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HOMEBREW Digest #3450
HOMEBREW Digest #3450 Thu 12 October 2000
FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
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Contents:
Stephen Alexander response to what I said ("Richard Sieben")
Post fermentation oxygen ("Campbell, Paul R SSI-ISEP-3")
Duplicating Muntons Amber LME... ("dr smith")
Hoppy thoughts and consolidation ("pksmith_morin")
methanol ("Pannicke, Glen A.")
lactose, stouts, & gas ("Richard B. Dulany Jr.")
Re; Gycol Danger Danger Jethrobenson (Rscholz)
Acorn Ale? (Pat Lohmann)
Typo (AJ)
The Beer Recipator ("Lenhart, Jacob")
UK brews question, C. Burns stuck imp stout, and my current brews ("Czerpak, Pete")
Re : Adelscott (Arnaud VIEZ)
Old Porter (Drew Beechum)
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Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2000 00:19:17 -0500
From: "Richard Sieben" <sier1@email.msn.com>
Subject: Stephen Alexander response to what I said
um, whatever Steve. I was simply passing on current information from Siebel
instructors for the benefit of the readers here. I realize it took you a
few days to look up specific page references, chemical names etc., but it
really doesn't matter to me as what a Siebel instructor tells me will carry
far more weight with me than what you can cite in books since the published
data may well be a little dated. Not that I mind the references, I can look
them up too, but I would view such references with an expectation that they
can be updated.
Excuse me, I have to go decorate my house for Halloween now, time to put up
some HSA ghosts to scare the little kiddies!
Rich Sieben
Island Lake, IL
Home of the HSA spook house
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2000 09:45:55 +0200
From: "Campbell, Paul R SSI-ISEP-3" <Paul.R.Campbell@is.shell.com>
Subject: Post fermentation oxygen
Steve Alexander disagrees with Richard Sieben who said:
>>but for us homebrewers, where yeast
>>is still present in the beer, the oxygen is taken up very quickly.
To wich Steve replied:
>That's just not true - yeast do not continuously consume oxygen
>as it is available. I have a nice Czech paper that indicates that
>most of the O2 is used just after the glucose/sucrose are gone
>regardless of how much is supplied. Also a recent one that
>shows excess O2 in the fermentor may reduce sulfite levels
>and have a negative effect on flavor stability. The dormant yeast
>on the bottom of a bottle of keg do act to reduce oxidation but
>don't expect them to consume significant amounts of
>bottling/kegging O2.
Then goes on to quote from his own experience:
>Live yeast play an active role in reducing beer - tho' not
>necessarily in removing significant amounts of oxygen.
>I have repeatedly found that bottle conditioned beers - stored
>in a cool basement for periods of a year or even two
>are always fresh enough to enjoy.. I usually find when
>I clean a keg at 3-4 months the yeast at a far lower temp
>have undergone a significant degree of autolysis. I can't
>explain why. I have several times bottle conditioned and
>force carbonated the identical same beer and always
>several months later the bottle conditioned beer clearly
>has the flavor edge - often with better hop aroma.
I'm confused.
Assuming Steve doesn't force carbonate his bottle conditioned
beer (doh) then surely the evidence of these would suggest that
Richard is correct in his original statement. Bottle/Keg
fermentation of primings will consume at least some of the
(small quantity of) oxygen picked up during packaging. Force
carbonation of unfiltered beer will result in a less stable
product as this additional fermentation will not take place
post packaging, leaving higher levels of DO in the packaged
beer. An interesting experiment may be to prime a keg and
compare the stability of *this* to the same beer which
has been bottle conditioned in parallel. The impact of
autolysis in the keg may be harder to eliminate from the
results though (the physics of the packaging IMO is the
dominant factor in this case, so minimal yeast transfer
is of course a given).
Note that my speculation would also lead us to believe that
it takes very little post-fermentation oxygen to impact
un-primed, force-carbonated beer within *several* months
(how long does it take to be noticeable Steve?).
