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HOMEBREW Digest #3149
HOMEBREW Digest #3149 Wed 20 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:
Middlebury, VT (JPSimo1106)
RE: Info on Sake (VIZECKY)
Yeast Starter - Oxygenation vs. Sanitation (Bill Graham)
RE: Info on Sake (Robert Arguello)
RE: cleaning a calcified carboy (LaBorde, Ronald)
re: Starter Stirrer? (LaBorde, Ronald)
Re: yeast and antibiotics ("Scholz, Richard")
Re: Scorched Bock (Spencer W Thomas)
Cleaning up yeast and carboys (Dave Burley)
Re: antibiotics and yeast (MICHAEL WILLIAM MACEYKA)
Recipe for CSR Bitters (Steve Thompson)
Subject: Info on Sake ("Sean Richens")
yeast, aob customer service, GABF (no future) (Jim Liddil)
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 19 Oct 1999 06:23:08 EDT
From: JPSimo1106@aol.com
Subject: Middlebury, VT
Can anyone point me to a good lunch place in Middlebury, VT? I'm headed up
to take a tour of Otter Creek with my wife and parents this Saturday.
I'm really not interested in traveling further to Burlington, after a 2 to
2&1/2 hour ride to Middlebury.
Much appreciated,
John Simonetta
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 19 Oct 1999 08:01:25 -0700 (PDT)
From: VIZECKY <vizecky@yahoo.com>
Subject: RE: Info on Sake
> Date: Mon, 18 Oct 1999 17:48:07 EDTFrom:
> Jaxson28@aol.comSubject: Info on Sake
> I'm interested in brewing sake for a close friend
> who loves the stuff. Does anyone know of a recipe
> or direct me to where I can find information on
> brewing sake?
While I am an experienced all-grain brewer and
wine/mead maker, I have only recently ventured into
the sake making arena. I first replied directly to
the above post then I considered the lack of
information availble on the HBD and in the archives on
sake when I was trying to get a start and decided to
post the whole thing.
I am a relative newbie at sake making so if anyone has
any better information please feel free to flame or
correct as you see fit.
- ----
I am just finishing my second batch of sake right now.
My first batch was a disappointing pseudo sake made
with "koji enzyme" purchased from Great Fermentations.
My second batch is the real thing. My second batch
represents three years of attempting to locate the
proper ingredients, so far it tastes wonderful!
If you need background information on the process
check out the following links.
http://www.brewery.org/brewery/library/sake_MH0499.html
http://home1.gte.net/richwebb/sakeprod.htm
I would also recommend the following book, you will
find it to be a handy reference.
SAKE (USA) by Fred Eckhardt
The most difficult ingredient to find is KOJI (ko-gee)
it is a rice inoculated with a mold from the
penicillin family which converts the starch in rice to
a fermentable sugar. The problem is the stuff should
be either refrigerated or frozen at all times and
there is no way to know how old it is.
Depending on where you live koji is very difficult to
locate, for example I live in Minneapolis and I called
or visited no less than 20 Asian markets trying to
locate koji, none of them carried it in stock. I even
requested that they locate it and special order me
some, but to no avail.
I knew that it was available through a couple home
brew companies like St. Pats (www.stpats.com) but it
costs about $8.00 per container (it takes two) and
when I figured in shipping and the likelihood that I
would have a usable product after shipping from Texas
to Minnesota I opted not to order.
Finally I contacted GEM, GEM is a small culture
company run by a nice couple. They do not have a
website but if you call them they will mail out a
catalog (I got mine two days after I called), they
sell koji and mold powder (among other things). I
opted for the mold powder. One order of culture is
enough to do two batches of sake and the cost is
$2.50, if your order is over $10 the shipping is free,
and they have a special price if you order 5-packets
you can get 5 for $10 or $11 I don't remember which.
GEM will also sell you a copy of the recipe from SAKE
(USA) for about $3 if you don't buy the book.
Gem Cultures
30301 Sherwood Road
Ft. Bragg, CA 95437
Phone 707 964 2922
As far as yeast is concerned Wyeast sells a sake yeast
or Fred Eckhardt claims a good wine yeast will work
fine.
