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HOMEBREW Digest #3601
HOMEBREW Digest #3601 Sat 07 April 2001
FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
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Contents:
Re: RIMS Question ("Joel King")
Dogbolter/Wherry Recipe (simon renshaw)
fermentor cleaning (Alex MacGillivray)
Pilsner ferment question (Chris Cooper)
Aging beer (jal)
Here we go again.... (IndSys, SalemVA)" <Douglas.Moyer@indsys.ge.com>
Belgian recipes (Jeremy Bergsman)
A Little More Beery Theory... ("McLeod, Alan PPHM_C'TWN")
baltic porter ???s, Uniboue yeasts ("Czerpak, Pete")
RIMS temperature distribution ("Peed, John")
Efficiency and Rims Heating ("Gustave Rappold")
Steeping Specialty Grains & Drying Carboys ("Hedglin, Nils A")
AHA National Homebrew Competition ("Gary Glass")
Hops ("Keith Menefy")
Water Chemistry (Travis Dahl KE4VYZ)
colour cards for malt? ("Sean Richens")
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Date: Fri, 06 Apr 2001 10:47:42 -0000
From: "Joel King" <joel_d_king@hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: RIMS Question
Marc Hawley asks in Digest #3600 about raising recirc temperature above the
final desired mash temperature in order to more quickly step through the
temperature change.
Marc - if you have an electronically controlled RIMS and can "dial down" the
temperature as it approaches your desired final value, I guess you could get
away with this. I would not want to attempt it with a HERMS, where the wort
is heated by the mass of water in the HLT, because fine and rapid
temperature adjustments are more difficult.
Another consideration - do you recirc continuously, even when the desired
temperature has been reached? If not, if might be worthwhile to be a few
degrees above target, as the mash may have not equilibrated fully - the
liquid has reached temp, but the malt is still a little behind, and your
(hopefully) insulted tun walls also.
Rather than risking overshooting your temperature, why not take into account
the time required to change temperature? If your experience is that going
from 115 to 152 in your system requires seven minutes, then account for that
in your mash schedule and adjust as necessary in future brews.
- -- Joel King --
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 6 Apr 2001 04:40:41 -0700 (PDT)
From: simon renshaw <brewlad@yahoo.com>
Subject: Dogbolter/Wherry Recipe
Is there anybody out there who has a recipe for a
clone of Firkin Dogbolter and/or Woodeforde's Wherry?
Both of these are English real ales. I have searched
the web thoroughly but could find nothing. If somebody
could shed some light on this problem I would be more
than happy! Thanks!
------------------------------
Date: 6 Apr 2001 03:50:35 AKDT
From: Alex MacGillivray <brewbeer@usa.net>
Subject: fermentor cleaning
I use a 15.5 gal AB keg to ferment in. I haven't had any known troubles with
infection but it's a nagging possibility. I'm wondering how those of you that
ferment the same way I do are able to clean the insides after bottling. It's
almost impossible to visually assess for cleanliness. I use betadine to
sanitize before I add the wort.
Thanks,
Alex
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 6 Apr 2001 08:55:49 -0400 (EDT)
From: Chris Cooper <ccooper@a2607cc.msr.hp.com>
Subject: Pilsner ferment question
Greetings all! I have been travelling much of late so my brew sessions have
been few, but a couple of weeks ago I stole a Sunday and brewed a simple
pilsner. My target was for a basic bare naked Pils. To that end goal the
mash was 90% pilsner malt and 10% 6-row, noble hops and Czech. Pils. yeast
(Wyeast). I had a healthy starter (a solid pint of thick slurry) and all went
very well.
I placed the batch in my fermentation fridge in the garage set to 52^F and let
it rip. I was on the road for the next two weeks, on Tuesday I racked the
batch to a secondary, the aroma in the fridge was grand and the beer was
starting to clear nicely but (there is always a "but" isn't there! I just hope
that it isn't me!) the gravity was still at 1.032 (OG was 1.052) and there was
a yeast cake floating on the top of the batch about 1" thick with the
consistency of a kitchen sponge! (I mean I had a devil of a time getting it out
of the primary carboy during the cleanup, I had to use a hook of wire to grab
it a chunk at a time and pull it out the neck).
