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HOMEBREW Digest #2990
HOMEBREW Digest #2990 Mon 29 March 1999
FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
Digest Janitor: janitor@hbd.org
Many thanks to the Observer & Eccentric Newspapers of
Livonia, Michigan for sponsoring the Homebrew Digest.
URL: http://www.oeonline.com
Contents:
Reference beers (ThomasM923)
MI Beer Bars (Ted McIrvine)
Homebrew Judging - why? (Ted McIrvine)
Re: diacetyl (Jeff Renner)
homebrew competitions (Randy Ricchi)
Re: Home Growing (Roots now available) (RALPHBACON)
big brew 99 milk stout (JPullum127)
Re: one tier rims (dolmans)
soapy taste ("dan cutcher")
=?iso-8859-1?Q?That_=A2_symbol?= ("John Griswold")
Guinness/real ale type taps ("Michael Maag")
wheat lager (AKGOURMET)
Beer is our obsession and we're late for therapy!
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sat, 27 Mar 1999 03:42:44 EST
From: ThomasM923@aol.com
Subject: Reference beers
In hbd #2989 Wade Hutchison asked:
"Now theres a good question - is there a guide somewhere that lists what
flavors can be found in some commercial beers? I don't really know what
Diacetyl tastes like, so is there a reference beer that I can find to get
an idea of the flavor without going to a beer doping kit? What would
be a good example of diacetyl...?"
This is a question that I've been meaning to ask for some time. I have never
noticed a "buttery" flavor in any beer that I've brewed or tasted. Either I
have a limited ability to notice this kind of defect or perhaps the
description is lacking. Can anyone think of a few commercial examples that
have a distinct diacetyl character? Or a better way to describe the
odor/taste? I will try Pilsner Urquel again, however it is usually so stale by
the time it reaches our shores, the diacetyl may be masked by other defects.
Thomas Murray
Maplewood, NJ
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 27 Mar 1999 09:24:18 -0800
From: Ted McIrvine <McIrvine@ix.netcom.com>
Subject: MI Beer Bars
I'm answering on the list because I hope that the Michiganians will
chime in with their favorite places that I've missed.
Pearl and I often cover this ground when we go on vacation. You've got
my two favorite breweries on your path: Bell's Kalamazoo Brewery in
Kalamazoo MI and Great Lakes Brewing in Cleveland. Don't miss the
Vienna lager at Great Lakes Brewing, it is exceptionally good. And try
to go to Bell's brewery rather than getting it in the stores, because
Larry will have things on tap that aren't commercially-available. He
often makes an "eccentric" beer such as Coffee Stout or Cherry Larry.
Many years ago in Traverse City I had an intensely-hoppy local micro
called Manitoulin. I haven't seen it in recent years, but it was
delicious. There is also a brewpub near Boyne City that was pretty
good.
Ann Arbor features a pair of good beer bars; Ashley's and Redhawk, just
west of Campus. Redhawk often has a cask ale such as Fullers. And many
places have Bell's on tap throughout Michigan.
I didn't find any brewpubs in the UP other than one in the southwest
corner. Does anyone know of any? We loved the UP and are going back
this summer.
Cheers
Ted
> From: "Matthew Hahn" <mchahn@earthlink.net>
> Subject: MI Beer Bars
>
> I will be vacationing in St. Ignace, MI, on the lower part of the Upper
> Peninsula (near Mackinac Island) this summer. Any good beer bars/brewpubs in
> the area, or between there and Cleveland that anyone could recommend? TIA.
- --
McIrvine@Ix.Netcom.Com
College of Staten Island/CUNY
http://www.csi.cuny.edu/academia/programs/mus.html
http://www.csi.cuny.edu/arts/calendar.html
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 27 Mar 1999 09:40:37 -0800
From: Ted McIrvine <McIrvine@ix.netcom.com>
Subject: Homebrew Judging - why?
Fred raises some more interesting points. Some of the issues that I
raised apply more to the administration of the BJCP test --- and I
suspect that I'll take the test sometime when George Di Piro offers it
- --- and the AHA beer style descriptions, which get worse and worse as I
learn more.
Partly because the judging varies so much, I don't enter every contest
that I can enter. The judging in the Homebrewers of Staten
Island-sponsored New York City Regional is pretty good ever since they
got rid of the guy who complained about a few yeast flecks that
flocculated on the bottom of the bottle. Unfortunately HOSI members
don't spend as much time drinking homebrew as some other clubs (such
Foam-Blowers of Indianapolis and The St. Gambrinus Benevolence Society
in Bloomington). Personally I think that a homebrew club with active
brewers is the best way of getting feedback, and we've had some
wonderful afternoons discussing beer when bottling for competitions.
