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HOMEBREW Digest #3147
HOMEBREW Digest #3147 Mon 18 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:
Copper phosphorous brazing rod (ThomasM923)
Poppets/Cyser/CO2 (AJ)
Re: Cyser problem. (Steve Thompson)
Idaho brewers? (Rick)
Where's Waldo ? StepUps, Chemostats (steve-alexander)
force-carbonating (JPullum127)
Czech Pilsner and Malt ("St. Patrick's")
Sanke conversion ("Mr. Joy Hansen")
Re: Yeast Starter Step Sizes ("Sean Richens")
Starter Stirrer? (phil sides jr)
re: Starter Step-Up Rates (Jim & Paula Adwell)
Scorched Bock (Thomas S Barnett)
Yeast Nutrient (Biergiek)
Aussie malts - questions on the Imported stuff (Jon Bovard)
Step-up Rate Documentation (Biergiek)
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JANITORS on duty: Pat Babcock and Karl Lutzen (janitor@hbd.org)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sat, 16 Oct 1999 08:52:29 EDT
From: ThomasM923@aol.com
Subject: Copper phosphorous brazing rod
There was a time when I had grandiose visions of building my own copper
boiler. It was a short-lived pipe dream, and I've long since come back to my
senses. During this period of delusion I had picked up some copper
phosphorous brazing rod to experiment with. I never did, until I uncovered it
this weekend during a long promised cleaning of the basement. My curiosity
was piqued and I tried it out on some bits of copper I had laying around. It
is an amazingly easy material to use, flowing like a dream and filling large
gaps in a single bound. I have a lauter tun manifold that I am building out
of copper tubing that I was going to join together with jeweler's (cadmium
free) silver solder which requires very tight fitting joints. It would be
quite a bit easier if I could use the copper phosphorous brazing rod. I've
looked for info on whether this material is food safe or not, but I have not
found any. I have found that "white phosphorous" (phosphorous in powdered
form) is toxic in fairly small amounts. Does anyone have any information on
this brazing material?
Oh, by the way, hats off to Pat Babcock and all for getting the HBD back on
line. I had no idea how to waste all the time that I had been wasting before
it went away...
Thomas Murray
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 16 Oct 1999 13:22:30 +0000
From: AJ <ajdel@mindspring.com>
Subject: Poppets/Cyser/CO2
Bob P asked about removing poppets. I've never had any trouble with
these at all. Perhaps the "secret" is to push them out from the top
rather than pull them out from the bottom. Simply place the fitting
right side up on the bench and push down on the poppet with the closed
tip of a needle nosed plier or some similar instrument and the poppet
should pop free.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
For Calgary Penn's cyser I can only suggest patience. Meads don't take
off the way beers do, especially under cool conditions. The cider should
supply plenty of nitrogen and 18 hours should be enough time for most of
the sulfur dioxide to have escaped. I have had great success with the
Pasteur strain with both meads and ciders.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Stu Ing asks about small CO2 bottles. The amount of CO3 required to
carbonate beer depends on the level of carbonation desired. Let's
consider very high carbonation as 3 volumes of CO2 per volume of beer.
Five gallons is 19 L which is pretty close to a mole of the gas at room
temp thus 3 volumes of CO2 is about three moles which which weigh 3 x 44
= 133 grams - about 4 ounces. Thus the smallest bottle will be enough to
carbonate and dispense (approximately another mole would be required to
displace the beer during dispense). As the unit cost of CO2 is inversely
proportional to the size of the container it is purchased in it would
seem sensible to condition with gas from the largest container and
dispense with gas from the small ones for convenience. I have seen ads
for doo-dads which take a selzer bottle cartrige in an appliance which
attaches to the gas quick disconnect fitting.
- --
A. J. deLange
Numquam in dubio, saepe in errore.
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 16 Oct 1999 09:11:48 -0400
From: Steve Thompson <viking@jellico.com>
Subject: Re: Cyser problem.
The only thing that I would suggest would be to find a place about 10-15
deg. warmer. Sounds like everything else is in order; althought I would
have waited somewhat longer to pitch since you are using campden. I've
found that cysers tend to take longer to ferment out that the rest of the
mead family but they have always started out just like the others... Good
luck! Steve
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 16 Oct 1999 11:30:24 -0600
From: Rick <allirich@isu.edu>
Subject: Idaho brewers?
