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HOMEBREW Digest #3159
HOMEBREW Digest #3159 Tue 02 November 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:
Dry hopping and, er, mash thickness and saccharification (CLOAKSTONE)
hop teas (Rod Prather)
Yeast Growth ("Alan Meeker")
Hop Teas ("Alan Meeker")
Old Ale Festival ("Gordon Strong")
Corny kegs (get used to the new name)" <knurdami@iname.com>
Mash chemistry Q: dropping pH (Paul Kensler)
[p]Lambics - Autolysis & Retaining Microbes ("Mark Nelson")
Re: Are brewers being marginalized by Winemakers? ("Bill Riel")
Apollo 13, hopping lagers and ales (Dave Burley)
Sanitizing my stir bar (Nathan Kanous)
pLambic "disinfecting" (Nathan Kanous)
Re: bubbles, tiny and otherwise (Spencer W Thomas)
Re: The Flavor (Spencer W Thomas)
Beer kits vs. wine kits at retail ("Sean Richens")
(?)Hablan Espanol? ("Sean Richens")
RE: Sweet Potato Aroma (Bob Sheck)
Re: Hocking? ("Jack Schmidling")
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 1 Nov 1999 02:52:37 EST
From: CLOAKSTONE@aol.com
Subject: Dry hopping and, er, mash thickness and saccharification
Just got to John's post re: the better aroma achieved with whole leaves v.
pellets when dry hopping, and I wanted to put in my two cents.
I have used both. As I am moving closer in my own experimentation to doing
"what I would do in a commercial situation" I went some time ago to using
pellets throughout my process. On balance, I have achieved better results
with pellets in terms of fresh hop aroma and drop-out when dry-hopping.
While it is true that hops are subjected to a harsh regimen during
pelletization, it is also true that, having been made, they do not oxidize as
readily as whole leaves (less exposed surface area). As I make a great many
English ales in my lineup, I use EKG, Northdown and Fuggle quite frequently.
When I was using whole hops, the English varieties were simply not fresh;
plugs were better, but I have found that pellets are markedly better still.
Of course, all this is so much dribble, and anyone would be well advised toss
out all opinions in favor of self-induced trials!
BTW, some time ago I posted re: mash thickness, heat, and beta amylase v.
alpha amylase conversion. I got severely flamed by the scientists in the
community. My butt still smolders, however I still think I was on the right
track. I did find an interesting supporting cite for those who are
interested: it's in Ray Daniel's Designing Great Beers, in his discussion on
Pilsner Urquell's method (pp. 246-247) (no connections, etc. - but buy the
book, it's an excellent tome and a great resource). The gist of the section
is that PU achieves a very rich, dextrinous wort despite a saccharification
temp of 146. Daniel's explanation centers around the amylases' lower heat
resistance in a thin mash, and beta's relatively greater heat lability.
I suppose by "lower heat resistance" he is in a way supporting what the
scientists were in a tizzy about, namely, that a thin mash ensures the
transport of heat more readily than a thick mash, not that it is "heat" and
not "temperature" which matters (my original post). Ah, well, at the end of
the day I think the essence is thus: a thick mash, at any given temperature,
"shields" amylases more than a thin mash, and because beta amylase is more
heat labile than alpha, beta will therefore more readily break down in a
thin mash - even in what we would believe to be an optimal beta range.
Midnight ramblings and I've got to go to work soon. Cheers to all and good
night,
Paul Smith
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 01 Nov 1999 04:39:41 -0500
From: Rod Prather <rodpr@iquest.net>
Subject: hop teas
I have also tried hop teas using plugs. I did not boil the tea but
instead steeped them in water set at a starting temp of 180 degrees
for about 10 or 15 minutes (sorry, it was an off the cuff experiment
and my notes were lost in about 3 bottles of good homebrew). The
purpose was to extract flavor and aroma without focusing so much on
increasing bitterness. The result was tasty with a wonderful nose. I
recommend experimenting with hop teas especially where a late hopping
nose and palate is desireable. My personal opinion is that the tea
gives you more control than many late hopping techniques. Still I
cold dry hop my fermenters in addition to the dry hoppin because the
flavor is different still.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 1 Nov 1999 08:24:49 -0500
From: "Alan Meeker" <ameeker@welch.jhu.edu>
Subject: Yeast Growth
> Subject: Yeast Generations ???
