sorry Al, but I think you may have missed my point here. First, the rate of
precipitation and rate of sedimentation are two entirely different things,
the kinetics of which depend on different parameters. Precipitation rates
depend mostly on solubility coefficients, concentration of the solute,
temperature/pressure, ionic strength, and pH (mostly for proteins), while
the sedimentation rate of the precipitated materials depends on particle
size, density, and geometry, and the density of the medium. To reiterate and
to be more precise, formation of the cold break is not really dependent on
the cooling rate so much as the temperature differential and time spent at
the lower temperature, so actually, if you really want to get the most cold
break possible, cool to near freezing and wait overnight (or even longer!).
I'm quite familiar with these phenomena, since my daily work routine
involves the precipitation and sedimentation of proteins and other
macromolecules.
Secondly, to quote Charlie Scandrett "Heat exchanging is a highly
advanced industry that knows what it is doing, so why do we reinvent the
wheel?" In other words, there's really no need to do more experiments
(particularly more "unscientific" ones), since they've already been done.
Briefly, the rate at which one can cool hot wort largely depends on the
temperature of the chill water being used (assuming it's actually water),
although certain chiller configurations are more thermodynamically efficient
than others. Here in Vermont, we have a spring that provides me with VERY
cold water during the winter (near freezing). Using an immersion chiller and
stirring, it usually takes about 40 minutes or so to get my lager worts down
below 50F, which is the temperature at which I prefer to pitch my lagers. I
could accomplish this significantly faster with a more efficient device
employing a counter-current mechanism. If counter-current heat exchange
weren't more efficient, animals would never have evolved these mechanisms!
For anyone interested in more details, I refer you to Charlie's
Thermodynamics of Chilling FAQ (and/or Digests #1793 and 1794, July 1995) at
the Brewery. It's quite technical, covers all the bases, and is very well
written.
Tracy
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 23 Feb 1996 08:32:48 -0800
From: jfrane@teleport.com (Jeff Frane)
Subject: Re: Yeast sources
Tom Fitzpatrick wrote:
>
>Al K. writes:
>
>>Dave has a habit of concealing the sources of his yeast strains.
>>Unless he has changed his ways, I would be very skeptical of what
>>he says about the yeasts' origins. For example, if you ask directly
>>if Wyeast #9993 is the "Pabst" yeast, he probably won't say no --
>>he'll say something like "there's a possibility that it is."
>
>
>I did not ask directly, "Is Wyeast #1388 Duvel?"
>I asked for the origin of Wyeast #1388. He replied "Duvel."
>Similar one word responses were received for other strains.
>I don't think Dave has any motivation to lie about the origin of
>his yeast if the brewery of origin doesn't care.
>Why don't you call him yourself and see if he gives the same answers
>twice? Now that might be interesting and shed some light ...
>
I didn't respond to Al's original comment because, as a friend of
Dave's, I felt a little uncomfortable with leaping in to his defense
all the time. But I will note that Dave gave me exactly the same
responses a month or two back on the sources.
I thought Al's comment was totally uncalled for, frankly. Dave has
*never* to my knowledge, deceived anyone about the source of a strain.
If he says it's Duvel, then that's exactly what it is. If he says
he's not sure, or he doesn't want to tell you, it's either because
he doesn't know (a lot of yeasts arrive by very circuitous routes)
or because he's protecting the source (sometimes those circuitous routes
can get people into trouble).
Then Al wrote:
>Sandy writes:
>>One of particular interest is Whiteshield yeast (Bass). A friend from
>>Burton-on-Trent raves about it.
>
>Rumour has it that Wyeast #1028 London Ale is the Bass Whiteshield yeast.
>
Seems ironic to have Al criticize Dave Logsdon for not being more
forthcoming while at the same time passing along "rumor". In this
particular instance, I would suggest that rumor was wrong. Years ago,
I provided Dave with a bottle of Worthington Whiteshield and he got a
terrific culture from it. The problem was that the strain was clearly
a lager strain for bottling, and not the primary fermentation strain.
>From conversations with Dave, I would suggest that he doesn't offer
the Bass strain at all, so add that to your rumor mill.
I would agree with Al that the best thing to do with any yeast strain
is to brew with it and see if you like it. There are a tremendous
number of factors that influence final beer flavor and even yeast
behavior, and only by working through all those variables can a brewer
begin to learn the "true" character of any yeast strain. And simply
because the yeast originated with Anheuser-Busch doesn't mean you're
going to be making Bud with it.
