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HOMEBREW Digest #2348
HOMEBREW Digest #2348 Sun 16 February 1997
FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
Digest Janitor: janitor@brew.oeonline.com
Many thanks to the Observer & Eccentric Newspapers of
Livonia, Michigan for sponsoring the Homebrew Digest.
URL: http://www.oeonline.com
Contents:
High Point Wheat Beer Brewery ("David R. Burley")
Skunkiness,sweet schnapps,secondary transfer, mineral bitterness ("David R. Burley")
Stuck Sparge... (Darrin Pertschi)
Aerobic yeast growth and Dunkel Recipes (Joe Shope)
rate and dilution/slurry/acidify/liquid yeast starters (korz)
Autolysis (DD)
Wheeler... Part 1 (Rob Moline)
Wheeler..Part 2 (Rob Moline)
Botulism paranoia (JACKMOWBRAY)
Pediococcus and Lactobacillus- Lambic Questions (kevin)
canning wort in capped bottles (Heiner Lieth)
Re: Kegs on stove/rough spot in Corny/100% wheat beer/sulfur (Spencer W Thomas)
Home-made EM/Sanke dip tubes ("Michael T. Bell")
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 13 Feb 97 16:57:59 EST
From: "David R. Burley" <103164.3202@CompuServe.COM>
Subject: High Point Wheat Beer Brewery
Brewsters:
A few months ago George DePiro alerted us to a wheat beer brewery in Butler, NJ.
This is just down the road about 3 miles from my house. Messages on the
telephone answering machine did not produce a return call. While in Butler this
afternoon, I visited the brewery at 22 Park Place in Butler. This brewery is
part of a refurbished (offices, labs, printers, etc.) rubber manufacturing
plant circa 1890. Sorta reminds me of buildings of the same era in the back
streets of Manchester, England years ago, but this is only a block in area. I
found no one at home, but a card from Gregory Zaccardi, President, (tel & fax
201-838-7400) and a listing of where we can buy RAMSTEIN on tap. So, for those
interested in a wheat beer from New Jersey here are the present locations it can
be purchased listed on the card - all in New Jersey:
Headquarters Plaza, Morristown
Lotsa Pasta, Kinnelon
Andy's Corner Bar, Bogota
Cloverleaf Tavern, Caldwell
Sidewinders, Garfield
The Meeting Place, Madison
Casey O'Toole's, Wayne
Tailgates, Butler
The Front Porch, Hawthorne
Ruga's Restaurant, Oakland
Roserne's Liquors, Butler
M&M LIquiors, New Providence
Mexican Food Factory, Manalapan
Park & Orchard, East Rutherford
Helmer's Hoboken
Becca's - The Purple Cactus, Franklin
Jack Baker's Lobster Shanty, Belmar
The Mile Square Cafe, Hoboken
Paul's Bar, Clifton
Railroad Cafe, East Rutherford
Tours are the second Saturday of each month at 2:00 PM *Sharp*
If you are interested, I'll probably be there this Saturday. Call me for
directions 201-492-1371
or find it on your own:
North on Rt 23 off Rt 287, Right at first set of traffic lights onto Boonton
Avenue (next to the Shell Station), follow the one way signs at the bottom of
the hill and it brings you right to Park Place and in view of the building.
Carry on across Park Place and straight up Kinnelon Rd for 1/4 block and turn
right into 22 Park Place - a narrow alley between the brick structures.
Difficult to miss as it is the only LARGE brick structure in the area. YMMV
An encouraging sign that this was not an all extract operation were the empty
bags of *English* Pale Malt filled with something outside the building. Maybe
it's a single infusion wheat?? We'll see. Hope springs eternal that its more.
Lotsa Pasta is less than 1/2 mile from my house, so we'll see how it delivers,
tonight.
Usual disclaimers apply.
Keep on brewin'
Dave Burley
Kinnelon, NJ 07405
103164.3202@compuserve.com
Voice e-mail OK
------------------------------
Date: 13 Feb 97 16:57:54 EST
From: "David R. Burley" <103164.3202@CompuServe.COM>
Subject: Skunkiness,sweet schnapps,secondary transfer, mineral bitterness
Brewsters:
John WIlkinson of sunny Grapevine Texas asks:
> My experience indicates skunking may
> be a sometime thing rather than a sure one.
> Has this danger been exaggerated? Are we scaring
> ourselves to death?