>
> Could someone other than Fred Garvin please elaborate on how yeast
multiply
> during the growth stage of fermentation? (no diagrams please, and use
words
> less than 3 syllables if possible) I am interested in understanding how
one
> can limit yeast growth to 3X-5X for lagers and double that for ales, and
why
> this is important. Thanks.
>
> Kyle
Yeast cells dou-ble. They di-vide by gett-ing bigg-er, then they split in
two. Each time they do this they have to make enough cell stuff to give to
each daugh-ter cell. There's cell stuff called "ster-ols" need-ed for the
yeast mem-brane. These ster-ols can only be made from scratch by the yeast
if they have O2.
No O2 means each daugh-ter gets one half of the mother cell's ster-ols.
After 3 or 4 cell splits like this, the ster-ols are so dil-ute that the
yeast can no longer split in two. How far they can grow will de-pend on how
much (if any) O2 is a-round and how much ster-ol the pitch-ing yeast had to
be-gin with (how much O2 did they get while grow-ing in the start-er).
Also, you can stop keep yeast from grow-ing by starv-ing them. They will
stop when food runs out.
Why worry? Some think too much wort go-ing to make yeast bod-ies in-stead of
beer...
-Al-an Meek-er
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 1 Nov 1999 08:45:28 -0500
From: "Alan Meeker" <ameeker@welch.jhu.edu>
Subject: Hop Teas
>
> Jeff asks about Hop Teas:
>
> > I did a brief search of HBD archives and found many posts on hop
> > teas but not how to make and add. How are hop teas made ? I've
> > read about steeping hops at certain temperatures for 2-4 hours and
> > short boil methods. Do you add the tea at end of boil or after primary
> > while racking into secondary ferment ? It seems there would be
> > sanitation precautions with adding after primary. What are the most
> > effective methods ?
>
> Jeff, it sounds like you want more hop FLAVOR not bitterness. If so, you
> should MINIMIZE the time you steep the hops to make a hop tea. Unlike the
> alpha acids, many of the flavor compounds are volatile (will be driven off
> and lost with increased time) and heat-labile (destroyed be heating). If I
> were you, I'd take my cue from the best advice of tea afficionados - steep
> the tea in water that is less than boiling, and not too long.
>
> Mike Maceyka and I recently used a hop tea for our "Hoppiest Beer on
Earth."
> We probably went a bit overboard for your purposes (but then again how
much
> of a hophead are you?) we boiled about two cups of water (sanitizing) then
> steeped an ounce of Cascade pellets for about 15 minutes. Strained all of
> this through a standard coffee filter into our beer at bottling. This
> procedure seemed to result in a strong character similar to the aroma one
> gets just after making a hop addition to the boiling wort kettle - just
what
> we were after.
>
> I wouldn't worry too much about sanitation - if anything, because of the
hot
> water used, this method should be cleaner than conventional dry-hopping
> which few (I don't know of any) people have trouble with...
>
>
> -Alan Meeker
>
>
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 1 Nov 1999 08:53:14 -0500
From: "Gordon Strong" <strongg@earthlink.net>
Subject: Old Ale Festival
Does anyone know when the Old Ale Festival will be held this year? I'm not
talking about the Real Ale Festival in Chicago; I'm interested in the one
held at the White Horse in London usually around Thanksgiving.
Gordon Strong
strongg@earthlink.net
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 1 Nov 1999 09:34:24 -0500
From: "Brenda(get used to the new name)" <knurdami@iname.com>
Subject: Corny kegs
Does anyone know where one might get "used" 10 gallon corny kegs. I was
looking for some and the only ones I could find were about $300 new! I am
using 5 gallon kegs now and that is a bit too much money to make the
upgrade.
One more thing, has anyone tried to make (or have information about making)
an Adventinus clone?
Thanks,
Dan
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 01 Nov 1999 09:35:15 -0500
From: Paul Kensler <paul.kensler@attglobal.net>
Subject: Mash chemistry Q: dropping pH
I recently observed something that puzzled me, and was hoping for an
explanation. I brewed a batch yesterday, and measured the pH of the mash
to be 5.2. After sparging was over (the SG of the final runnings were
1.014) I measured the pH to be 4.6... Isn't the pH supposed to rise during
sparging? I recently moved from Texas to Michigan, so this was my first
batch in my new home (with my new water supply).