The beer tasted very nice (although sweet and flat) considering it's stage of
development. I have only tried my hand at a couple of Pilsners in the past
and don't remember a yeast cake like this before (not even on Ale's for that
matter), I was just curious if others have seen anything like this before with
the Czech. yeast? Isn't a lager yeast supposed to be a bottom fermenter?
Have I missed something? (Confused but not worrying the least little bit,
I mean after all I did say it tasted good!)
Also, does anyone have a guess at the Attenuation % for the Wyeast #2278 yeast,
my notes are incomplete on its characteristics, or an educated guess as to how
long it should take to complete its ferment.
TIA 8^)
Chris Cooper, Pine Haven Brewing (aka. Debbi's Kitchen)
Commerce, Michigan Member, Ann Arbor Brewer's Guild
(Approximately 25 miles from 0.0 Renerian)
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 06 Apr 2001 08:21:56 -0500 (CDT)
From: jal@novia.net
Subject: Aging beer
At a club meeting last night, one of my colleagues mentioned that beer ages
faster in smaller containers, specifically, an old ale will reach maturity
faster in the bottle than in a keg or carboy. He said this was due to the
amount of O2 the beer was exposed to relative to the size of the vessel.
Now I can buy this, but only in regard to O2. It seems to me the other non-
oxidative processes (there are other processes, aren't there?) underway during
maturation would be unaffected by this. Also, if O2 were the only (or the
primary) agent here, one could manage to introduce it through sloppy transfer
practices, regardless of the size of the vessel.
Can anyone shed some light here?
Jim Larsen
with an old ale aging in Omaha
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 6 Apr 2001 09:40:29 -0400
From: "Moyer, Douglas (IndSys, SalemVA)" <Douglas.Moyer@indsys.ge.com>
Subject: Here we go again....
In response to Earl's question about aeration of the hot wort, "John Zeller"
<jwz_sd@hotmail.com> sez:
"This question raises its ugly head every so often and the general consensus
seems to be that the problem is largely a myth. Hot side aeration (HSA) is
a possibility if you introduce excessive amounts of air into the hot wort
with a lot of splashing, shaking, vigorous stirring or mixing, but with
normal care it isn't likely to occur.
Just be as gentle as you can when transferring hot wort. HSA is not a
problem during the actual boiling because the oxygen is driven off by the
heat."
John! What are you thinking? Dave Burley's heart is just now healing and
you're trying to trigger a heart attack? That's cold, man. Of course, it may
just be the thing to get Doc Pivo back in the mix...
Anyway, if you are interested in learning about the many faces of HSA, and
you have a month or two to blow, do a search on "HSA" in the archives.
John's statement is a bit misleading, since there doesn't seem to be a
general consensus or anything approaching it.
My personal experiences seem to support John's statement, though. But, I
certainly don't have Bantam Boy GdP's refined tasting abilities, so I am
sure that my beer is redolent with HSA-induced faults that would be
excessively offensive if I was only sophisticated enough to taste them.
Brew on!
Doug Moyer
Salem, VA
Star City Brewers Guild: http://hbd.org/starcity
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 06 Apr 2001 09:51:54 -0400
From: Jeremy Bergsman <jeremy@bergsman.org>
Subject: Belgian recipes
Don Price <dprice1@tampabay.rr.com> asks for help
> I am looking for recipes (extract/specialty grains) to brew a Belgian
> double and tripple.
As for recipes, this is a good starting place:
http://realbeer.com/spencer/Belgian/
> I would like to use the same yeast for both batches (if reasonable) by
> pitching the triple onto the double's yeast cake.
You have to be careful reusing the yeast from strong beers. I would say
that if you stick to your first plan of making wimpy versions you'd be OK if
you could really separate the yeast from the double (to avoid darkening your
triple). My advice would be to make a wit (yum) and use the yeast from that
for both beers. The wit yeasts from Wyeast and White labs are probably the
best places to start for Belgian yeast newbies.
- --
Jeremy Bergsman
jeremy@bergsman.org
http://www.bergsman.org/jeremy
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 6 Apr 2001 11:45:41 -0300
From: "McLeod, Alan PPHM_C'TWN" <amcleod@pphm.com>
Subject: A Little More Beery Theory...