Hello folks,
Just a quick query to see if there are fellow homebrewers in the
Pocatello, ID area.
I just moved to Pocatello and would like to get in touch. private email
please
Thanks
Rick
allirich@isu.edu
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 16 Oct 1999 14:49:35 +0000
From: steve-alexander@att.net
Subject: Where's Waldo ? StepUps, Chemostats
As I write this post, I sit in a hotel in Southern
Stuttgart sipping a
Schwaben Brau Pils about to join in the local
Filderkraut fest. I'll
be here thru the end of month on business and have only
sporadic
access to HBD (as one of my co-workers said in broken
Engish - 'Its a
hard life for a hard guy like me'). PatB can rest
assured that my
check for back dues will be in the mail as soon as I
return. OTOH the
beer, food, people, and exchange rate are great, as was
the Stuttgart
O'fest the week before last.
Sorry for the line-wraps, netmail bites.
====
KyleB writes on Starter Step-Up Rates
> -I think I read in the HBD archives that Steve A.
> 4X was correct for lagers, and 8X for ales?
Actually Kyle the 4X and 8X is the relationship between
the final
starter size and the batch size. That is - for 5gal of
lager wort you
should pitch the yeast from 1.25gal of starter ! You
shouldn't take
such figures too seriously - it's the viable cell count
that matters.
And the suggested pitching rates do depend on the yeast -
and the
viability can change overnight.
As for step-up rates - I think they are almost
nonsense. You don't
want to pitch slantful into 10bbl of wort because the
ever present
infections will in evitably overtake the yeast.
One thought is that you I should feed the yeast
continuously, and at a
rate so that they won't go anaerobic on you (from too
much glucose
primarily) - which you would by stepping up at 2X or
greater). A
conflicting thought is that such continuous feeds *may*
prevent the
yeast from transitioning from glucose to maltose and
eventually to
maltotriose. That is it may actually help select for
yeast that won't
consume maltotriose. That would be bad.
You should really examine information on chemostat and
bioreactor
design. Jim Liddel(the Idi Amin of HBD ?) mentioned the
chemostat
before the crash - but I am afraid he left the
impression that it was
a designed for optimal growth. It was not. It was
designed to study
growth parameters by creating steady-state continuous
growth. The
chemostat cell culture remains in exponental (log)
phase, but the
growth per unit medium (wort) may be extremely low. And
it produces
overflow cells at a continuous rate, not in big
pitchable amounts. A
chemostat and a few simple diff eq's can yield an
amazing amount of
information in nutrient req's and growth rates.
Bioreactors are
designed for product growth - things like producing
human insulin by
growing genetically modified E.coli in a bottle - still
not the same
thing.
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 16 Oct 1999 11:00:17 EDT
From: JPullum127@aol.com
Subject: force-carbonating
my friend just got a sparkler head to go with nitro/c02 mix. i need a rough
idea of how long and at what pressure to force carb a 15 gallon keg to work
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 16 Oct 1999 14:16:55 -0500
From: "St. Patrick's" <stpats@bga.com>
Subject: Czech Pilsner and Malt
The Czech Moravian malt, which I have imported for the past 2 years, is
indeed well-modified.
Kolbach > 42. Malt specs are on our web page (now linked from grain page).
I spent 10 days in August visiting Czech breweries and maltings. My hosts,
escorts, and interpreters were maltsters.
Michael Jackson was with us for 4 days. Here's a couple of points about
brewing Czech pilsners.
1. Last rest should be at 72C.
2. First wort hopping is unheard of in Czech brewing. With all due
respect, the information contained in the
Brewing Techniques article was incorrect (note the source was a marketing
guy). This is not to say
first wort hopping or dry hopping are undesirable, just they are not part
of Czech brewing.
3. I have the Budweiser Budvar yeast strain. I sent it off to Wyeast
which has agreed to maintain it.
Available to breweries thru Wyeast and homebrewers exclusively thru St.
Pats.
It will be known as Budvar (Wyeast no. 2000). (Wy2K was too cute)
Available October 28.
I also have Budweiser Budvar hats and shirts.
Lynne O'Connor
St. Patrick's of Texas
Brewers Supply
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 16 Oct 1999 14:56:54 -0400
From: "Mr. Joy Hansen" <joytbrew@patriot.net>
Subject: Sanke conversion
Ian Smith asked about converting a sanke to a corny. I use a Sanke as a
fermenter and have cut out the standard fitting to the oval shape for a
corny lid. I use glass as a secondary. This isn't the only approach;
however, it works for me.
