Copy Link
Add to Bookmark
Report
HOMEBREW Digest #3152
HOMEBREW Digest #3152 Sat 23 October 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:
R.E. Caramel flavor in Fuller's ESB ("Campbell, Paul R SSI-TSEA-A")
RE:Bottle Guidelines for Contest Entry ("Donald D. Lake")
Starter Container (Dave Hinrichs)
Explosive O2 ("Nigel Porter")
Hop Tea & Scorching ("Eric Sturman")
Fullers Flavor, ESB from Ashburn malt (RCAYOT)
O2 Hazards/Missing Mg (AJ)
Sake rice ("Steve Blanchard")
Question: Munich Malt : Diastatic Power ? (darrell.leavitt)
RE: lagering idea (LaBorde, Ronald)
Home Malting: advanced steeping technology (Clifton Moore)
Hops Cleanliness and Martha Stewart (Bob)
Details - variac, Mg, silica/carbon ("Sean Richens")
Hey! I scored 16 Sami's! ("Brian Dixon")
* Beer is our obsession and we're late for therapy!
* The HBD now hosts eight digests related to this and a few other hobbies.
* Send an email note to majordomo@hbd.org with the word "lists" on one
* line, and "help" on another (don't need the quotes) for a listing and
* instructions for use.
Send articles for __publication_only__ to post@hbd.org
If your e-mail account is being deleted, please unsubscribe first!!
To SUBSCRIBE or UNSUBSCRIBE send an e-mail message with the word
"subscribe" or "unsubscribe" to request@hbd.org.
**SUBSCRIBE AND UNSUBSCRIBE REQUESTS MUST BE SENT FROM THE E-MAIL
ACCOUNT YOU WISH TO HAVE SUBSCRIBED OR UNSUBSCRIBED!!!**
IF YOU HAVE SPAM-PROOFED your e-mail address, the autoresponder and
the SUBSCRIBE/UNSUBSCRIBE commands will fail!
Contact brewery@hbd.org for information regarding the "Cat's Meow"
Back issues are available via:
HTML from...
http://hbd.org
Anonymous ftp from...
ftp://hbd.org/pub/hbd/digests
ftp://ftp.stanford.edu/pub/clubs/homebrew/beer
AFS users can find it under...
/afs/ir.stanford.edu/ftp/pub/clubs/homebrew/beer
COPYRIGHT for the Digest as a collection is currently held by hbd.org
(Pat Babcock and Karl Lutzen). Digests in their entirity CANNOT be
reprinted/reproduced without this entire header section unless
EXPRESS written permission has been obtained from hbd.org. Digests
CANNOT be reprinted or reproduced in any format for redistribution
unless said redistribution is at absolutely NO COST to the consumer.
COPYRIGHT for individual posts within each Digest is held by the
author. Articles cannot be extracted from the Digest and
reprinted/reproduced without the EXPRESS written permission of the
author. The author and HBD must be attributed as author and source in
any such reprint/reproduction. (Note: QUOTING of items originally
appearing in the Digest in a subsequent Digest is exempt from the
above. Home brew clubs NOT associated with organizations having a
commercial interest in beer or brewing may republish articles in their
newsletters and/or websites provided that the author and HBD are
attributed. ASKING first is still a great courtesy...)
JANITORS on duty: Pat Babcock and Karl Lutzen (janitor@hbd.org)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 22 Oct 1999 11:24:48 +0200
From: "Campbell, Paul R SSI-TSEA-A" <Paul.R.Campbell@is.shell.com>
Subject: R.E. Caramel flavor in Fuller's ESB
Oh I guess I can't resist this one....
I've played around with my FESB recipe now for far too long. I
still maintain that you want to use as close to the brewery
ingredients as possible so pale malt, flaked maize and
british crystal malt would form the grain bill (90%,7%,3% as
discussed here just prior to the big bang).
I left the discussion looking into the caramel addition which
Fuller's also disclosed in the Real Ale Almanac, but there was
some speculation that this would purely affect colour rather
than alter the flavour profile. I'm not convinced. I do know
of one brewer who was cloning a mild in which he perceived a
caramel flavour. His approach at emulating this was to add
home made caramel along with the primings (in a keg beer).