I have received a number of kind replies to the posts on science v. art,
most of which contest my mental wanderings, but all of which go to confirm
what an interesting place this is. I am going to comment on a few questions
in this post.
Jeff Renner asked: What would you choose as an example of a "disappearing
bone dry Canadian export ale?"
Canadian ales - there used to be more companies with more brands on the same
theme. In the Maritimes I can think of Olands Old Scotia and in Ontario
Molson Old Stock, both higher alcohol (5.5%) and quite ale-ish - dry but
malty. I suppose most of the Carling brand line is gone, too. There is a
general move to mass produced light lagers in the last 20 years. Other
lost ales include Moosehead London Stout (porter?) which I last had maybe in
1983. My favourite small brand mass produced brew is Labatt Champlain
Porter which was available in the Ottawa valley at least until 1997 when I
last had one. Ugliest packaging I ever saw. The head of Samuel Champlain
set on a stark plain butterscotch background. These kinds of brews are
being replaced by a greater number of micro-brews on the beer store shelves
but they are hardly the stuff of a rural legion hall or a curling rink on a
winter Saturday afternoon. Fosters book on Porter describes the loss of
examples of that style in the US from traditional (pre-micro-brewing)
producers.
Jeff also commented: "I hope you can get some of those hop rhizomes. I
suspect they are a Cluster type."
I actually think the hops are a goldings type. They are not wild. The old
road house tavern was owned at say 1880 by the Coles Brewing Co., a long
defunct PEI brewer, and I am told that Mr. Coles himself, premier of the
province/colony in the 1840's and a Father of Confederation in 1867, brought
the hops back from England personally in his luggage. This may be a
pleasant myth but I hope, once they are established, to send a sample
somewhere. There are no natural hops on PEI as I am aware of. This is the
most densely populated rural area of Canada and 100 years ago
there was very little woods left anywhere and little original native
vegetation.
Mike Vachow of New Orleans, LA, has also sent a very detailed response for
which I thank him. I do not know if it will be posted to the general board
but it touches on commercial standardisation, micro-brew quality,
prohibition, and the railroad. I hope he posts it for everyone.
Mike particularly pointed out the efforts of Quebec's Unibroue, which is one
brewery I support and even own 100 shares of as part of my tax account
retirement account (called RRSPs in Canada). Interestingly, and pretty much
on point, on March 9, 2001, the Unibroue annual statement included the
following comments:
"The total number of hectolitres sold was down by 4.2%, going from
66,270 in 1999 to 63,483 in 2000. On the bright side, foreign sales grew by
4.8% overall, with particularly good results in the United States (29.1%
increase). For the first time in its brief history, Unibroue experienced a
drop in overall Quebec sales (9.1%).
"In 1999 the major breweries started distributing imported beers to
expand their activity sector, since then the space allotted to our products
has been reduced and sometimes completely eliminated in certain chain
stores, as well as many beer-drinking establishments" says Unibroue
President Andre Dion.
"These 'product exclusivity' tactics and the purchase of in-store
space have led to the removal of our products" concludes Mr. Dion.
"Following a complaint lodged with the Competition Board by the
microbreweries last August, the Commissioner ordered an inquiry into the
practices of selling and distributing beer in Quebec. Acting on a request
by the Board Commissioner, on December 21, 2000, the Quebec Superior Court
issued an order by virtue of the law on competition requiring that Molson
Canada, Les Brasseries Labatt Ltee, other beer makers and the major food
store chains produce information and documents under oath.
"Strangely enough, remarks Mr. Dion, since this date our sales have
increased by 15.6%." Fortunately, consumers, who have been complaining for
the past several months about not being able to find our beers, will once
again have the last word."
Here, then, an example of the tension between commercial pressure and
excellence in brewing occurring right now. We should be all careful in
considering what we like commercially in beer as well as in homebrewing
supplies (as has been recently discussed.) If you like Unibroue products,
vote with your purchases. [Also check out the price of their stock. UBE
on the Toronto Stock exchange.] For my part, I may just buy a case of
Moosehead Ten Penny Ale Easter weekend when I am in Nova Scotia. Thought it
was foul when I was in high school - maybe it was just good ale...maybe not!