It's not easy to cut the oval shape out of a sanke top. With a lot of
patients, I drill the perimeter with nitride tipped bits, use a saber saw or
sawsall to break the sanke fitting out. Then, I use rotary files to finish
the final shape of the oval. The plastic top kegs have a smooth interior
lid and a corny lid will seal easily "if" one uses the Williams corny "o"
rings. The metal topped sanke has strengthening ribs bent into the metal.
I used an anvil and hammer to more or less flatten the area around the oval.
With patients, the shape can be fashioned so a corny lid can be sealed with
the Williams corny "o" ring. It's obvious that the legs of the closure lock
must be shortened as necessary to assure adequate pressure to seal the "O"
ring, yet allow the closure to operate.
To siphon to the secondary, I do not remove the corny lid. I remove the
blow off and insert the siphon tube into the sanke. In fact, once the lid
is sealed, I do not break the seal until it's time to clean the sanke. This
might prevent vermin or debris from dropping into the brew. I also use
Hoptec antifoam in the fermenter to limit the amount of blow off. Don't
know it's affect on brew head. I haven't got past the mash requirements for
good head yet.
Anyway, since the corny lid modification is intended as a means to clean the
sanke, I can say it works great. I can reach all the areas I can't see. My
arm is too large to fit through the corny opening, so I brush the areas I
can't reach. PBW does a great job at removing most of the debris.
I never had much confidence about the cleanliness of a sanke that I couldn't
know for sure I scrubbed the entire interior. For comparison, it takes
considerable effort to remove the residuals from the upper level of the
ferment in glass fermenters.
For fermentation, I drilled a ~3/4 inch hole to accept clear PVC. This is
routed with hose barb elbows over the side of the keg and into a blow off
container. The safety valve is left in tact, just in case the Mr. Murphy
visits.
I ferment 8 to 13 gallons in the primary and a combination of bottle sizes
for the secondary. This setup fits into my beer cooler and I use a
temperature controller to adjust the fermentation temperature.
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 16 Oct 1999 15:43:18 -0500
From: "Sean Richens" <srichens@sprint.ca>
Subject: Re: Yeast Starter Step Sizes
You can, indeed, work your way up from a single yeast cell, and that single
cell is usually pitched into a small tube, and so on. Under sterile
conditions it will eventually grow exponentially to consume the entire food
supply.
However, if you want your yeast cell to perform in a specific way, the
conditions will make a difference. In the pharmaceutical plant where I
work, we do some pretty big step-ups early in some processes, but the rule
of thumb is to make the last few transfers between 5X and 20X. The actual
step size is optimized for the particular organism, product, etc., but the
point is that happy bugs don't mind so much putting their energy into
making product instead of making more fungus.
Sure, we could pitch 5 mL of starter into a multi-thousand-litre fermenter,
but we're trying to make antibiotics, not fungal biomass. If you pitched 5
mL of starter into 5 gallons of well-aerated wort under sterile conditions
you would have no trouble making yeast. The beer might not be so good.
Sean
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 17 Oct 1999 00:46:19 -0400
From: phil sides jr <psides@carl.net>
Subject: Starter Stirrer?
John Schnupp writes:
>...getting 1/4"-3/8" of yeast. One final quart is added and the
stirrer is
>turned on without aeration. I go about my brewing and 4-5 hours
later...
John, can you elaborate on this 'stirrer'? Did you make it etc...?
Phil Sides, Jr.
Concord, NH
- --
Macht nicht o'zapft ist, Prost!
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 17 Oct 1999 12:02:51 -0400
From: Jim & Paula Adwell <jimala@servtech.com>
Subject: re: Starter Step-Up Rates
Kyle is asking about starters:
>It is time for the HBD to weigh in on this matter, what say yea all?
Hmmm. My starter procedure is more or less as follows:
I pitch a standard Wyeast smackpack into 2 quarts of 1.030 wort with
perhaps 15 IBU worth of hops I have previously canned, in a glass 1/2
gallon milk bottle. Half of this is pitched 24 hours or so later into 2
quarts of canned wort in my primary fermenter. The rest is allowed to
ferment to completion, and stored in my basement, or refrigerator. The
next day I pitch freshly made wort onto the starter, aerating by splashing
and/or running the wort down the inside of the fermentor. I usually shake
the fermentor for a while, too.