Skunkiness is a sometime thing. In addition to being light intensity and
wavelength dependent, it depends on the color of the beer and the components
which generate the color. Being a chemical reaction it is dependent on the type
and quantity of hops. As an *imperfect* rule of thumb the lighter the color of
the beer ( e.g. lager vs stout) and the higher the content of hops ( actual IBU)
the more noticeable the skunkiness on exposure of the beer to the same amount of
light. If you want to get into a more detailed discussion of absorbance, etc
I'd like to do it off line.
Like John, I must also admit, either I am awfully insensitive to skunkiness or,
what some people are calling skunkiness is actually a change in the beer's aroma
as it warms up and oxidizes a little - more aldehyde staleness than mercaptan.
Some people are "blind" to mercaptans - my wife, for example ( the reason she
could marry me?), others may be more or less sensitive. I am skeptical, even
though I have read it, that a few minutes exposure of beer to bright sunlight
can produce skunkiness. It is especially hard to believe since it is through
soft glass which is not a good transmitter of ultraviolet in most cases. I'd
like to see some actual photochemical data combined with threshold
sensitivities. Wavelengths, quantum efficiencies, absorbances, concentrations,
etc. Perhaps we could learn more if we had a convenient standard to compare
against.
- -----------------------------------------------------------
Phil WIlcox asks how much sugar is in his sweetened schnapps. Assuming the only
major component besides alcohol dissolved in the schnapps is sugar, my
suggestion is to measure the specific gravity of a diluted ( to say, 6% alcohol)
solution in water, correct for the alcohol content using real attenuation type
calculations.
- -----------------------------------------------------
Ken Rentz asks about when to transfer to the secondary. Its easy - when the
fermentation has died down enough that it will not foam out of the secondary
carboy and as soon after that as you can. Usually about 5 to 7 days, depending
on lots of things like OG, yeast, temperature , etc.
- ----------------------------------------------------
AlK includes more into the discussion on mineral bitterness:
>sulphate ions in the brewing water cause the
> bitterness to *linger* into the finish.
How does this differ from a "dry finish" which is a well recognized effect of
sulphate? Are we having a communication problem because we are using different
words? I would not call a dry finish "bitterness".
> I really don't enjoy argueing with you Dave. I'd much rather agree on
> everything, but it seems that most often you misinterpret my assertions
> and no matter how many ways I try to rephrase my point, you don't seem
> to get it. Could someone else perhaps try to paraphrase my point?
I am glad to hear it, since I don't really enjoy arguing with anyone, including
you. And I don't think I am doing it now, just clarifying and trying to square
it with other writings on the subject. Look at it his way, if I didn't think you
had a point, I wouldn't be continuing this. But, like you, I do like to
understand, fully, assertions of people whose expertise I respect, that seem to
go against the documented common beliefs.
I am quite prepared to learn something different that explains more on any
subject. Unfortunately, and despite the discussion, I still only have your
comments on this sulfate contribution to bitternesss and wish you could provide
more information or quote other sources. As I said before, I would prefer to
agree with you on this, since it fits into my idea of what mineral bitterness is
all about. It is just that as far as I can find, no one else says what I
believe you are saying. I just want to understand how you developed this
opinion. Sources, experiments, etc.
I suppose acidifying alkaline water to the same mash pH with sulfuric acid vs
lactic acid would prove the point as long as the calcium sulfate was not
precipitated. Do you have any data like that? How about an experiment with
magnesium? MgCl2 vs NaCl in the mash?
> I'm going to try and stop at the liquor store tonight and
> see if I can find a pale, nationally-available beer with more sulphate in
> it. Maybe Bass, Whitbread, or Boddingtons, but I think they tone-down the
> sulphate for export. We'll see...
As we discussed privately, my daughter brought me a couple of sixers of
Boddington's with the nitrogen fizzers in the can during her Christmas visit
from Manchester. These definitely have that high sulfate dryness almost to the
point of metallic. I have never had a Boddington's made for the US market,
because I've never bought one here.
- ---------------------------------------------------------------
Keep on brewin'
Dave Burley
Kinnelon, NJ 07405
103164.3202@compuserve.com
Voice e-mail OK
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 13 Feb 1997 17:03:44 +0000
From: Darrin Pertschi <darrinp@cowles.com>
Subject: Stuck Sparge...
Two of my first three all grain batches resulted in stuck sparges (The
first one did yield the best dry stout ever made on this planet though).