He reported good results; see UKHB842 onwards to see the
posts by Graham Smith on the subject.
I also found the following dotted around net-space:
- ------------------------------------------------------------
Ammonia Caramel EC No. E150c Positively charged, in powder
and liquid form. Suitable for beer, petfoods and general
food use.
- ------------------------------------------------------------
Porterine
" the addition of Porterine. This dark syrupy liquid was
composed of extract, dextrose, and other nonfermentables
and had a color rating of 940 L (10). Brewers added
Porterine to the pilsner wort not only for color adjustment,
but also to approximate the qualities of porter that
otherwise required the use of various other malts not often
found at a brewery geared toward American pilsner production.
To have maintained stocks of those malts would have been too
expensive. Porterine gave these breweries the opportunity to
keep costs down and yet cater to the popular demand for
porter."
Note that the above isn't directly related to caramel, but
I feel that it is a related subject i.e. brewery use of
combined flavour and colour additives.....
- ------------------------------------------------------------
D.D. Williamson Caramel Coloring
CARAMEL COLOR NO. 300
CLASS III
This product is typically used in the brewing industry
because of its guaranteed stability in beers. It has, however,
found applications in several segments of the food industry.
SPECIFICATIONS
COLOR INTENSITY 80 - 90 (1)
COLOR SRM 9,400 - 10,500 (2)
SPECIFIC GRAVITY @ 60F (15.56C) 1.365 - 1.375
BAUME @ 60F (15.56C) 38.8 - 39.6
WT. PER GALLON, LBS. @ 60F (15.56C) 11.37 - 11.45
pH, AS IS 4.2 - 4.8
VISCOSITY, cps @ 68F (20C) MAX. 15,000
COLLOIDAL CHARGE POSITIVE
SULFITE LEVEL, PPM <25
BEER CLARITY BRILLIANT
(1) FOOD CHEMICALS CODEX METHOD - ABSORBANCE OF 0.1% W/V
SOLUTION @ 610 NM THROUGH A 1 CM SQUARE CELL ON BECKMAN
DBG SPECTROPHOTOMETER X 1000.
(2) ASBC METHOD.
Packed in bulk totes, 55 gallon plastic drums, 5 gallon pails and
4 X 1 gallon case packs.
Produced in accordance with 21CFR73.85.
- ------------------------------------------------------------
As I'm *still* in the process of buying a new house I have
not tried to use any of this information for my own batches
of ESB. Usual disclaimers apply; haven't tried it; Don't
guarantee it etc. I would suggest making up different batches
of caramel in differing colour intensities and trying these
out on bottles of your favourite ESB recipe (added along with
the primings). Note that the bottled Fuller's ESB has a higher
abv than the keg beer. The higher carbonation (2.5 volumes?)
of the bottled variety also has an impact on the dry hopping
aroma.
Regards,
Paul Campbell
Aberdeen
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 22 Oct 1999 08:11:07 -0400
From: "Donald D. Lake" <dake@gdi.net>
Subject: RE:Bottle Guidelines for Contest Entry
I've always been curious about the restrictions on bottle types at
competition. Can anyone give me a legitimate or logical reason on why
Grolsh-type bottles are not allowed?
Don Lake
dlake@amuni.com
Lake Water Brewery
(wholly-owned subsidiary of Canal Water Beverages Incorporated)
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 22 Oct 1999 08:07:39 -0500
From: Dave Hinrichs <dhinrichs@quannon.com>
Subject: Starter Container
With all the chatter recently about stirrers it has raised and interest in
me (damn brewing has made me a gadget freak). Anyways my questions concerns
the bottom shape of the starter container. Currently I use a 1 gallon cider
jug (glass) for my starters. The bottom is concave is this a concern for
use with a stirrer. If is I am thinking the pump and filter method my be a
better route unless I can find a suitable container.