The best advice I can give (for what it is worth) is
before you try to make sake, invest in a rice steamer
(NOT A COOKER) a rice steamer is just what it sounds
like. It is an aluminum tray suspended above boiling
water, the rice never touches the water while cooking.
The cost of a new steamer is about $20-30, get a
fairly large one 30-40cm because you will be steaming
up to 5lb of rice at one shot.
The reason I recommend a steamer is in my readings and
discussions about people's experiences I noted that
everyone who cooked the rice in boiling water had a
miserable gummy mess whereas those who steamed the
rice (myself included experienced no such difficulty).
I typed this up in a hurry, and I hope I did not miss
anything. If you have further questions or would like
to discuss sake I would be happy to help.
Thanks
Gordon Vizecky
Minneapolis, MN
Not affiliated in any way with the commercial entities
mentioned above, just a customer.
=====
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 19 Oct 1999 11:26:08 -0400 (EDT)
From: Bill Graham <weg@micro-net.net>
Subject: Yeast Starter - Oxygenation vs. Sanitation
All -
The recent posts about yeast starter growth have been interesting,
but I'm seeing an interesting dichotomy ... folks who swear by lots of
oxygenation, and folks who insist on the highest levels of sanitation when
growing yeast. Frankly, I haven't seen any mention of how to do both at
the same time. Off the cuff, it sounds like they are mutually
exclusive, since the process of oxygenation would break any sanitary
"containment". Could somebody enlighten me on how this is done?
Bill
"...the only way to deal with bureaucrats is with stealth and sudden
violence." - Butros Butros-Ghali
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 19 Oct 1999 08:29:10 -0700 (PDT)
From: Robert Arguello <robertac@calweb.com>
Subject: RE: Info on Sake
Date: Mon, 18 Oct 1999 17:48:07 EDT
Jaxson28@aol.com asked:
>I'm interested in brewing sake for a close friend who loves the stuff. Does
>anyone know of a recipe or direct me to where I can find information on
>brewing sake?
Fred Eckhardt's book "SAKE USA"
Published by: Fred Eckhardt Communications
PO Box 546
Portland, Oregon 97207
503-289-7596
********************************************************************
Robert Arguello <robertac@calweb.com>
Corny kegs - ProMash Brewing Software
http://www.calweb.com/~robertac
********************************************************************
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 19 Oct 1999 11:33:16 -0500
From: rlabor@lsumc.edu (LaBorde, Ronald)
Subject: RE: cleaning a calcified carboy
Todd asks about cleaning a calcified carboy.
I have often wondered about the same thing as I cannot recall hearing
anyone's good advice about how to do it.
My erlenmeyer flasks sometimes have a white coating after soaking in bleach
for a few days, and I also tried CLR to no avail, tried vinegar, nadda. The
method I finally came up with was this. I use Barkeepers Friend, a cleaning
powder for stainless steel, glass, and other materials. I use either a
nylon bristle brush (wet), or a sponge pad on a handle (from grocery store),
and mechanically rub the stuff off after sprinkling some Barkeepers Friend
and a small amount of water inside to make a paste.
This is the only way I have found to remove that coating, and it should
also work on a carboy, if you can find or make a long handled scrubber of
some kind. Good luck.
Ron
Ronald La Borde - Metairie, Louisiana - rlabor@lsumc.edu
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 19 Oct 1999 11:48:47 -0500
From: rlabor@lsumc.edu (LaBorde, Ronald)
Subject: re: Starter Stirrer?
Phil and John discuss making a stirrer.
Good ideas, and I will chirp in with some more (good, I hope).
I was about to build a stirrer when I asked my lab friend if I could take a
look at a real one. He let me see it, in fact he gave me one that was not
working. Now, it seems to be some kind of karma that stirrers get spills
and corrosion on them, as I could see he had quite a few rusting hulks
around the lab.
I opened it up to get a look and found a very small ac motor, with a magnet
mounted to a disk, which was mounted to the motor. Very easy to make
something like this. The magnet was about 1/4 inch diameter by two inches
long. It was held down by a simple metal flat piece that screwed down on
either side of the magnet to the disc.