I did a two-step infusion mash for 30 minutes at 146F, then 30 minutes at
159F using 90% Durst pils and 10% malted wheat. I mashed and sparged with
plain old Lansing city tap water - no mineral or acid additions. I
measured the pH using the typical pH test strips sold in HB stores. Sparge
water was 170-175F. I have called the Lansing water dep't and asked for a
water analysis, but I haven't received it yet. Their web page states that
the city's water is obtained via wells, and is "processed to remove 80% of
the mineral content".
What would cause the runoff pH to drop instead of rise?
What effect, if any, would a dropping pH have on the mash and resulting
beer? Does this present any problems? Benefits? All the literature I've
read seems to focus on the detrimental effects of too high a pH.
Is there any thing I can do to keep the pH up? I believe that adding
calcium would help buffer the pH - maybe calcium carbonate?
Do the laws of chemistry, as related to mash pH, change the closer you get
to 0,0 Rennarian? ;-)
Aside from the odd pH phenomenon, the batch went perfectly normal -
standard efficiency for me (70%), normal boil, wort tasted, smelled and
looked fine, fermentation is going as hoped, etc.
Thanks,
Paul Kensler
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 1 Nov 1999 11:27:09 -0500
From: "Mark Nelson" <menelson@mindspring.com>
Subject: [p]Lambics - Autolysis & Retaining Microbes
I recently brewed up my first ever lambic/plambic. And, have the following
questions...
1) I've read that autolysis in a young, fermenting lambic is OK ->
preferable.
The idea being that the autolyzing yeast provide nutrients for all the other
microfauna. Has that worked for others? Should I rack off the yeast, or
let nature run its course?
2) Matt Arnold wrote about an approach for pitching a new batch of lambic
into a used, uncleaned carboy from which he had just bottled. Any comments
on that approach? Have you used it successfully?
Thanks in advance.
Mark Nelson
Atlanta, Georgia
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 01 Nov 1999 08:45:34 -0800
From: "Bill Riel" <briel@uniserve.com>
Subject: Re: Are brewers being marginalized by Winemakers?
Alan McKay wrote:
>Here in Ottawa within the last 2 years the brew stores have less-and-less
>beer stuff, and more and more wine stuff. 3 years ago when I moved here
>when the brewstores put out their quarterly sales fliers, 60% roughly of
>the stuff on sale was beer stuff. Now it's more like 20%. The
>mega-bookstore
>in town Chapters used to have a beer section that was 3 and almost 4 shelves
>in size. Now it's only less than 1 shelf, and wine takes up about 5
>shelves.
Wow - I haven't noticed this in Victoria. Here Chapters has a decent
selection of
beer books, but not as good as the smaller (but very classy) Munro's
bookstore. I
would guess that in both cases the beer section is larger than the
wine.
>Maybe it's just because of the onslaught of wine-on-premise, I don't know.
>There is now even a "co-op" wine-on-premise here in town where you
>walk in the door, make a wine, then bottle someone else's batch from a
>month ago, and walk out the door. A month later someone else comes
>in and bottles yours.
Hah! I've never heard of that, but I suspect that would be illegal in
BC (yeah,
we've got some of the weirdest liquor laws in Canada).
>Is this happening everywhere, or is it just here in Ottawa?
I haven't noticed the trend here in Victoria, but I suspect that we
have quite a
large number of active homebrewers in this city. Victoria CAMRA is the
largest
CAMRA chapter outside of the UK - while not a homebrewing organization,
most
members of the Victoria chapter are homebrewers.
What I have seen is a dramatic increase in the number of brew on
premises outlets
(though to be fair, most of those do wine as well). But the homebrew
shops that I
frequent seem to have about the same ratio of beer to wine stuff as
they did two
years ago. Though really, none of them stock as much as I'd like (this
leads to
periodic trips to the mainland to visit the Mecca of homebrewing,
Spagnols :-)
Cheers,
Bill
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 1 Nov 1999 12:22:29 -0500
From: Dave Burley <Dave_Burley@compuserve.com>
Subject: Apollo 13, hopping lagers and ales
Brewsters:
I was considerably older than 7 when Apollo 13 went
boom, I sweated for them, live and I have seen the
movie and other specials. Sean Richens says
oxygen and grease was the principal suspect.