- --Jeff Frane
No copyright implied, wanted, or thought tasteful.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 23 Feb 1996 11:38:44 -0500 (EST)
From: Rob Reed <rhreed@icdc.delcoelect.com>
Subject: Lager vs. Ale malt
Curt asks about malts:
> What (if any) is the difference between pale malt and lager malt?
>
> Are we talking about different applications for the same grain, or is there a
> difference between the malt used to make ales and the malt used to make
> lagers?
Pale Ale malt is more thoroughly modified, i.e. it has undergone a longer
germination during malting. As such, more protein degradation has occurred,
thus a protein rest during the mash is typically not necessary, nor
recommended. As a result of the longer germination cycle, more carbohydrates
are consumed which leaves us with less potential extract as compared to a
less modified lager malt. After germination and subsequent lower temperature
drying, Pale Ale malt is kilned at higher temperature: this develops more
color and drives off the precursors of DMS (SMM, I believe).
Lager malts are typically less modified, which says the germination phase is
shorter. As a result, *less* protein modification occurs. For brewers, this
means lager malt has a higher extract potential - due to less carbohydrate
consumption by the developing embryo - and a protein rest should be
employed for optimum results because the protein-gum matrix which encapsulates
starch particles in the endosperm hasn't been degraded sufficiently
(as compared to highly modified pale ale malt). After germination and
subsequent drying, lager malt is kilned at lower temperatures. This develops
less color and also tends to denature enzymes at a lower rate. As a result,
lager malt has more enzymes.
As far as I'm concerned, the domestic 2-row malts out there are more like
lager malt, because of the typically higher enzyme levels and the noticeable
if not prodigious amount of DMS production during brewing. Certainly,
brewers' techniques will affect the level of DMS in the final product, but
I'm firmly rooted in the camp that English Style ales should not have DMS
levels above flavor threshold. As such I feel domestic malts are more suited
for lagers, Belgian ales, Kolsch, and Alt.
Cheers,
Rob Reed
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 23 Feb 1996 10:58:37 -0600
From: Roger Kohles <rkohles@ltec.net>
Subject: Weight of coins
In HBD #1967 Greg King <gking@arserrc.gov> writes:
>Another option is to use a combination of coins. I weighed out an
>assortment of coins (U.S. pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters) on a
>fairly sensitive scale (accurate to 0.01 gram) and got the following
>average masses (or weights, if you prefer):
>
> penny = 2.67 gram (average of 7 coins)
> nickel = 5.01 gram (average of 7 coins)
> dime = 2.28 gram (average of 4 coins)
> quarter = 5.66 gram (average of 8 coins)
>
>Except for one badly-behaved penny with a mass of 3.08 gram, none of the
>coins' masses varied from the corresponding average value by more than
>0.07 gram.
>
In 1983 (or was it 1982), can't remember for sure, the US Mint changed the
composition of the penny. Prior to the change it was solid copper and after
the change it was (and is) made out of zinc with a copper coating. The
weight changed - decreased. I don't remember the exact values, but the
change is enough to mess up Greg's handy calculations. It definitely
accounts for his "badly-behaved" penny. I asked the tour guide guy at the
Denver mint on a visit last year about this. He confirmed the change was
made and further stated that it took place in November of the year in
question. So the year in question will have coins of mixed weight, before
this year they are heavier and after this year they are lighter. If I
remember to do it, I'll get a role or two of pennies and see if I can deduce
the exact year and weights involved.
rkohles@ltec.net
Roger Kohles
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 23 Feb 1996 09:43:07 -0800
From: koco@lsil.com (Kevin O'Connor)
Subject: Wanted: A fast recipe for St. Pats Day
Greetings fellow brewers,
My wife indicated to me yesterday (Feb 22) that she'd like to have a St.
Patricks day party at our place. What respectible O'Connor wouldn't ;^)
Well here's the problem. She got the bright idea that I should whip up
a batch of green Irish ale for the event. I don't think there is not enough
time to create a batch of brew by then (March 16).
So now for the question. Does anyone have a recipe that would be suitable
for green Irish ale that could be very drinkable in just three weeks?
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
thanx,
Kevin
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 23 Feb 1996 13:37:17 -0500
From: WALZENBREW@aol.com
Subject: Help! Study guide for MAC
I recently posted my BJCP Exam study guide on the TRASH home page. However,
been getting a lot of comments from MAC users that they are having problems
downloading/translating the WP 5.1 for PC format into one they can use.