The motor was controlled by a simple 10 watt or so potentiometer. This
whole thing will bog down with more than 1 liter flask of yeast (yeast
slurry gets thicker once the cells multiply). So I would like to build a
better one myself. One thing to watch out for also, is the heat from the
motor really heated the plate up too much and raised the temp of the
starter. I put some coasters under the flask as insulation and this helped.
I will include a fan in the one I build.
If you have unlimited time on your hands and want to get fancy, I was
thinking, hmm the magnet is there and it spins, so why not put one of these
hall effect magnetic sensors (you can get one free by scavenging one from an
old floppy disk drive), and then place it close to the stir magnet and sense
the actual speed. Then build a digital controller with a speed dial or
readout of some kind.
I did warn you - unlimited time, remember.
Ron
Ronald La Borde - Metairie, Louisiana - rlabor@lsumc.edu
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 19 Oct 1999 13:32:03 -0400
From: "Scholz, Richard" <RScholz@refco.com>
Subject: Re: yeast and antibiotics
"Stephen ." <sn55@hotmail.com> <mailto:sn55@hotmail.com> asks about
antibiotics and yeast in HDB3148
The wine industry uses some of these to inhibit secondary infections until
the yeast is done with the sugars. Check out Scott labs at:
http://vinescape.com/scottlab/fermentation.htm
look at the page on "Fordras Lysozyme". They describe it as:
"Lysozyme is a naturally occurring enzyme extracted from egg white protein.
Lysozyme attacks the cell wall of gram-positive bacteria leading to cell
lysis and death. It is effective against Lactobacillus, Pediococcus and
Leuconostoc bacteria. Lysozyme is available in an easy-to-solubilize powder
form and comes in 1-kilo packages."
I've been very interested in any compound that might lower the infection
risk from the chiller into the fermenter and beyond. I have contacted Scott
Labs and hope to know how much this stuff costs in the near future. They
also have yeast nutrients and other fermentation additives. Hope this helps.
- ---
Richard L Scholz
Brooklyn, NY
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 19 Oct 1999 14:31:48 -0400
From: Spencer W Thomas <spencer@engin.umich.edu>
Subject: Re: Scorched Bock
>>>>> "Thomas" == Thomas S Barnett <barnets@mail.auburn.edu> writes:
Thomas> Hello All, I recently made a bock. Upon transfering to
Thomas> the secondary i tasted it and noticed a burnt/smoke
Thomas> flavor. I had expected such, as there was some scorching
Thomas> while adding heat to the mash. I plan to lager this beer
Thomas> near freezing for a few months. Will lagering help get
Thomas> rid of the burnt/smoke flavor?
I doubt it. My suggestion is to add more smoke flavor and call it a
"smoked bock."
You could, for example, dampen about a pound of crystal malt, and
smoke it for about an hour, then steep it in a quart or two of water.
Boil the water before adding it to your beer, of course.
Smoking in a "kettle" grill: Place the malt in a shallow pan or form
one out of heavy-duty aluminum foil (two layers would be best). Make
a small pile of charcoal on one side of your grill and get it going.
Wrap a cup or two of wood chips (hickory is nice) heavy-duty foil,
making a packet about the size your pile of charcoal will be when you
flatten it out. Poke a bunch of holes in the top of the foil packet.
Put the packet on top of the coals, put the grate on, and put the
pan with the crystal malt on the other side of the grate from the
coals (you want smoke, not heat). Cover the grill, and adjust the air
holes so you get a nice steady stream of smoke out the top.
=Spencer
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 19 Oct 1999 15:07:19 -0400
From: Dave Burley <Dave_Burley@compuserve.com>
Subject: Cleaning up yeast and carboys
Brewsters:
Stephen Neate asks for data on how to clean up
yeast and suggests perhaps an antibiotic may be useful.
Don't know anything about anti-bacterial/non-yeast
killing potions, but I normally refresh a culture using
tartatic acid as some professional brewers also do.
Take a yeast slurry which you wash with cold sterile
water until all the beer has been removed. Add a
cold solution of 1% tartaric acid, swirl, allow to settle
and pour this off, followed by three cold water rinsings.