I'm using the 5 gal. Gott and EasyMasher. Nothing unusual in the mash,
8-10 lb grain in 1-1.5 qts./lb water. The only thing I can think of to
explain this that maybe the Malt Mill I use at the brewshop is set to
crush too fine and I'm getting clogged up with 'flour'. Could this
happen?
What about grain bed compaction? I can't see into the bottom of my
cooler, so I don't know if the grain is floating or not. With this
thought in the back of my mind, I'm reading through the 1985 Zymurgy
special grain issue. On pg. 45 Al Andrews is discussing mashing systems
and illustrates a strange (to me) drain on his lauter tun. The drain
tube exits the bottom of the tun and goes upward to a tee fitting. From
there one tube goes to the boil pot and the other continues upward. He
says "By having the exiting wort flow up and over the tee fitting, it
effectively reduces the pressure to the difference between the top of
the grain bed and the tee."
What? Really? Anyone here effectively using this design? What about the
tube that goes up, what happens to it? Is it left 'open' or sealed at
it's end? If I utilize limited or no sparge, would I have to slowly
lower the tee as I when along?
I welcome all input on this situation...
- ------
Darrin in South Central PA
Proprietor--Simpleton's Cosmic Brewery
- ---------------------------------------------
You never know just how you look through other peoples eyes. <B.H.S.>
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 13 Feb 1997 14:06:05 +0000
From: Joe Shope <sltp5@cc.usu.edu>
Subject: Aerobic yeast growth and Dunkel Recipes
With the recent discussion on yeast starters, growth, pitching, and
aeration I have begun to question my own procedure. Currently I keep
my cultures aerobic until pitching in a peice of equipment similar to
a cyclotherm and pitch 1 liter. The yeast seem to faster when
in the aerobic environment which allows for a higher amount of yeast
to be pitched. I know that many brewers allow their starters to reach
high kreusen before pitching and wonder if these starters are not in
anaerobic conditions. Are there consequences to keeping the yeast
aerobic prior to pitching?
Also I'm interested in brewing a Munich Dunkel or Dark Bavarian
Lager, If anyone has a recipe to share I would greatly appreciate the
help.
Cheers,
Joe
Fermenting in the Promised Land
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 13 Feb 1997 16:54:21 -0600 (CST)
From: korz@xnet.com
Subject: rate and dilution/slurry/acidify/liquid yeast starters
At the risk of dredging up old discussions, here are a few loose ends that
were left unresolved due to the HBD crashing back in December.
Dave writes (regarding dilution of the mash increasing the conversion rate):
>I took M&BS's observation that diluting the mash has an OVERALL
>effect of giving a more fermentable wort. It was their interpretation, which I
>repeated, that the products like sugar, slowed down the production by
>inhibiting the forward reaction.
MBS says (p288 in the 2nd edition): "Hydrolytic reactions may proceed at a
greater rate in more dilute mashes, because the products of reaction are
less concentrated and so inhibit enzyme activity less." Dave clearly read
the word "may" as being "are likely to" and I read it as "possibly." This
is probably the source of our disagreement.
Also, if you look at the table "Influence of mash temperature and
concentration on the composition of sweet wort" (this has been posted in
HBD before) you'll notice that for some things like Hexose and Dextrin, a
thinner mash always produces less, whereas for others, like extract %,
it peaks at 39% grist and is lower for both higher and lower concentrations.
Here's a case where I *speculate* that the gains of reduction in the
inhibition of enzymes is eventually outweighed by the dilution of the
substrate as the grist % continues to decrease.
***
Rick writes:
>On slurry,
>Do you know that I have now seen the word 'slurry' maybe hundreds of times and
>nowhere has
>anyone ever said where it comes from? If I make a starter, is the stuff on the
>bottom a
>slurry? And is that somehow more useful in some situations than a starter?
"Slurry" is the thick paste of yeast in the bottom of the fermenter or
starter. If you can get 250ml of yeast slurry (from a brewpub or from
your fermenter) it's far better to pitch (if it's fresh) than a simple
1- or 2-liter starter made from a package of Wyeast. The difference is
quite simply the quantity of yeast, nothing else. Therefore, a fresh
2-liter starter just past high-kraeusen will probably be better than a
2-month-old 250ml slurry that has been sitting around at room temperature.
>On Acidify,
>Do you know that I have now seen the word 'acidify' maybe ten times and
>nowhwere
>have I noticed
>anyone ever saying how to acidify? I would like to hear how people acidify.