I enter homebrewing contests pretty much for the same reason that I
occasionally take a trumpet lesson from a famous trumpet player: to get
constructive feedback on what I'm doing. (OK, one is a hobby, the other
is a profession, but I want to do both well.)
There are people who try to make the same beer the same way over and
over again. That doesn't sound like much fun to me; I'm still
fascinated with the "what if?" aspects of brewing.
Cheers
Ted
> From: MaltHound@aol.com
> Subject: Homebrew Judging - why?
>
> So I ask the wise and experienced collective:
>
> What would make you enter into competitions fully knowing the limitations that
> exist?
> What makes those brewers that have multiple ribbons on their brewery walls
> continue to enter?
> Why do so many homebrewers in general feel the need to compete?
>
> Fred Wills
- --
McIrvine@Ix.Netcom.Com
College of Staten Island/CUNY
http://www.csi.cuny.edu/academia/programs/mus.html
http://www.csi.cuny.edu/arts/calendar.html
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 27 Mar 1999 09:26:28 -0500
From: Jeff Renner <nerenner@umich.edu>
Subject: Re: diacetyl
Wade Hutchison <whutchis@bucknell.edu> asks
>I don't really know what
>Diacetyl tastes like, so is there a reference beer that I can find to get
>an idea of the flavor without going to a beer doping kit? What would
>be a good example of diacytel? phenolic? Any other consistant flaw?
As I mentioned in HBD, Shepherd Neame's Spitfire and Bishop's finger have
diacetyl . It is a butterscotch or buttery flavor. As a matter of fact,
diacetyl is used in artificial butter or butterscotch flavor, I understand.
Some people are less sensitive to it than others.
I'm not sure I can call it an actual flaw as I think it is intended or at
least accepted as a part of the house style of some breweries. One of our
local brewpubs, a Pugsly/RIngwood one, pumps fermenting wort over in a
frothing fountain on the second (I think) day to oxygenate the wort and
reinvigorate the yeast, which has heavy O2 demands. This results in
difinite diacetyl in all their brews. In some this is merely a flavor
component, in others, I find it distracting. It is not as high as the
Shepherd Neame brews we get here.
I don't think there are any commercial brews that are consistently flawed
with phenols or other actual flaws, or at least no very widely distributed
ones. Phenolic flavors are typically band-aid like, medicinal, iodine,
burnt plastic (bakelite), or spicey (clovey). Weizenbier and many Belgian
beers have some of these flavors as a part of their normal flavors. Our
other local brewpub had a terrible and frustrating phenolic problem in many
(most?) of its brews during its first six months or so, about three years
ago. I think is was a stubborn contaminated piece of equipment.
Fortunately, it has not been a problem since and their brews are excellent
now.
Jeff
-=-=-=-=-
Jeff Renner in Ann Arbor, Michigan c/o nerenner@umich.edu
"One never knows, do one?" Fats Waller, American Musician, 1904-1943.
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 27 Mar 1999 10:13:20 -0500
From: Randy Ricchi <rricchi@ccisd.k12.mi.us>
Subject: homebrew competitions
Fred Wills asked:
"What makes those brewers that have multiple ribbons on their brewery walls
continue to enter?
Why do so many homebrewers in general feel the need to compete?"
That's easy. Ego.
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 27 Mar 1999 10:15:00 EST
From: RALPHBACON@aol.com
Subject: Re: Home Growing (Roots now available)
Hop roots (rhizomes) are now available from Homebrew Heaven in Everett, WA.
Cascade, Saaz, Willamette, Hallertauer, Chinook, Centennial, and Tettnanger
varieties are available for $3 each. ph (800) 850-2739 or order from website:
http://www.homebrewheaven.com (listed under "Fun Stuff")
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 27 Mar 1999 11:35:15 EST
From: JPullum127@aol.com
Subject: big brew 99 milk stout
i see that in the recipe for the collaborator milk stout they include flaked
barley and flaked oats . do these need to be mashed or can they just be
steeped like choclate malt ect.? thanks
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 27 Mar 1999 08:52:31 +0000
From: dolmans@mail.tss.net
Subject: Re: one tier rims
Having just read the foregoing I think that I will post this to
the HBD list in order to get maximum coverage.
To the HBD readers I wrote Bill after his post about a counter flow
chiller (March 23rd) he had just recently built to go with his new
RIMS, I had a question about pumps. This started me thinking, with
Porter in hand, and here are some questions for all of you.
Hi Bill
Thanks for the info on MovingBrews. If you don't mind can I share
some questions and concerns with you since you are currently
completing a system and I am just starting? Any help or advice
would be appreciated. What follows is part questions, part
worrying (needlessly?), and part philosophy/justification.