It may have been suspected, but I believe the
explosion was not due to grease and oxygen,
but to a mechanical failure, like a contol valve.
Nevetheless, grease and plug flow with
hammering of presssurized gases and
static electricity generated in non-electrically
conducting or non-grounded tubing is a problem
with oxygen in contact with organics.
So take care.
- --------------------------------------------
I disagree with many BJCP judges and
others who say a good lager should not
have a hop aroma. I agree with Dr. Pivo,
Roger Ayotte and other rebels who say
they should. You only have to drink some
of the Eastern European and Czech beers
to know that hops are part of the beer
aroma. Besides, I like hoppy lagers and
it IS my beer and why I make it.
It may be that <modern> German beers
do not have much aroma, but then,
neither does Budweiser! I suspect his
was not the case last century with either.
This may be the origin of this dispute -
what makes good beer versus what
pleases the accountants and shareholders.
Rather than a hop tea added to the
secondary, I routinely add hops at the
nose for lagers.
I also recommend a hop tea,
with the wet hops included, as a way
to "dry hop" in the secondary for
British ales, in contrast to adding the
plain dry hops.
I believe this improves the
extraction and provides some infection
protection, although there are those who
contend this is not necessary. Perhaps
this is not necessary for kegs of beer which
will be consumed in a week or so after
dry hopping in the British tradition, but
I do it, since I rarely consume a keg of
beer in a week!
The hops boiled in a
loose cheesecloth bag makes it
easier to rack to the kegs or bottles.
A wire hook from a clothes hanger makes it
easy to remove this bag from the carboy
after racking.
The bitterness added to the beers from
any of these above practices is minimal
since the inversion of the bittering acids
takes time and boiling to be effective in
bittering the beers.
- -----------------------------------
Brian Bonser asks for speculation
( and experience, but I don't have any) on
how to handle sweet potatoes in a brew
and suggests a "full blown triple decoction"
as the answer.
I speculate that a good roast of the potatoes
in the oven would capture the caramelly
flavor your SO wants or microwave ( to
gelatinize the starch) will allow you to do
a stepped infusion mash, with all the low T
holds, to manage any protein. This will allow
you to take advantage of the full enzymic
power of your malt to reduce the potato starch,
which the decoction ( normally done with
100% malt) will not. I would mash the cooked
potatoes roughly to get good extraction. Also,
I would probably invest in a pound of rice hulls
to get a good flow during lautering.
Don't forget the marshmallows!
Keep on Brewin'
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 01 Nov 1999 11:56:47 -0600
From: Nathan Kanous <nlkanous@pharmacy.wisc.edu>
Subject: Sanitizing my stir bar
Can I sanitize my stir bar properly but just cleaning it and leaving it in
a small jar of vodka? I suspect it would be in the vodka a couple weeks at
a time, if not more. Anybody got any ideas how virulent pediococcus and
such are when exposed to 50% ethanol solutions? Just trying to make it simple.
nathan in madison, wi
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 01 Nov 1999 12:07:30 -0600
From: Nathan Kanous <nlkanous@pharmacy.wisc.edu>
Subject: pLambic "disinfecting"
At the risk of being proven wrong, I'll speak. Matt recommended that we
can use a strong bleach solution in a nice long soak to avoid cross
contamination from pLambic into our other beers. I'll go out on a limb and
say he's half right. The long soak part. I've recently re-opened Fix's
Analysis of Brewing Techniques and I believe he mentioned that bleach is
not very good for pediococcus. However, you could use your iodophor or a
nice quaternary ammonium compound or whatever. Just don't expect the
bleach to do the trick. Always open minded, open mouthed, and willing to
be proven wrong...
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 01 Nov 1999 13:22:07 -0500
From: Spencer W Thomas <spencer@engin.umich.edu>
Subject: Re: bubbles, tiny and otherwise
An old posting with a pointer:
>From HBD 761
Date: Thu, 14 Nov 1991 8:39:52 -0500 (EST)
From: TSAMSEL@ISDRES.ER.USGS.GOV
Subject: Bubbles
This may have already been noted but the October PHYSICS TODAY has an
article on the physics of beer bubbles.