When I want to use the yeast again, I add a quart of canned wort to the
milk bottle, let it ferment for 12-24 hours, shake well to mix the yeast
with the liquid, add half of that to 2 quarts of canned wort in my
fermenter, and so on. I typically reuse the yeast 4 or 5 times, then throw
it out and start over with a fresh smackpack. Someday I will see how many
times I can reuse the yeast before infections or mutations set in.
I always get reasonably fast starts; depending on the yeast strain and
chance factors, from 1 to 6 hours, even though sometimes I am lax in
aerating the wort. Since I have been using this procedure, I use a 12
gallon Pyrex carboy to eliminate the blowoff tube necessary when I used a
6.5 gallon carboy. So far, I have not had any problems with infections. My
beer has improved noticeably. I suspect that my pitching rate may be
sub-optimal, but I probably won't change my procedure, since the results
are good.
I make only ales, use American Ale II, European, German, and Swedish Wyeast
smackpacks mostly.
Jim's Brewery Pages:
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 17 Oct 1999 13:35:34 -0500 (CDT)
From: Thomas S Barnett <barnets@mail.auburn.edu>
Subject: Scorched Bock
Hello All,
I recently made a bock. Upon transfering to the secondary i
tasted it and noticed a burnt/smoke flavor. I had expected such, as
there was some scorching while adding heat to the mash. I plan to lager
this beer near freezing for a few months. Will lagering help get rid of
the burnt/smoke flavor? Thanks. Tom Barnett.
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 17 Oct 1999 20:15:50 EDT
From: Biergiek@aol.com
Subject: Yeast Nutrient
What makes a good yeast nutrient, and is there an economical source for this?
The offerings are homebrew stores are outrageously priced.
My idea is to use 1/3 DME and 2/3 table sugar to make my yeast starters. I
step up my starters 3 or four times, and the final step up volume can be 2
gallons for lagers. About 2# of DME is required for the starters using all
DME, and with DME at $3/lb and table sugar at $0.30/lb., I would like to
limit the DME use. With 1/3 DME I am guessing that the yeast will need some
added nutrients to grow properly.
Any ideas?
Kyle
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 18 Oct 1999 10:24:29 +1000
From: Jon Bovard <jonbov@dingoblue.net.au>
Subject: Aussie malts - questions on the Imported stuff
Hi all. Long time no brew!
Here in Aus. we will be apparently getting our first batch ogf imported
malt arriving some from the UK. I imagin Englsih lager malt is nothing
to rave about (compared to aussie lager malt) but I guess that there ale
and particularly crystal malts will be first rate. first off the rank Id
like to make something in the order of Bass ( i wish). Which of below
and in what %quantities would be suitable??
cheers
Jon
Brisbane
australia
MALT/COLOUR(EBC)
Pale ale - Halcyon 5.3
(Maris Otter/Sargent cross)
Lager (Alexis Pilsener malt) 3
Amber 110
Crystal 145
Chocolate 1110
Black Malt 1270
Available end of November 1999
Maris Otter Pale Ale 4.7
(fully modified winter 2-row)
Munich 11.8
Caramalt 28
Brown 70
Pale Chocolate 900
Roast Barley 1220
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 17 Oct 1999 20:27:31 EDT
From: Biergiek@aol.com
Subject: Step-up Rate Documentation
I was able to find a reference for yeast starter step-up rates in Fix's
latest book on pp. 74. He suggests using a "geometric" step-up rate, i.e.
2X, 4X, 8X, 16X, etc., although, he does not explain why.
Thanks to all who mentioned that the reason for using a step-up for a starter
is to minimize bacterial growth and allow the yeast to dominate the starter
culture. Makes sense to me!
Anyone have a reference as to whether starter temperature is important? In
the same book, Fix suggests that the starter culture should be propagated at
the same temperature as the beer is fermented at. I did see a post from
several years ago that MB Raines suggests growing the starter at room
temperature. Seems to me that maximizing healthy cell counts is most
important outcome for yeast starters, and this can best be achieved at warmer
temps. rather then cooler temps.
I would like to hear others weigh in on this issue, or any other yeast topics.
Kyle
------------------------------
End of HOMEBREW Digest #3147, 10/18/99
*************************************
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