Acidification usually refers to either the sparge water or the water that
you will use to steep grain (or perhaps make hop tea). It means adding an
acid like phosphoric, lactic, citric, malic, tartaric, or "acid blend" (which
is the last three usually in equal proportions) a little at a time, and
monitoring the pH till it's in the range you want (usually 5.1 to 5.5 or
so).
***
Tom writes (regarding Wyeast):
prepared a started for the above yeast, and propagated the starter a
second time approx. 12 hours before pitching. However the liquid
yeast still seems to start slower and ferment less vigorously than dry
yeast, requiring 12 hours to kick in. Question 2. Does one need
enormous quantities of liquid yeast to achieve the shorter lag times
experienced with dry yeast?
There are hundreds of times more yeast in 5 grams of dry yeast than there
are in a package of Wyeast. You really should make a starter (I use 1 liter
starters for ales and 2 liters for lagers and strong ales) a day in advance
of brewing. Pop the Wyeast several days before brewing (see the back of
the package for a packaging date stamp and add one day for each month
since packaging: 1 month, 3 days; 2 months, 4 days; etc.). Once the package
has puffed, make up your starter from a few tablespoons of DME and maybe a
pinch of Yeast Energizer, cool, aerate, and pitch the package. One or
two days later, you brew and pitch the starter into the main wort. You'll
see activity within a few hours, just like with dry yeast.
I pitch 3 packages of the dry yeast per 10 gallon batch. I try to
have the wort temp. around 80F at pitching, and I wrap blankets around
the fermenter to keep the heat in (its 58F in my cellar). Dry yeast
usually starts fermenting in 3-6 hours; liquid yeast (2 packs in a 2
pint starter with 2/3 cup pale hopped malt for 12-24 hours) takes at
least 2-3 times longer, despite the fact that it was fermenting the
starter nicely at pitching time.
Hmmm... sounds like you did everything right. Was that 2/3 cup DME or
2/3 cup syrup. I don't know how many ounces that might be in syrup.
If it was DME, it seems good. If it was syrup, my gut feeling says that
maybe your starter gravity was a bit high and that you should have probably
given it 24 to 48 hours before pitching into the main wort.
***
Julio writes:
>In making a starter with liquid yeast; 1) What difference is there in the
>kind of malt used?
I prefer light or extra light DME with a pinch of Yeast Energizer. This
won't significantly darken even the lightest beer. DME stores for years
in Tupperware (it turns to brown glass if you just store it in an open
bag).
>Should it be the same kind as in the planned brew? Can
>it be say, dark malt syrup? Does it have to be light DME? Any/all advise
>is appreciated. 2) Is the SG of the wort important? Why?
It doesn't have to be light DME... it could be dark syrup, but two liters
of starter from dark extract would be noticeable in, say, a Witbier.
>And last, how
>can I extend the life of the starter until available brewing day?
Feed it. Some books recommend putting it in the fridge, but you can shock
the yeast and subsequently get a really long lag time. If you have the
room in your starter vessel, make up a little strong wort and add it.
If you need to make room, pour off *some* of the liquid (don't pour it
all off even if the yeast has settled -- you will be selecting for the
more flocculent yeast and can get a higher FG -- although this is really
more of an issue when doing this multiple times) and add your strong wort.
Often what I'll do is make up a 1-liter 1.040 OG starter in a 2-liter
Erlenmeyer flask. Then I realize that I won't be able to brew on
Saturday. Usually, that means that I won't brew for a week. I'll
let the starter ferment out and then add 500 ml of 1.080 OG wort
two days before brewing. You probably don't want to do this multiple
times because the risk of infection increases every time you open the
starter -- and a few stray bacteria are *much* worse in your starter
than in your fermenter.
Al.
Al Korzonas, Palos Hills, IL
korz@xnet.com
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 13 Feb 1997 16:58:06 -0600
From: DD <dunn@tilc.com>
Subject: Autolysis
- --MimeMultipartBoundary
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
At the end fermentation of an ale in the primary, at say two weeks or
so, if it is not convenient to rack the beer to a secondary or bottle or
keg it, would moving the entire carboy to a refrigerator at around 40
degrees hold off autolysis? Of course, the airlock has to be removed
and the top covered with clean alum. foil. Since autolysis is the
process in which starving yeast cells feed on each other by excreting
enzymes, it seems reasonable that once the temperature is dropped to a
point well below fermentation temp. the yeast would become dormant. As
many of you know, by dropping the temp of the beer before racking a much
clearer, cleaner beer is produced.