Thanks so much
***************************************************************
* Dave Hinrichs E-Mail: dhinrichs@quannon.com *
* Quannon CAD Systems, Inc. Voice: (612) 935-3367 *
* 6101 Baker Road, Suite 204 FAX: (612) 935-0409 *
* Minnetonka, MN 55345 *
* http://www.quannon.com/ *
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 22 Oct 1999 14:07:14 +0100
From: "Nigel Porter" <nigel@sparger.freeserve.co.uk>
Subject: Explosive O2
>" A problem I see with O2 addition via Oxygenator, is that this is
>quite explosive and most people don't realize that potential. Maybe
>most brewers don't smoke - I hope so.
>John"
The main thing to remember is not to use grease or oil on any of the
regulators or pipework you use with O2. O2 can cause sponstanious
combustion in contact with these. Apart from usual safety measures
to be considered when using presure vessels, O2 is pretty much
harmless.
Nigel
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 22 Oct 1999 06:34:25 PDT
From: "Eric Sturman" <ejstur@hotmail.com>
Subject: Hop Tea & Scorching
Hello everyone,
I brew on an electric stove and am concerned about scorching lighter colored
beers. There have been questions posted about "hop tea" and I don't recall
ever seeing any responses. I would assume this to be boiling hops without
malt extract until the alpha acids are extracted from the hops, then adding
malt extract for a shorter boil. First, is my assumption correct? Second,
what are the potential draw backs? And third, are there any other
suggestions for avoiding scorching, besides large volume boiling and
adequate stirring?
Thanks,
Eric S.
ejstur@hotmail.com
______________________________________________________
------------------------------
Date: 22 Oct 1999 08:45:26 -0400
From: RCAYOT@solutia.com
Subject: Fullers Flavor, ESB from Ashburn malt
William Frazier discusses the flavor of Fullers ESB recently, and
offers up some recipies:
"After eight attempts the 5 gallon recipe settled in as shown below;
Maris Otter 45.6%
Munich Malt 45.6%
Cara Vienne 4.1%
Cara Munich 4.1%
Roasted Barley 0.5%
(use enough grain to give an OG of 1050 to 1060)"
I would like to add that there is no way I can possibly concieve of a
beer made with ~50% munich malt tasting ANYTHING like Fullers! Munich
is way too malty! I would say that the beer described above would be
very good, delicious, etc, but not anything like a Fullers. Fullers,
when I get it around these parts (Pensacola Florida) is good, but has
less malt than what I immagine from this recipie. (more like a Bock
malt profile!)
By the way, I am nearly ready to keg my ESB form 100% Ashburn malt
from Briesse:
Grain:100% Ashburn Malt
OG: 1.055
Yeast: Wyeast American Ale #2
Hops: Cascades, Styrian Goldings 1st wort hopping, Cascades, Hallertau
finish. 40-45 IBU (depends if you take hop form into consideration)
Very nice fermentation1 Wyeast American Ale#2 is a very robust yeast
throwing up a large crop of yeast on top! It is not very attenuating,
but so far has lent a fair amount of fruitiness. right now, the beer
is in the secondary, and I am debating on what to do:
1. dry hop or not? There seems to be a good hop flavor from both 1st
wort hopping and finish hops, but the fresh AROMA is not as prominent,
and besides, didn't I want to highlight the MALT characteristic?
Hmmmmmmm
2. Make some REAL ALE, I kept 1/2g of wort aside to prime with, I
could transfer to another carboy, add the 1/2g, add some fresh yeast,
wait till it starts to take off, and then keg it, keep the keg at
fermentation temperatures, and monitor the pressure. Vois'la real
ale! Hmmmmmm
3. Just keg the sucker, force carbonate it and drink it up! Hmmmmmm.
I'll let you know what I do, and how the beer comes out!
Roger Ayotte
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 22 Oct 1999 09:36:00 -0500
From: AJ <ajdel@mindspring.com>
Subject: O2 Hazards/Missing Mg
While discussing the hazards of compressed O2 I think it well to
mention that compressed oxygen carries with it all the hazards
associated with any compressed gas of which the greatest is probably
that the cylinder will be improperly secured (it should be chained to
the wall) so that it can fall over with the potential to snap off some
part of the regulator assembly. It then becomes a rocket which can do
substantial damage to people and property. Oxygen carries its own
especial risks in that it is a powerful oxidizer. One must be
particularly careful to prevent it from coming into contact with oils,
solvents etc. which can spontaneously combust (is that a verb?).