Minimize the time the yeast spends in the tartaric acid
as best you can. 10 to 30 minnutes has proven OK in
my experience, longer may be OK, I don't know.
You may have to lose some of the yeast to do this.
The acid is reputed to kill contaminating lactobacillus,
but I don't know if that is why it works
or if it is just the washing/gravity separation of the
yeast and bacteria. Anyway, pitch the yeast into a
starter and then into a brew when you get rapid growth
and high kraeusen in the starter.
Some brewers do this every three brews just to
minimize any contamination. I did read of one
who does this every brew. But it is probably
(pardon the expression) overkill.
- -------------------------------------------------
Todd has tried to remove a white film from a carboy
using alkaline cleaning agents to no avail. Try the
other side of neutrality by using an acid. Since this
carboy spent time outside, the white film may in
fact be etched glass and no amount of cleaning
( outside of polishing) it will solve this problem.
- -------------------------------------------------
Keep on Brewin'
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 19 Oct 1999 15:10:27 -0400 (EDT)
From: MICHAEL WILLIAM MACEYKA <mmaceyka@welch.jhu.edu>
Subject: Re: antibiotics and yeast
Howdy All,
Stephen Neate asks about using antibiootics to rid yeast cultures of
unwanted microbes. This is certainly a possibility BUT...
The only way to know if the antibiotics you are using are toxic to the
bacteria in your culture, you would need to "do the experiment" by adding the
drug(s) to the culture. If the bacteria are not killed, then you may not have
any yeast left to salvage. Furthermore, if a bacterium found its way into
your culture, perhaps some wild yeast did too, and the antibiotics would be to
no avail. And then there is the issue of selecting for resistant mutants...
My suggestion is that if you come down with infected yeast during the
"culture stage" that you go back to the original source. If that is unclean,
then streak the culture to singles on an agar plate that supports yeast
growth. Pick several individual colonies and either test grow them in liquid
or re-streak to singles. I have followed this procedure myself on several
occasions and it has been successful for me. I have also gotten rid of
petites in this fashion.
If you get infected yeast during the starter-stage, and you positively
must pitch that yeast, then what have you got to lose? Just be sure to warn
any drinkers of the beer who might be allergic to antibiotics what you have
done. Eventhough I work in a molecular biology lab and culture my yeast
there, I always have a couple of dried yeast packets lying around just in
case. Of course, I've never had to use them...
Having said all of this, in doing tissue culture, I use media that has
antibiotics already in it to prevent infections from occuring. Alan Meeker
will tell you I do this because I am less than a man, [insert your own
snide comments here about one or both of our wives]. Haven't tried it with my
yeast culturing.
Mike Maceyka
Baltimore, MD
Four Square Brewing: Our beer doesn't suck because it's infected...
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 19 Oct 1999 20:00:22 -0400
From: Steve Thompson <viking@jellico.com>
Subject: Recipe for CSR Bitters
Back in the Dark Days (when I was in the Navy) I had the good fortune to
make friends with a couple of blokes aboard HMS Exeter who introduced me to
CSB bitters. Well to make a long story short it was love at first sip.
According to them this is a special brew (there was a lager version too)
made by Courage brewery especially for the Royal Navy. I expect that was
true since the Courage products I got in various pubs weren't even close to
what I got on the Exeter. Now for the question does anyone have or know
where I could get a extract based recipe for a CSB bitters clone???
Thanks in advance. Steve
formerly of the USS Underwood :-)
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 19 Oct 1999 17:56:47 -0500
From: "Sean Richens" <srichens@sprint.ca>
Subject: Subject: Info on Sake
For a whole bunch of stuff on loads of neat topics, go to Cindy Renfrow's
page:
http://members.aol.com/renfrowcm/links.html
and down the page you will find:
http://www.lvdi.net
This page gives several approaches to making sake, from the mini-commercial
to the total farmhouse bucket batch.
My one batch of sake, which I plan to repeat this year, was based on a
recipe in _Making_Wine,_Beer,_and_Merry_, by Howard and Gibat.
Unfortunately, the typesetter ate a few key instructions, but as I was
working with a Chinese mycologist at the time I had alternatives.