- --MimeMultipartBoundary--
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 13 Feb 1997 17:23:28 -0600
From: Rob Moline <brewer@kansas.net>
Subject: Wheeler... Part 1
The Jethro Gump Report
Greetings,
I have been slammmed with requests..and having tried to respond to
one too many message bounces, I will break this puppy up into sections, and
run a couple of portions daily, so as not to wipe out the HBD with just one
topic. I think it would be helpful for folks who wish to comment, to wait
until it has been completed, as there may be something in a future segment
that may answer your question. Apologies to those who feel it is a waste of
bandwidth, but I can't cope with the numerous requests any more. For the
rest of you, I hope you find it as informative and interesting as I have.
Jethro
Wheeler on Porter /Part 1
>To BREWER@kansas.net
>>From Graham Wheeler.
>
>Dear Brewer
>Thank you for your phone call. With regards to the content of
>our telephone conversation, I have had a scout round my discs
>for some of my stuff on porter. Unfortunately, my most
>referenced article that started off the controversy, called
>"Dark Mystery of Porter", published in CAMRA's "What's Brewing",
>March 1993 has disappeared completely. Unfortunately I have
>changed computer recently and a lot of stuff inevitably gets
>lost or discarded in such circumstances. However, there is
>nothing in that article that you will not find in the
>following text.
>
>Firstly I will kick off with the porter history bit from my
>book, "Home Brewing" - the CAMRA guide, 2nd edition, 1993. This
>is the passage that seemed to agitate Terry Foster.
>
>*** START OF ARTICLE 1 ***
>
>Porter (entire)
>
>Porter is the least understood of old British beers. The subject
>is complicated and confused because porter's heyday lasted from
>about 1700 to the pale ale revolution of the mid 1800s and was
>still a popular drink at the turn of this century. During that
>time it passed through many transformations and spawned a great
>number of fraudulent imitations.
> Crippling increases in taxation on ale and beer in the
>latter part of the 1600s and early part of the 1700s brought
>about a change in the drinking habits of British people. Ale and
>beer consumption fell by 27 per cent after a tax increase in
>1692 and gin drinking increased in proportion. There were
>further tax increases in 1694, 1697, 1706, and 1711. By 1711 the
>brewers were faced with a malt tax, a hop tax, and a
>disproportionate sales tax on the finished product. Brewers were
>continually forced to weaken their products in order to maintain
>the price in the face of ever increasing taxes. The sales tax on
>ale was four times that on beer and this caused a consumer swing
>from ales to the weaker and cheaper beers or to stronger and
>cheaper gin. The switch to beer drinking brought about the habit
>of drinkers mixing beers of different grades and prices to suit
>their palate and pocket.
> Porter was simply a mixture of two brown beers, one stale,
>one mild. Mild beer was fresh beer that had recently been
>brewed, whereas stale beer had been kept for a year or more and
>was turning sour. The only characteristic that set porter apart
>from any other beer of the day was that porter was deliberately
>soured by adding a percentage of sour (stale) beer to freshly
>brewed beer. The original porters were not, as is commonly
>supposed, jet-black in colour, but a translucent brown. They
>were a brown beer just like any other beer of the day. They had
>a rich, smoky flavour derived from the use of brown malt and a
>winey aftertang produced by the deliberate souring, highly
>regarded by Londoners.
> This souring sometimes took place at the brewery, in which
>case the drink was known as "Entire", but it was more usual for
>it to be done at the pub. The London porter brewers supplied two
>grades of beer, Mild and Stale, and these were mixed in
>appropriate proportions in the drinker's tankard to give him his
>preferred degree of acidic tang, in much the same way as modern
>drinkers mix mild and bitter.
> It is difficult for twentieth century drinkers to grasp the
>concept of sour beer. Stale or sour beer was not spoiled beer,
>but a deliberate flavour enhancer which cost twice the price of
>mild beer. The sourness was almost certainly acetic acid -
>vinegar - brought about by the action of acetic acid bacteria or
>brettanomyces, an acid-producing wild yeast. The deliberate
>souring of beer is not as crazy as it might sound. Modern
>drinkers often mistake the more common and more objectionable
>lactic acid taste of badly kept beer for vinegar. Vinegar,
>acetic acid, is not objectionable to many people, as a quick
>observation of the habits of visitors to fish and chip shops
>will soon confirm. Indeed, when experimentally added to a pint
>of beer in small amounts it provides a long malty lingering
>aftertaste which is not unpleasant.