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * * * *
John Schnupp posts
Calcium hardness 45 mg/L as CaCO3
Total hardness 61 mg/L as CaCO3
and asks why magnesium isn't reported. The info is there as total
hardness is the sum of calcium hardness and magnesium hardness.
Officially, other things which react in simple hardness tests such as
strontium and iron do not count in calculating hardness thus if your
water authority uses the usual EDTA based tests this simple relationship
may lead to small inaccuracies. If the lab uses AAS or a similar
selective technique then Mg calculated from this relarionship will be
accurate because the lab will have measured Mg and Ca, converted the
values to hardness, added them and reported this as the total. Anyway,
your Mg hardness is 61 - 45 = 16 ppm as CaCO3. This is equivalent to 3.9
Mg/L magnesium ion (and the 45 ppm as CaCO3 is equivalent to 18 mg/L
calcium ion).
John also writes
>The water reports are
>free and I don't feel like sending a sample out and paying
>for additional testing.
I don't think I have converted a single brewer with the following
prosytalization but I keep trying:
For what I'd charge for a water test (about $30) you can buy very nice
little kits that will allow you to test for total and calcium hardness
(from which you obtain magnesium hardness as above). The kits typically
do 50 - 100 tests.
Finally, John mentions that the "help information" says Mg is best kept
at 10 - 30 ppm. There are lots of beers which have magnesium at levels
much higher than this with which there is good news and bad news. The
good news is that elvevated levels of Magnesium in drinking water has
been associated with reduced risk of cardiovascular disease. The bad
news is that it can give you the trots. It also imparts a sour/bitter
quality at high levles. The level in this water is not problematical
with respect to brewing or dunny trips nor will it probably grant you
extended longevity.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 22 Oct 1999 09:54:54 PDT
From: "Steve Blanchard" <steve_blanchard@hotmail.com>
Subject: Sake rice
Dave Burley made reference to the type of rice used for sake:
<Use ? Rose ( ??) rice as it is a
<high quality short grain rice grown
<here in the US and close to the actual
<rice used in sake manufacturer, just
<not so highly polished. I believe it is
<the rice used by US sake manufacturers
<after they polish it to their specifications.
I believe he was referring to "Calrose" rice which is also a great tasting
rice for eating as well as "drinking".
______________________________________________________
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 22 Oct 1999 14:06:43 -0500 (EST)
From: darrell.leavitt@plattsburgh.edu
Subject: Question: Munich Malt : Diastatic Power ?
Date sent: 22-OCT-1999 14:03:46
I mashed in this afternoon, and forgot that I was out of 2 row...so I
brewed a stout using Fawcett's Munich (8 lb) as the base...along with 1 lb
malted oats, 1 lb Roasted Barley, 1 lb Special B, 1/4 lb Black Patent. My
question is whether the Munich can convert the others?
..Darrell
<Terminally INtermediate Home-Brewer>
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ _/
_/Darrell Leavitt _/
_/INternet: leavitdg@splava.cc.plattsburgh.edu _/
_/AMpr.net: n2ixl@amgate.net.plattsburgh.edu _/
_/AX25 : n2ixl @ kd2aj.#nny.ny.usa _/
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 22 Oct 1999 15:01:23 -0500
From: rlabor@lsumc.edu (LaBorde, Ronald)
Subject: RE: lagering idea
>I thought I could recircultate the
>water, using a pump of some sort, through a length of copper tubing
>occupying the freezer of my brew fridge. So, the bath water would leave
>the container via a pump, travel to the freezer, go through about 10 feet
>of copper tubing, and return to the main bath.
>Would this be feasible? Has anyone tried anything like this? If
>so,please respond.
Yes, you could use a submersible aquarium pump (about $25) to circulate.
Place the pump in the water with the carboy, and use two tubing runs to and
from the fridge.
You may need a small fan to blow over the coil in the fridge to get adequate
temperature transfer. Instead, could try placing the coil into a small
bucket of water (or oil) in the fridge (this will give more surface area and
should facillitate the heat transfer.
I would try a finned automotive heater core, or air conditioner core, and
probably would not need the fan in the fridge.