I don't have a MAC or know anybody who does. Anybody out there willing and
able to translate the Guide into a zipped MAC word processor format? Send
the file to me at WALZENBREW@aol.com and I'll make sure it gets on the TRASH
home page.
Thanks in advance..
Cheers,
Greg Walz
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 23 Feb 1996 13:57:09 -0500
From: LNUSCHV1.LZ5HGR@eds.com
Subject: Pitching Yeast from Corney Keg Secondary
I have a dark lager that has been in a corney key lagering at 40F for about 5
weeks.
I used wyeast bavarian lager yeast and want to re-use it for a bock. This is
my plan
for re-pitching from the secondary.
1) Sanitize a picknic spigot, hose and connector for dispensing from the corney
key using
iodophor.
2) Connect dispenser and CO2 to the keg and pressurize to about 10 psi.
3) Dispense 12-16 ounces strait from the corney keg into my just cooled wort.
The idea
here is that yeast settled on the bottom of the keg will come out too.
4) Disconnect hoses and relieve pressure from the corney key and continue to
lager.
Has anyone tried a process like this? How well do you think it will work?.
WIll I get sufficient quantity of yeast this way for good fast starts?
I will be happy to summarize responses and report on how well this process
works if
I go ahead with it.
TIA
Dennis Cabell
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 23 Feb 1996 13:58:54 -0500 (EST)
From: greg@kgn.ibm.com (Greg Holton)
Subject: Competition Announcement
The Hudson Valley Homebrewers,inc will host their
6th Annual Homebrew Competition
on Sat. March 30th at River Station Restaurant,
25 Main St. Poughkeepsie, NY 12601
This competition is participating in the
New York State Homebrewer of the Year award
For more information, visit our web site:
http://alpha.rollanet.org/~hvhb
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 23 Feb 1996 20:27:09 +0100
From: bush@shbf.se (Robert Bush)
Subject: Re: Scottish Ale
Hi,
Al Korzonas, Fredrik Stahl and Ken (I can't find his posting) have been
discussing Scottish Ale and I must support Fredrik's theory that the style
has changed from a century ago. It's a lot easier to travel these days;
borders fade and we all exchange ideas (just look at this forum!) that
spread more easily today than just a few decades ago. However, I would like
to quote Graham Wheeler (British brewer and beer writer that has co-written
a couple of books with the aforementioned Roger Protz). In his book "Home
Brewing - The CAMRA Guide" he writes about two Scottish Ale recipes: "Very
lightly hopped, typical of Scottish beers." and "--still very lightly
hopped in the Scottish tradition."
Al Korzonas writes:
>My initial impression that Scottish Ales and English Bitters
>are far less different than the AHA and most books say is from personal
>experience tasting my way from Edinburgh to London via the Lake District,
>Burton-on-Trent, Wales, Southampton and Kent over the course of three
>weeks, two summers ago.
This makes me wonder if the hoppiness of Scottish Ales decreases the higher
you go in Scotland; Edinburgh is not very high up! Perhaps if you went
another 320 km north you'd find the "very lightly hopped" Scottish Ales.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% WASSAIL! %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
% Robert Bush %
% Eskilstuna,SWEDEN E-mail: bush@shbf.se %
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 23 Feb 1996 13:39:05 -0600
From: Russell Mast <rmast@fnbc.com>
Subject: How not to suck. (long)
This is just one way not to suck.
> From: "Qr. Larry Allen" <quacsbrew@inland.net>
> Subject: ...more than just a big SUCK?
> Okay, Russ, I'll bite...What's your clever technique? I happen to think
> siphoning is kinda neato, too
I've been siphoning things since I was a young boy. (We used to live on a
hill and siphoned the water off our protective winter pool cover every spring.
We used a nasty ol' garden hose, and the water we were siphoning was filled
with fallen leaves and other debris, and lay stagnant for months, and I ain't
gonna suck on that.)
Okay, the essence of it is to always maintain water pressure within your hose.
Tricky, eh? This means always having it totally full of water (or whatever)
from start to finish.
I use a three-part siphon for everything. A hooked racking cane at one end,
a solid length of plastic (about 18") at the other, and about 3' of flexible
hose in the middle. (I used to have a spring-loaded type bottle-filler on
the short, solid end. I took it off, I don't like it. I just fill straight
from the hose now.)
|\
| ~~~~~~~~|
| |
| |
o
Bad ASCII, eh? The "o" is a little orange thing. The ~ is the flexible hose.