> The oxidation of alcohol into acetic acid is a slow process
>and the stale beers required very long ageing periods for this
>to take place. This accounts for the high price of stale. In the
>early days of porter the humble brewers of the day could not
>afford to store and age vast stocks of beer for a year or two.
>Moneyed people made a trade of purchasing mild beer from the
>brewers, keeping it until it had turned sour, and selling it to
>the publicans at twice the price, a huge profit for those days,
>when a handsome return on capital would have been two-and-a-half
>per cent per annum. It was only a matter of time before the
>brewers took to ageing the beer themselves. The brewers were
>probably prepared to age their beer for more modest profits and
>this was the foundation of the great London porter breweries.
> Initially the porter brewers aged their beer in casks, just
>as the moneyed people had done before them, but as the
>popularity of porter spread this represented a large investment
>in casks and huge storage areas were required. Whitbread, for
>instance, were renting cellars in 54 different locations around
>London in 1747. From about 1740 onwards the porter brewers began
>to store their porter in large vats. These large vats almost
>certainly had the additional benefit of accelerating the ageing
>process, reducing the price of porter as a consequence. It is
>known that many brewers flattened the beer before vatting by
>turning the beer into their shallow cooling trays; this would
>have also aerated the beer which would considerably aid the
>acetification process.
> The great London porter brewers were very proud of their
>huge maturation vats and were in the habit of forever building
>bigger ones. Half-million gallon vats were not uncommon; parties
>and dances were often held in them as opening ceremonies. In
>1814, one of these vats burst, releasing 320,000 gallons of
>porter which demolished part of Richard Meux's brewery and a row
>of terraced cottages, killing eight people in the process.
Jethro
Rob Moline
Little Apple Brewing Company,
Manhattan, Kansas.
"The More I Know About Beer, The More I Realize I Need To Know More About Beer!"
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 13 Feb 1997 17:56:07 -0600
From: Rob Moline <brewer@kansas.net>
Subject: Wheeler..Part 2
Wheeler/Part 2.
Entire Butt
Popular ale-lore has it that porter was invented in 1722 by
Ralph Harwood, a London brewer. It is said that he prepared a
blend of various beers that imitated the mixture of mild and
stale and sold it in a single cask under the trade name "Entire
Butt", and that this was the origin of porter. Ralph Harwood
must have played an important part in the porter story, he is
too deeply immortalised in folklore for that not to be true, but
it is not clear exactly what that part was. He may well have
been the first brewer to blend mild and stale in a single cask,
but he certainly did not invent porter; the custom of mixing
mild and stale beers preceded him. It is not even certain that
his entire butt was a blend of mild and stale; much of the
evidence is contradictory.
It seems that his major contribution was to considerably
reduce the price of porter and make it more affordable. Bearing
in mind that stale beer was twice the price of mild, the
original porter must have been fairly expensive. Of course, he
may have been prepared to age the beer for a much more modest
mark-up than 100 per cent, but my guess is that he discovered
that mild beer could be "brought forward" (in brewerspeak), by
inoculation. That is, perhaps he discovered that mild beer would
sour quicker if it was inoculated with a small quantity of beer
that was already sour. He may also have discovered other
acceleration techniques, such as deliberately flattening the
beer and aerating it. Any method of reducing the long ageing
period required for stale beer would reduce its price and give
the brewer a tremendous commercial advantage. A modern vinegar
manufacturer can sour large volumes of beer in a matter of
hours, but in those days it was a matter of years. Vinegar was
also an expensive luxury; it was made in exactly the same way.
It seems that Ralph Harwood's "Entire" was very short-lived
but the name lived on. Entire and porter came to mean much the
same thing and the two terms became somewhat interchangeable,
but, in general, entire was a porter dispensed from one cask,
whereas London Porter was a mixture of two beers, dispensed from
two casks and mixed in the tankard at the pub. Some entires were
soured by adding about eight per cent of stale beer, but many
were not soured at all and were porter taste-alikes.
Porter taste-alikes
Many small brewers tried to jump on the porter bandwagon with
taste-alike versions of porter which did not require the
expensive ageing period of the real thing. All manner of strange
ingredients were used in order to try to imitate the taste of
porter, and to give it the impression of strength. Many recipes
included capsicum and liquorice in an attempt to provide the
mouthfeel of porter. Indeed, as late as 1908 linseed and
liquorice were among ingredients listed by the Chancellor of the
Exchequer as being commonly used in beer, presumably when he was
looking for yet something else to tax.