In all though it seems to make sense to me or am I missing
something?
Probably.
Regards,
Paul Campbell
Back up and brewing in Glen Esk, Scotland
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2000 11:25:53 GMT
From: "dr smith" <drsmithhm@hotmail.com>
Subject: Duplicating Muntons Amber LME...
I brewed a barleywine last october - 3 gallons; OG 1.125. I just
tapped the keg, and I'm at a loss for words to describe how
well it turned out.
Since I've just recently gone to all-grain, how might I duplicate
the flavor of Muntons amber LME? I know it most likely has some
dark crystal and possibly some special B since I get that raisiny
character from it.
It seems like an odd question -- I want to duplicate my own
creation, but with all-grain. Surely some of the more experienced
grain gurus here have done something similar...
TIA
--drsmith
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------------------------------
Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2000 06:45:41 -0500
From: "pksmith_morin" <pksmith_morin@email.msn.com>
Subject: Hoppy thoughts and consolidation
Hello all -
Early morning and my thoughts on hops.
Inasmuch as we have witnessed not only the globalization of the beer industry
and its payoff for "the big three," the consolidation of the industry and its
associated industries (e.g., "share of mind" among distributors, making it
harder and harder for craft brewers to obtain and keep wholesaler attention),
I suppose it would be a natural development to see the waning of the hop
industry as consolidation moves to that arena.
I understand that one of the largest plug-producing concerns in England has
recently folded; coupled with the race for higher- and higher- alpha
varieties, I do not think it long before we see the end of many varieties we
have come to love (indeed, the world has loved over the course of a century or
more) which do not possess such high alpha percentages but which may in fact
be superior in aromatic qualities, etc. The frenetic demand for "super
a-acid" varieties is the first step towards the end of hop variety, in my
view.
My ramblings are spurred by a certain sadness, as when I read of a species'
impending extinction. America now leads the wave in brewing, despite what our
continental cousins commonly believe; I therefore believe it behooves us to
support our flagging homebrew suppliers, and the wonderful variety of hops
they carry, by buying varieties other than the "Super a-acid" varieties.
In short, I do not want to wake up one day with Magnum and its titanic cousins
as the only available hops I can brew with. Magnum is a fine hop; but not
the only one. I hope it stays that way.
Paul
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2000 09:31:05 -0400
From: "Pannicke, Glen A." <glen_pannicke@merck.com>
Subject: methanol
Bob Scheck wrote:
>I was reading a treatise on distillation which stated that the first to
come out of the still is Methanol which IS toxic to the optic nerve.
Now considering that the mash is fermented grain, I would have to
conclude that there is _some_ portion of methanol in our beers too.
Methanol must be at a very low concentration in most beers because it takes
so many pints to impair my vision - unless you're drinking Belgian Trippels!
'cmon! BIG grin! You can do it...
I'm looking to make a stout soon and want the Guinness tang. Any suggestion
on lactic acid additions? Forget the sour mash technique for me. Measured
volumes of food grade lactic acid are easier to use. Private e-mail
welcome.
Special thanks to all the guys who got back to me on my RIMS heating element
questions. I appreciate it. Looks like I'll be going the HERMS route and
will have to fashion an extension cord for my 240v line - for now.
Carpe cerevisiae!
Glen Pannicke
http://www.pannicke.net
"He was a wise man who invented beer" - Plato
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2000 09:58:49 -0600
From: "Richard B. Dulany Jr." <RDulany@co.el-paso.tx.us>
Subject: lactose, stouts, & gas
I love stouts and also have severe lactose intolerance. The physical effects
of lactose intolerance escape proper description in the "moral American"
vocabulary. It will suffice to say that I felt the after-effects of the
tasty Imperial Stout that I drank Saturday night for most of the next day.