I am not really attempting to build a RIMS system as I understand
it, no in-line heating element or re-circulating wort, rather a one
tier brew set up with a burner under the converted keg to heat and
maintain the mash. Perhaps I am making this more complex than
it needs to be. I want one tier so that I can build a rolling, wheel
barrow like base that can be stored in the basement (really can't
set up in the flooded basement to brew during the winter) and rolled
into the back yard on brew day without my making a million trips back
and forth. I want one tier for stability given the hot liquids and
grains. In order to reduce work and brew time i want to use pumps
(guess I'm lazy ;). The only things holding me from proceeding
further with this project is understanding pump mechanics and
deciding on the most appropriate ones.
My greatest concern is the pump between the mash/lauter tun and the
boil kettle. Since I sparge at a trickle I worry about the pump
being able to move very small quantities for an hour or slightly
longer. It seems that most pumps require a several gallon per minute
flow rate in order to not cavitate or to burn themselves out. I have
considered the possibility of slowing the flow rate down behind the
pump but that seems self defeating as it would hold the hot wort but
the flow rate through the grain bed would be too fast to really make
any extraction happen. Any thoughts on this? Or is it the case that
once the pump is primed and the outlet behind it throttled down that
the normal extraction and sparge flow rate will be established
particularly if I recirculate the first 2 gallons of wort?
Am i making this more complex than needs be and worrying too much?
This worrying runs counter to my brewing philosophy but building a
system like this is going to cost a fair bit of coin so i want to
consider potential problems before they occur. One last question. I
have found a fair number of websites but my Netscape program has
fried on me, any that you know of I should visit and look at
carefully? Rebuilding my bookmarks promises to be a tedious affair.
Anyway thanks for reading this, hope to hear from you.
Gerard Dolmans
Dolmans@mail.tss.net
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 27 Mar 1999 11:39:49 PST
From: "dan cutcher" <dcutcher@hotmail.com>
Subject: soapy taste
Hi everyone,
I am very new at this. I only have to batches under my belt....or should
I say in my stomach. The first a strong stout and the second a brown
ale. Both batches turned out pretty good...however they both had a
filmy/soapy aftertaste. Does anyone have any suggestions? I would
appreciate any help.
Thanks,
Dan Cutcher
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 27 Mar 1999 15:39:15 -0500
From: "John Griswold" <griswold@ma.ultranet.com>
Subject: =?iso-8859-1?Q?That_=A2_symbol?=
Bret writes:
Date: Wed, 24 Mar 1999 11:24:51 -0500
From: "bret.morrow" <bret.morrow@cwix.com>
Subject: buy a cheap mill!
Greetings,
With the many posts about mills and, independently, about efficiency, I
thought I'd throw in my 2 cents (Hey, when did they take that "cents"
symbol of my computer keyboard?).
You can type Alt 0162 ;) Doesn't Mr. Gates believe in pennies?
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 27 Mar 1999 16:58:39 -0500
From: "Michael Maag" <maagm@rica.net>
Subject: Guinness/real ale type taps
Is there a Guinness type tap, or a tap for a beer engine, or a sparkler tap
that is designed to draw atmospheric nitrogen into the beer by a venturi
tube or the like? If not, is there a style of tap that might be modified to
do the job? I would like to dispense ale with CO2 and have the tap "suck"
air (mostly nitrogen) into the beer stream. Any ideas?
Cheers,
Mike, In the Shenandoah Valley, VA.
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 27 Mar 1999 18:41:14 EST
From: AKGOURMET@aol.com
Subject: wheat lager
>From: "Mary Schramer" <maryschramer@excite.com>
>Subject: wheat lager
>anybody ever make a wit type brew using lager yeast?
>if so what was the result and what strain did you use?
>kevin F schramer
I just tapped a wheat lager. Nothing special, just a good, light, drinkin'
beer. Here's the recipe for 5 gallons:
2 cans (6.6 pounds total) Munton & Fison unhopped wheat extract (45/55
wheat/barley),
1/2 pound light dry malt
1 oz. whole Yakima Kent Goldings, 5% alpha, 60 minutes
1 oz. whole Yakima Kent Goldings, 5% alpha, 30 minutes
1 oz. Saaz pellets, 3.2%, 5 minutes.
cooled with an immersion chiller to 50f. then racked onto the primary yeast
cake of an all grain pilsner fermented with Wyeast 2007 Pilsen lager.
Oxygenated with pure O2 for 2 minutes.
OG 1.045 FG 1.012
Primary fermented at 50f. for 3.5 weeks and conditioned at about 40f. for
another 3.5 weeks. Kegged and force carbonated to 2.6 volumes CO2. The
result is a nice, clear, light amber colored beer with light to moderate
bitterness. Very little, if any, wheat characteristic to it. In fact, if you
didn't know it was made with 40% wheat, you probably couldn't tell.
Bill Wright
Juneau, AK
------------------------------
End of HOMEBREW Digest #2990, 03/29/99
*************************************
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