Some recipes included poisons in order to give the
impression of fictitious strength. One common ingredient of the
1700s was the African berry, coculus indicus, which was used by
Indian natives to stun fish. This poison, or narcotic, made the
drinkers giddy, gave them a shocking hangover the following day,
and provided them with the impression that they were drinking
pretty potent stuff the night before. The potency of this berry
is illustrated by the fact that only one ounce of these berries
in fifty-four gallons of beer was sufficient to produce the
desired effect. Ingredients sometimes used to adulterate beer
included: coculus indicus, opium, indian hemp, strychnine,
tobacco, darnel seed, logwood, and salts of zinc, lead, and alum.
Some of the porter taste-alikes were genuine attempts to
produce a cheaper substitute for porter; smaller brewers,
particularly country brewers, could not afford to age huge
volumes of beer for a year or more. Indeed, modern porters are
taste-alikes and are not sour like the real thing. In 1780 Lord
North increased the tax on malt, hops and beer in order to
finance the war against American independence. This increase had
a disastrous effect on the brewing industry. The brewers were
once again forced to weaken their products in order to keep the
price stable, and gin drinking increased yet again.
Colour was synonymous with strength, so the brewers of porter
taste-alikes began to darken their beers in order to give the
impression of strength in the face of ever-weakening products.
Old recipes simply give euphemistic terms "colour" or "empyreum"
meaning burnt substances, but a whole range of charred
substances may have been added to darken the beer. A common
colouring was molasses, boiled until it was dark, bitter, and
thick, and then set on fire and burned for a few minutes. The
addition of charred substances presumably produced a strong
acidic bitter taste which must have provided an agreeable
substitute for the taste of genuine porter.
By the end of the eighteenth century porter had acquired its
own identity and had evolved into two distinct forms: the
genuine London porters, which were largely unchanged from their
beginnings; and single-cask porter substitutes, which were
darker in colour, and usually referred to as entire. The single
cask entires were typical of country brewing.
End of Part 2.
Rob Moline
Little Apple Brewing Company,
Manhattan, Kansas.
"The More I Know About Beer, The More I Realize I Need To Know More About Beer!"
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 13 Feb 1997 23:50:08 -0500 (EST)
From: JACKMOWBRAY@delphi.com
Subject: Botulism paranoia
There's a lot of histeria regarding the potential hazard of Clostridium
Botulinum of late. A few facts relative to this potential hazard:
1) While it's true that C. Botulinum spores are everywhere, it takes some
very specific conditions to allow the spores to germinate and the vegetative
cells to grow and produce toxin.
2) Temperature, water activity, pH and the presence of oxygen all have an
impact on the growth of C. botulinum.
3) The reason there is a concern with low acid canned foods is because they
are stored at room temperature, have a pH above 4.6, have a water activity
(more on that later) that supports bacterial growth and anaerobic conditions.
4) #3 is the reason it is necessary to kill C. Botulinum spores.
5) Foods that are acidified (ph below 4.6) can be rendered shelf stable in
boiling water baths at atmospheric pressures.
6) Refrigerated temperatures, pH lower than 4.6, water activity below .85 and
the presence of oxygen (any one or a combination of these) will prevent the
germination of C. botulinum spores.
7) The reason why C. botulinum spores won't germinate in canned malt extract
is because of the low water activity. Bacteria need a certain amount of water
to be available to support growth. The high concentration of sugars in malt
extract reduces the water activity or available water.
Bottom line: If you want to preserve wort so that it is safe to store at room
temperatures, you should pressure can it. Otherwise, just keep it in the
refrigerator and it will be just fine. There is no need to reboil before
pitching.
Hope this helps.
Jack Mowbray
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 13 Feb 97 23:09:31 CST
From: kevin <kevin@mspusa.com>
Subject: Pediococcus and Lactobacillus- Lambic Questions
I am attempting a "Braambossen Lambic". I used mostly canned
blackberries to limit the extent of infection, but I used a bag of
frozen blackberries to get the Pediococcus and Lactobacillus
infection. It worked like a charm. (only, is it an "infection" if
you want it?) I have had a wonderful inch thick mat of white growth
on my wort for six weeks now, which causes all my home brewer
instincts to scream "Flush it, Unclean!". But I digress. Now that
I have the Pediococcus how do I get rid of it? I have never seen
anywhere anyone actually says "Siphon wort leaving top spewge" or
"Just wait till it falls back in, the yeast will eat it". So my
questions are: How long do I let the peidocacus go wild? (let me
guess, LESS than 6 weeks <g>) While I am racking it to the
tertiary, do I want to pasteurize it and then re-pitch a healthy
dose of Brettanomyces yeast? Do I need to change the pH? Do I
kerosene or just keg without anything else?