Alan in PEI
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 6 Apr 2001 11:13:15 -0400
From: "Czerpak, Pete" <Pete.Czerpak@siigroup.com>
Subject: baltic porter ???s, Uniboue yeasts
I've been contemplating what types of "interesting" brews to make this
season. One that draws me in is Baltic Porter due to family roots in that
area.
One of this regions smaller breweries "Heavyweight Brewing" down in NJ makes
one called Perkunos Hammer. Unfortunately, I can't get this up here in
upstate NY.
Other than 20.5 P gravity and 8.2%ABV using munich and other grains with
Andrechs lager yeast, thats all I know.
Any suggestions from those in the know or any good recipes out there for me
to play with.
Thanks,
Pete czerpak
albany, NY
PS. Just read that Uniboue up in Canada uses 5 different ale yeasts in their
brews per Ale Street News April 2001. I think that this one has been
debated here before. Apparently this was from some new brewer of theirs who
came from Chimay.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 6 Apr 2001 14:20:09 -0400
From: "Peed, John" <jpeed@elotouch.com>
Subject: RIMS temperature distribution
Marc Hawley asks about temperature distribution in the mash when using RIMS
systems. There will be a temperature gradient across the depth of the grain
bed when steps are being made and as far as I can see, it's unavoidable.
Even if you introduce the wort at a higher than necessary temperature, it
still has to perc down through the grain bed, and I find that it takes five
to fifteen minutes in my system, depending on the magnitude of the step. I
see only two ways to get a very fast temperature transition. One is to add
hot water. If no room for that, then the other is to draw off some of the
liquid, heat it, add it back and stir it in. I used to use decoctions to
reach mash-out temperature but now that I have switched to RIMS, I use
recirculation for all temperature steps. No, the temperature steps are not
immediate. And yes, there is a significant temperature gradient across the
depth of the grain bed until the desired temperature is reached. Does it
hurt anything? I don't know, but I have my doubts. I suppose that one day
I could make a duplicate batch of a given brew using infusion or decoction
steps, but I think I'm going to have to get all my processes a lot tighter
before I worry about that ... I just really don't think it makes much
difference.
I've spent a lot of time in the past worrying about temperature
distribution. It's a great way to drive yourself absolutely buggy because
there is always a flaw in whatever scheme you come up with, be it with
contact with a heat source, distribution of an infused heat medium,
stirring, whatever. It's like sanitation: You can drive yourself quite mad
if you try to achieve perfect sanitation procedures.
I always thought that decoction was a great way to make intermediate and
final temperature steps but if you think about it, they're not exactly
immediate either, as it takes about as long to heat the decoction as it does
to ramp up using RIMS. One really nice thing about RIMS is that once you
reach your target temperature, the heat distribution and stability are
excellent because you're recirculating temperature-regulated wort throughout
the entire mash. So I vote for RIMS steps; I think they're about as fast
and effective as any other method.
John Peed
Knoxville, TN
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 6 Apr 2001 14:52:50 -0400
From: "Gustave Rappold" <grappold@earthlink.net>
Subject: Efficiency and Rims Heating
Hi Folks,
Ant Hayes suggests efficiency goes up with larger batch sizes-I've
noticed the same effect! I first started mashing in a 5 gallon (19 l)
double bucket setup that would hold 12 lbs (5.45 kg)of grain at the most.
Even with insulation all around, top and bottom, it would take about 10 lbs
to get a 5 gallon 12* Plato wort. When I moved up to my half barrel system,
I found it took about 17 lbs for 10 gallons, which works out to 8.5 lbs for
5 gallons, a considerable increase in efficiency. I just parti-gyled a 5
gallon Imperial Stout and a 10 gallon Brown Ale from the same 30 lb. mash
and again noticed a higher efficiency than I ever had before! More thermal
mass, more enzymes, and more efficient use of equipment all are responsible
for the increase in efficiency.