My question: is there an alternative non-fermentable sugar that I can use in
place of lactose in making a sweet stout? Could I just add extra malt
extract and hope that the yeast couldn't convert all the sugar to alcohol?
R. Dulany
El Paso, TX
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2000 12:53:52 EDT
From: Rscholz@aol.com
Subject: Re; Gycol Danger Danger Jethrobenson
Rob writes in HBD #3449
> If you cannot afford food grade glycol...use water.... Jethro Gump
An old fashion substitute for commercial anti-freeze was 10-20%
alcohol solution depending where you lived.
If you need a cooling fluid on the other side of your heat exchanger,
$3-4 of vodka mixed with water will give you a cooling fluid
that won't freeze through the ice bath,
but I don't know what your flow rates are
but mine keep my cooling water in the 50-60 F range.
Hope this helps
- -----------------------------------
Richard L Scholz
Brooklyn, NY
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2000 12:55:12 -0400
From: Pat Lohmann <glohmann@whoi.edu>
Subject: Acorn Ale?
Any thoughts on brewing an acorn-based ale? Only mention of it in the
archives was a '93 response to thoughts about brewing with nuts. After
commenting that nuts likely contained too much oil, Chuck Wettergreen
wrote "Hey, Euell Gibbons used to make biscuits from acorn flour, why
not give it a try?"
I recall that acorns are rich in tannin, so Euell Gibbons must remove it
somehow (dry, grind, boil, wash?). I suppose the starch would be
gelatinized in the process. Maybe 40% acorn starch, 60% 6-row barley
malt?
I could be encouraged to try a 5-gallon batch. We have an unusually
large crop of acorns here this year.
Pat Lohmann
Woods Hole MA
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2000 13:22:21 -0400
From: AJ <ajdel@mindspring.com>
Subject: Typo
When I wrote:
>No. In this regard it is not the alkalinity which is so important as
the
>alkalinity and in particular its relationship to the calcium hardness.
yesterday the output buffer pointer go ahead of the fingers. What I
meant was
No. In this regard it is not the pH which is so important as the
alkalinity and in particular its relationship to the calcium hardness.
Thanks to Jeff R for catching this.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2000 14:33:23 -0400
From: "Lenhart, Jacob" <jlenhart@harris.com>
Subject: The Beer Recipator
One of the internet tools I most value is the Beer Recipator at
http://hbd.org/cgi-bin/recipator/recipator.
Recently, I found hbd.org inaccessible for a few days. Fearing that this
resource was gone from me forever, I attempted to create my own recipe
spreadsheet. A few days later, hbd.org was suddenly available to me, and I had
the opportunity to see how my spreadsheet compared to the Recipator. I was
thrilled to see that I'd pretty much duplicated the results with two exceptions:
I'd screwed up hop utilization somewhat by treating every batch as a full boil
(the Recipator got this right, and I've since corrected my spreadsheet), and the
estimation of SRM was close, but my spreadsheet tended to produce a somewhat
lower SRM given the same ingredients. One example is, using the Recipator, a
linear L of 90 yielded 33 SRM. I wound up with 28 for the same value.
Since the Recipator is present on hbd.org, I assume someone on this forum was
kind enough to donate this tool. If so, may I ask how you estimated SRM?
Myself, I found a curve of measured SRM given degrees L here:
http://www.brewingtechniques.com/library/backissues/issue2.1/mannifig2.html
I fiddled with formulas trying to get one to superimpose itself over the measure
graph of the above figure, but couldn't quite get it. I finally typed in the
rather clunky
"=IF(J23<=10,J23,IF(J23<=15,(J23-10)*0.6+10,(IF(J23<=30,(J23-15)*4/15+13,(J23-30
)/6+17))))", where "J3" is the linear computation. That one, while ugly, seemed
to match the measured data.
I'm truly interested in learning how the Recipator calculates color, and how
accurate you believe it to be, particularly for the dark but not yet opaque
beers that did not appear on the above chart.