In real lambics, they ferment the "first liquor" separate from the
"sparged liquor" and add the fruit to the "sparged liquor". Then
they blend them back together at the very end. I did not do this;
am I supposed to make the same recipe without the fruit, ferment it
like an ale, and then blend the two when I keg?
I have _Lambic_ by Jean-Xavier Guinard (THE lambic book), but to the
best of my knowledge, the only time they mention infecting the wort
is when you are doing a full blown "in the sherry cask" process.
The recipes that are like Gueuze-Lambic say to inoculate in a glass
carboy, but never really say how long before re-racking.
Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.
-kls
kevin@mspusa.com
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 13 Feb 1997 22:11:07 -0800 (PST)
From: Heiner Lieth <lieth@telis.org>
Subject: canning wort in capped bottles
OK. I know we're beating this botulism thread to death, but here is another
idea on canning wort. This is the math and physics angle:
Let's say you cool down your wort before filling it into beer bottles and
cap the bottle. Now you do a boiling water bath. The bottle and its content
expands as it gets hotter; the gas in the head space would have to increase
in pressure according to the ideal gas law (PV=nRT - P=pressure, V=volume,
n=Avagadro's number, R=ideal gas constant, T= temperature in Kelvin). So if
you fill and cap at 20 C (293 Kelvin), then the valid relationship at that
point is
P *V = nR * 293, and P is atmospheric pressure.
Raising temperature with boiling water (373 K, i.e. by a factor of 1.27)
means the new pressure would be 1.27 times atmospheric pressure (14.7psi),
which is 18.7 psi.
Will crown caps stay on tight when the inside is at 18.7 psi and the outside
at 14.7 psi (4 psi difference)?
I have a suspicion that this could work; after all, the big boys pasteurize
their product and the caps stay on while they do that.
So if you could boil in something that has a boiling point of (or higher
than) 120C (preferably some cheap household liquid - any ideas?), then you
could essentially pressure can inside the bottle, provided the caps stay on
(at 120C (393K) the pressure is yet higher, nearly 20 psi). You could keep
this pressure lower by filling and capping boiling wort, but you can't get
around the fact that at 120C you'll have at least 15.5 psi.
Can anyone fill in the gaps here to lead us to a simple method that does not
require the use of a pressure canner?
And... this is probably obvious, but: If anyone is going to be doing any
experiments, please bear in mind that bottles at 15 to 20 psi filled with
boiling fluid are very dangerous (bombs).
Heiner Lieth.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 14 Feb 1997 05:09:10 -0500
From: Spencer W Thomas <spencer@engin.umich.edu>
Subject: Re: Kegs on stove/rough spot in Corny/100% wheat beer/sulfur
Ok, so now I've been contradicted twice by folks who DO use converted
kegs on their stoves. I still don't see how, unless you've got
nothing above the stove. It certainly won't fit under my (stove)
hood. And do you stand on a stool to see inside the kettle, or what?
=Spencer
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 14 Feb 1997 05:45:03 -0600
From: "Michael T. Bell" <mikeb@flash.net>
Subject: Home-made EM/Sanke dip tubes
Thanks to all who responded to my two inquiries. The following is a short
synopsis of each.
Dip tubes from Sanke type kegs can be removed by first relieving the
pressure form the keg, then prying the metal ring that, sits just inside
the opening, out enough so that the essembly twists and is subsequenetly
removed. Haven't tried this yet. Hope it is easier than it sounds.
Any EM, whether home-made or not, need to sit a few inches above the bottom
of the boiling kettle (not so in the mash tun) so as not to pick up any
break material or other scum. My biggest concern still exists though. The
stainless screen I have to construct this with is a very fine mesh, but
also quite sturdy. I still don't see how it will not be crushed by the
wieght of a 20# grain bill without any frame to support it. Am I worrying
to much?
Michael T. Bell
Boomerdog Brewing
Arlington, TX
------------------------------
End of HOMEBREW Digest #2348, 02/16/97
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