You can also use a thermostat to power the pump on/off and controll the
temperature. In the winter, you can also heat the fermenter, if desired, by
just circulating with the pump in the fermenter water bath. The pump
produces enough heat to warm up the water.
You may need some antfreeze in the water, by the way.
Ron
Ronald La Borde - Metairie, Louisiana - rlabor@lsumc.edu
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 22 Oct 1999 12:19:10 -0800
From: Clifton Moore <cmoore@gi.alaska.edu>
Subject: Home Malting: advanced steeping technology
It has come to my attention that there is a buzz in the malting industry
concerning the use of inoculates in the steep water.
In much the same way as a healthy yeast pitch has a competitive
advantage over undesirable microbes in the wort, I can easily imagine
the advantages of having 'helper bugs' in the malting process.
Suppression of contaminant blooms and consumption of organic waste
byproducts come to mind as two beneficial prospects of such a
technology.
So dear readers, what is the state of the art here?
Are any of you able to provide references, first hand knowledge, or wild
ass
speculation on just who these 'helpers' might be?
As always,
Clifton Moore
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 22 Oct 1999 15:39:25 -0700
From: Bob <bob@urbanartifacts.com>
Subject: Hops Cleanliness and Martha Stewart
Friends of the Brew...
Thanks to whomever advised us about the Martha Stewart show- this week
on Hops.
Being a confirmed HopHead, and lover of that floral/citrusy profile of
Cascades, I was pleased when I heard she would be visiting a Cascades
growing farm.
The images were wonderful and the hops looked great. The interview was
nice and all was well, except it left me with a question or two.
It seems as if the hops grower mechanically strips the cones off the
vine (bines?) and then dries them overnight in a heated environment,
then bales them up in a huge bale- (hop sack?), then off to the brewer,
or the processor for packaging... but my question is- are they ever
cleaned- and if not- does this imply that those of us who like to dry
hop are possibly getting some random but perhaps deletrious dried
insects? what about chemical fertilizers or insecticides? any srange but
useful chemicals used there?
What about bird droppings, or mites, or small furry animals, or fruit
flies- remember fruit flies, or Japanese Beetles, or whatever?
Any one care to venture an opinion of the purity of the product we throw
into our otherwise pure fermenting beer?
Bob in Texas.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 22 Oct 1999 17:08:57 -0500
From: "Sean Richens" <srichens@sprint.ca>
Subject: Details - variac, Mg, silica/carbon
Hmm... lots of little things I know just a little about:
The variac used to control an electric motor has to be rated "for inductive
loads" . It also has to be the right kind of motor but that's more
elekatricity than I've ever digested.
I'm too lazy to do the math on John E Schnupp's water, but I can see that
the Mg content will be less than 20 ppm (total hardness - Ca hardness). If
I had the energy I'd work out the bicarbonate, but I'd be surprised if your
pH is higher than 7.5.
Large breweries worry about their malt getting "slack" i.e. absorbing
moisture but half the damage is that their volumes are large enough it
messes up their heat balance calculations. The best thing to do is to find
a suitable measuring container and determine the volume of 1 lb. of malt
(when you've just bought it). Remember that malt is traditionally measured
in bushels, so you're not doing anything wrong by reading recipes as "lbs
dry basis malt". Living in New Hampshire, you won't have trouble if you
buy malt at the beginning of the winter and use it up in a season!
"Lagering Idea" will have to wait. I want to do something similar - using
a pumped glycol loop to use the big refrigerator with the blue roof and the
light that goes out around 6:00 pm during brewing season. My sweetie is
most tolerant of my using the front room as a walk-in lagering fridge but
it would be nice to be able to close the window in January. I'll take this
as a shove to doing the math and post my results if and when I figure it
out.
TTFN brewers and brewsters!
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 22 Oct 1999 20:22:06 -0700
From: "Brian Dixon" <briandixon@home.com>
Subject: Hey! I scored 16 Sami's!
I thought the stuff was gone ... until the local grocery store found a
hidden case under other beer in his walk-in cooler. It's the original
Samichlaus Brown (1997). I got the last 16 ... too bad only 15 are left!
Brian
------------------------------
End of HOMEBREW Digest #3152, 10/23/99
*************************************
-------