The rest is hard plastic tubing.
If you're going to try to use my technique or any variant on it - you MUST have
a hose clamp on that hose, and keep it clamped ALWAYS, except when it's obvious
you can't. I usually have a little orange plastic thing on end of the curved
racking cane. I'm not sure what it's called, but it's set up to allow liquid
to flow in around it's top, rather than throught the bottom, so you can rest
it in the yeast and trub at the bottom of a vessel without sucking it all in
your hose. This is a pretty standard piece of equipment. (Side note - what
the hell is this thing called?)
I have a large pitcher, about half full or a little more, of sanitizing
solution. I take the empty racking hose, and rest the end with the plastic
doo-dah in the pitcher. (This pitcher is heavy enough that I don't have to
hold it to keep the hose from tipping it over under it's own weight.) I set
the pitcher on the counter next to the tub or sink. I open the hoseclamp.
I put the other end of the hose-setup and put it under the spigot. Water flows
into the pipe and, eventually, into the pitcher. If your water pressue is as
low as mind, you have to force it into the hose by holding your hand around
the spigot and hose, so it can't flow anywhere else. Blurble blurble, the
air is forced out, and you have water flowing backwards into your pitcher.
The pitcher should be at a higher altitude than the spigot, or at least near
it. With the clamp still open, drop the end of the hose that you had in the
spigot, and the water now flows out of the pitcher, into the sink. If you
end up with some air in the hose or something, you may have to manually lift
the pitcher up higher so it flows faster. When the level in the pitcher gets
down a little below halfway, when you're sure that the hose is full of
sanitizer, clamp the hose clamp. Before you clamp it - make sure that the
straight end of your hose is VERTICAL, with the open end pointing downward.
It's pretty easy to do that. When you clamp it (Jed), water will no longer
flow. Take the straight end of the hose and put it into the pitcher next to
the other end.
Now, you might have a little bit of air in your hose. The less careful you
are about keeping it vertical, the more time and shaking it takes to get the
short end into the pitcher, the more air you'll have in the hose. If I have
too much air in the hose (2" +- depending on my mood), I'll put the short end
back in the sink, and let it flow again until the air is pushed out, reclamp,
and put back in the pitcher.
Again, my pitcher is heavy enough that at under half full, I can leave it
sitting with both ends of the hose in it without the weight of the hose
tipping it over. At this point, I might undo the clamp, but I'll be careful
to reclamp it again. Now, your hose is full of sanitizer, except for any air
you were lazy enough to let in. Great. Depending on what else I'm doing at
the time, I'll let it sit there for 2-20 minutes, to sanitize.
When I'm confident or lazy enough that it's sanitized (enough), it's time to
rinse. To rinse, once again, clamp that hose. Now, I take both solid pieces
in one hand, hold them together and vertical, and lift the hose out of the
pitcher. Like magic, the liquid stays in the hose if you don't bang it around.
(A little will leak, but you'll be able to maintain enough volume in there to
maintain pressure enough to fill it from the pitcher again in a moment.)
Holding the hose in one hand, I then thoroughly rinse the pitcher in the other.
(Sometimes, one of these hands is a friend's hand.) Rinse the pitcher a few
times, and then refill it with clean water. Now, put the long end (the curved
end with the orange doodah) into the pitcher, and lower the other end into the
sink or tub, so that it's mouth is at a lower altitude that the other. Open
the hoseclamp. The clean water in the pitcher flows through the hose, rinsing
it. Reclamp when enough water has flown through. (Do not empty the pitcher
with the sihpon hose.) I repeat this rinse two or three times.
At this point, your siphon is ready to roll, it's filled with clean water and
sanitized. Keep the hose clamped until you're ready for flow. Keep the out
end below the level of the in end. I just put the long end into a carboy on
a chair or counter, lower the short end to a container on the floor (initially
the pitcher), let the stuff flow until the water is in the pitcher and the
hose is filled with beer. Then, clamp it, and put the short end into whatever
I'm racking to, or into the next bottle when I'm filling, and unclamp.
Piece of cake. Honestly - I don't understand how or why anyone does it
differently, but then I often say that about other things, too, and people
look at me the same way you're looking at this now.
-R
------------------------------
End of HOMEBREW Digest #1968, 02/24/96
*************************************
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