(Through a Beer Glass Darkly) pp48-52.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 01 Nov 1999 13:32:41 -0500
From: Spencer W Thomas <spencer@engin.umich.edu>
Subject: Re: The Flavor
>>>>> "Campbell," == <Paul.R.Campbell@is.shell.com> writes:
Campbell,> yes diacetyl is present over a significant range. I'm
Campbell,> not sure I'm experienced enough (taste wise) to pin the
Campbell,> caramel flavour solely to this though; what I think is
But that's not what I said. Or at least it's not what I meant to say!
What I meant to say was that perhaps the diacetyl in combination with
the caramel-like flavors from the malt give the caramel flavor he's
looking for. I would never suggest that diacetyl by itself smells
like caramel. But aromas combine synergistically sometimes, and this
might be one of those times.
For example, at least to my nose, the combination of East Kent
Goldings hops with high diacetyl ends up smelling like rancid butter.
Separately, they're nice (or at least tolerable in the case of the
diacetyl) but together.... YUK!
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 1 Nov 1999 14:13:37 -0600
From: "Sean Richens" <srichens@sprint.ca>
Subject: Beer kits vs. wine kits at retail
Yes, I've noticed all of the local outlets emphasizing wine kits. The
simple truth is that "dump and stir" will make a passable wine (good enough
to keep my hands off the lager until it's ready) but ultimately crappy
beer. The average borderline alcoholic will deal with a wine kit but not
serious beer brewing.
Don't ever be afraid to special order. You pay for the stuff the weekend
after it arrives, but the retailer doesn't pay the wholesaler for 30 days.
Great for their cash flow! It helps to know something about their
suppliers, and if you regularly order and promptly pay for stuff they will
be less secretive about it - I frequently request that my retailer order
hops from Brew King because their customer support is great.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 1 Nov 1999 15:17:58 -0600
From: "Sean Richens" <srichens@sprint.ca>
Subject: (?)Hablan Espanol?
Hi there & Hola!
I'm taking an introductory Spanish class at the local continuing ed., and
for one class we had to talk about our hobbies.
I went nuts trying to find stuff on the web in Spanish (Yahoo Espan~ol,
etc.) where I could find words not in my dictionary, like carboy, racking,
etc.
What has anyone found on the web in Spanish apart from a couple of
breweries? Any clubs? I finally found a great lexicon site at:
http://www.eurodic.echo.lu
This has various industry on-line lexicons tied together so you don't have
to guess, just type in the word and the languages and it pops up a bunch of
suggestions together with which industry uses them.
Anyway, I didn't go so far as to describe sparging, or "vorlaufverfahren",
but I still took along pictures copied from Dave Miller to use as flash
cards.
Sean
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 01 Nov 1999 21:10:18 -0500
From: Bob Sheck <bsheck@skantech.net>
Subject: RE: Sweet Potato Aroma
Bryan -
>I am planning to make a sweet potato lager soon, and my girlfriend insists
Girlfriends <and wifes, for that matter> always insist! I would plan on
baking those sweet potatos (or microwaving them) then mashing them coarsley
and doing an all-grain mash (much the same as if you were doing a pumpkin
ale).
Get rice hulls and mix in for the sparge or you will get to know the meaning
of 'stuck.'
Now I don't know if there is a chemical equivalent of 'sweet potato' aroma
like other artificial flavors, but I would try this as a begining.
Good luck and please let us know how it went!
Bob Sheck
bsheck, me-sheck, abednigo! Greenville, NC
email:bsheck@skantech.net or see us at:
http://www.skantech.net/bsheck/
(252)830-1833
- -------------
"Madness takes its toll -- Please have exact change!"
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 1 Nov 1999 16:11:49 -0600
From: "Jack Schmidling" <arf@mc.net>
Subject: Re: Hocking?
>Maybe he has a job he actually enjoys?
That my friend is an oxymoron. It's not a job if it is enjoyed.
(Actually, I know he does)...
I would bet you a great deal of money that he would prefer mine, viz., retired.
>And hey, Jack, arent you still hocking easymashers?
Not sure what your definition of "hocking" is but where I come from, it means
stealing.
If you mean hawking as in selling, the answer is still no. When you build a
better mousetrap, you do not have to "hawk" it. Beyond inventing it, I have
little to do with it. The kids in the neighborhood make them and my wife
handles the details.
js
PHOTO OF THE WEEK http://user.mc.net/arf/weekly.htm
HOME http://user.mc.net/arf
------------------------------
End of HOMEBREW Digest #3159, 11/02/99
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