I used tane (spores) to make my own Koji. It wasn't really the same as the
Japanese product, but it hydrolysed the rice just fine, and the product was
a highly accurate copy of commercial sake right down to the
cranium-splitting hangover.
As I recall, I steamed 3 lb of rice and placed it in a sterilized bucket.
I obtained *Aspergillus* spores at a Chinese pharmacy (couldn't get any in
San Francisco, but they're on the counter by the cash register here in
Winnipeg - funny). A slurry of spores was added to the rice and after 2-3
days of warm incubation the rice "makes water" and is sitting in about its
own volume of sweet liquid. In China they eat this slurry or strain it
off, it's slightly alcoholic. Note that this stage is an aerobic,
solid-state fermentation.
I added 2 gallons cold water, champagne yeast, and put it in a 50*F room
for a month to ferment. I then strained it out, and let it sit in jugs to
finish up. I filtered it, which I would use diatomaceous earth for next
time. It's good!
I have the package, but I don't know how I'm going to get the Chinese
characters to you. Email me directly and I'll try to get it scanned. Then
you can take that here, there and everywhere to see if you can get a lead
on the stuff. Try a university microbiology or biochemistry department,
there's probably a few Chinese researchers who could help.
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 19 Oct 1999 21:10:33 -0400
From: Jim Liddil <jliddil@vms.arizona.edu>
Subject: yeast, aob customer service, GABF (no future)
I order the new Fix book via the AOB, in order to support them take
advantage of the low price/free shipping deal. And I got this:
> Thank you for your order from the Association of Brewers!
> We received your order from the AOB web catalog at 11:13:49
> on 10/06/99.
> We will respond to you as promptly as possible.
Note the date. I have yet to get a further response. I do not care if all
the AOB was at the GABF, if they want to keep me as a member and not got to
bn.com or amazon then get with the program. I have yet to see the book
either. amazon. com indicates it won't be out until december
And wrt to the GABF I have been amde aware that the GABF may not happen
next year, something about currigan hall not being available. Can anyone
(tom dalldorf?) give me details about this? thsi would certainly impact
one of the "benefits" I get as an AHA "member"
Brad Miller wrote:
> Yest cells grow well on a minimal media containing dextrose
> (glucose) as a carbon source and salts which supply nitrogen, phosphorous
> and trace metals
growing yeast for grad student genetic research and growing yeast for
making beer are two entirely different end points. Do not use dextrose as
the sole source of carbon for a starter. You will end up with yeast that
have down regulated maltose utilizing enzymes. Just use wort. If you are
propogating yeast to freeze then use YM broth is free of particulates yet
has some malt extract and yeast extract. Rather then waste my breath read
the hbd archives about sterols etc.
Some one mentioned lack of need for a protein rest in the Czech malt based
on kolbach alone. Wrong answer. At any rate any educated brewer knows
that all protein modification should be done at the maltster. :-)
> From: "Stephen ." <sn55@hotmail.com>
> Subject: yeast and antibiotics
>
> In a few years of reading HBD on and off I have seen many a mention of
> bacterial contamination of cultures but no advice on how to clean them up
> at the culturing stage using antibiotics.
What happened to the days when people had "real" e-mail addresses? :-)
You should ahve checked the archives for the lambic digest as well. At any
rate I have done a fair amount of cleaning up cultures form breweries
(normal and lambic) and form various bottles. There are a number of
approaches one can take. Yes antibiotics can be used. You are better off
using something like gentamycin of pen/strep to nuke al the bugs. You run
the risk of antibiotic resistant organisms anytime you use this approach.
the favored approach is to dilute the yeast cells and plate them on YM agar
at pH=3 or so. this will effectively prevent many aerobic microorganisms
from growing as well as anaerobes. You can then pluck 10 or so colonies
and put them into YM and then let them grow and see if you still have
contamination. If you do then you need to repeat the process making sure
you are plating single cells. The rational for plucking numerous colonies
is so that you maintain genetic diverstiy and don't select RD mutants. of
course after you clean up the yeast you will want to check for RD mutants.
Jim "jonestown" liddil
------------------------------
End of HOMEBREW Digest #3149, 10/20/99
*************************************
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