Jake Lenhart
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2000 14:56:52 -0400
From: "Czerpak, Pete" <Pete.Czerpak@siigroup.com>
Subject: UK brews question, C. Burns stuck imp stout, and my current brews
Question for you UK brewers - I will be in England (flying into Manchester)
during next week for a few days on work assignment. Any recommendations of
good pubs perhaps near Wolverhampton where I will actually be working?
Charlie Burns - did your imperial stout from last month ever get unstuck?
What do you attribute this sticking to? I know that you have been pretty
successful in the past using Wyeast 1968 in big stouts. I had been
considering it for a future batch of imp. stout....
On the brew front for me, I have been pretty busy this late summer and fall
with a bunch of batches. heres a quick recap (all are 5 gallon batches) for
anyone interested:
Imperial Stout - 22 lbs of grain, 1.078 to 1.020 using Wyeast 1056 slurry
from previous batch, dry hopped for 6 weeks using 2 oz centenial and 2 oz
willamette, brewed june 28, kegged july 26
Belgian triple - 20 lbs of grain, 1 lb candi sugar, 1.096 to 1.014 using 5x
scale-up of Wyeast 1214, brewed july 16, kegged aug 6
Rye Ale - 13 lbs of grain, 15% malted rye, 1.061 to 1.016 from Wyeast 1275,
brewed aug 20, kegged sept 5
Alt - 12.75 lbs of grain, 100% light munich malt, 1.058 to 1.021 from Wyeast
1338, brewed aug 25, kegged sept 12
smoked porter - 13 lbs of grain, 2% peat smoked, 1.057 to 1.019 from Wyeast
1275 slurry from rye ale
smoked scotch ale - 22 lbs of grain, 2% roasted barley, 2% peat smoked
grain, 1.102 to 1.033 @ secondary (not kegged yet) via Wyeast 1728 scaled up
and decanted 4x, boiled down first gallon of runnings to 1 qt to carmelize,
brewed sept 19, secondary sept. 29
american pale ale - 11.5 lbs grain, 1.052 to 1.013 via Wyeast 1028, mashed
hopped with 1 oz. cascade pellets, brewed sept 26, kegged oct 10
british barley wine - 24 lbs of grain, 1.112 to ??? (see brew date) via
wyeast 1028 slurry from am. pale ale, brewed oct 6
foreign export stout - 14.5 lbs grain, 1.068 to 1.021 in secondary via
Wyeast 1028 slurry from am. pale ale and dregs of Obsidian Stout bottle
yeast, brewed oct 3, secondary oct 10
The rye, alt, and smoked porter are current taps. the imperial stout
alternates every few weeks or so with the smoked porter for a dark beer
change. I used atleast 2 x scaleups of yeast from smack pack unless I note
slurry use or something different like I did with the Scotch or the Triple.
Its about time to do some IPAs though. yeah, yeah, yeah!
Brew on!
Pete czerpak
albany, NY
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2000 22:57:59 +0200
From: Arnaud VIEZ <aviez@teaser.fr>
Subject: Re : Adelscott
Daniel wrote :
>I was in France recently and this beer that was phenomenal, called
>Adelscott! One of the ingredients is whisky malt. I really want to
try
>to make this beer. If anyone knows what the name of the malt I should
>use is, as well as any clone recipes they might have seen, please let
me
>know!
There is a recipe in excellent book "Brew classic european beers at
home". I
can mail it to you if you wish.
The malt is named "peated whisky malt", I don't know where you can get
it...
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2000 14:16:59 -0700 (PDT)
From: Drew Beechum <Drew.Beechum@disney.com>
Subject: Old Porter
Okay so a couple of here we're playing around with the idea of doing
an older style porter based mostly on brown malt and possibly using a
bit of brett to infect it.
Has anyone ever tried to do this or have any thoughts on an
experiment.
- -- Drew
------------------------------
End of HOMEBREW Digest #3450, 10/12/00
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