Marc Hawley asks about temp control in RIMS, well with that mash I
doughed in and rested about 15 min at 60*F, then ramped up to 100*F while I
figured out just what salts I had add to my water. Since I was using fully
modified malts, I just ramped up to 153*F over about a 20 min. period. My
system uses a direct fired M/LTun and I really don't worry about the short
amount of time spent at the lower temperatures. A good portion of the
ramping time is spent slowing down the temp increase so I don't overshoot
the saccarification temperature. The insulation holds the temperature so
well, I don't have to worry about loss.
Check out my system at http://home.earthlink.net/~grappold and scroll
down to and click on Iron Fist Brewery at the bottom of the page.
Gus
- --- Gustave Rappold
- --- grappold@earthlink.net
- --- EarthLink: It's your Internet.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 6 Apr 2001 14:08:55 -0700
From: "Hedglin, Nils A" <nils.a.hedglin@intel.com>
Subject: Steeping Specialty Grains & Drying Carboys
Hi,
Another screw-up I did making my split-batch of the Newcastle clone was to
steep the specialty grains WAY to hot. I wasn't paying attention & the wort
boiled over while the grains were in it. At that point, I turned the burner
off, thinking it would cool down for the 30 min steep. I guess 4 gal of
water has a much higher retention than I thought since it was still about
200 degrees after 30 min. So I'm wondering what this will have done to the
beer. When I tasted it during racking to secondary fermentation, it had an
unusual zing to it's taste. The closest I could equate it to would be when
I had some pickles that had been left out & started to ferment a bit. Also,
it had some what of a harsh taste which I assume would be due to
oversteeping the grains.
After I wash my carboys, I like to seal them with plastic wrap to keep the
bad stuff out. But, I don't want to do that until all the water has
evaporated out of it since I'd think the water could possibly mildew in the
enclosed carboy. It seems to take about a week for all the water to
evaporate out of them, & during that time, they are in the corner of one our
main rooms with me tripping over them & my wife glaring at them. Does
anyone have a faster way to dry carboys out?
Thanks,
Nils Hedglin
Sacramento, CA
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 6 Apr 2001 16:34:08 -0600
From: "Gary Glass" <gary@aob.org>
Subject: AHA National Homebrew Competition
It's time to get those entries in! The deadline for getting entries into
the AHA National Homebrew Competition is April 13. For info, rules & regs,
entry forms, etc. see http://beertown.org/AHA/NHC/2001/.
Good Luck!
Gary Glass, Membership Coordinator
American Homebrewers Association
Voice: (303) 447-0816 x 121
Email: gary@aob.org
Web: http://www.beertown.org
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 7 Apr 2001 12:10:12 +1200
From: "Keith Menefy" <kmenefy@ihug.co.nz>
Subject: Hops
Is there a difference in hop bittering quality/taste associated with the
length of the boil?
It was recently suggested to me that with our New Zealand high alpha hops
that it was better to alter the percentages of early and late additions to
the boil. Rather than, as I have always done, adding 75% at the start of
boil and
the rest close to the finish of boil to reverse the order. That is: 25% or
less at the start of boil and the rest within 20 minutes of the end of boil.
It would probably be necessary to increase the amount of hops used to
compensate for the lost IBUs but if the hop flavour is improved that is not
a major problem.
Just thinking about the idea it seems to make sense but has anyone tried it?
Cheers
Keith
NZ
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 06 Apr 2001 21:28:54 -0400
From: Travis Dahl KE4VYZ <dahlt@umich.edu>
Subject: Water Chemistry
A question for all of the chemistry geeks out there: A lot of books,
webpages, etc. talk about the need to find out how much calcium (etc.) is
present in the water used for brewing. My question is, does this just
refer to the calcium ion (Ca++) or to the sum of the dissolved calcium
complexes (Ca_T)?
-Travis
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 6 Apr 2001 20:30:01 -0500
From: "Sean Richens" <srichens@sprint.ca>
Subject: colour cards for malt?
Let's try this again. The server seems to have a mildly xenophobic bent and
didn't appreciate the accents in the message below, so I excerpted it and
typed over the stressed vowels:
Can't say I've ever heard this question before, but it's a good one. Our
fellow brewer from B.A. wants to know if there is some kind of colour card
(kind of like the one for checking the SRM of a beer) for checking malt. I
can see it being useful for crystal, caramel and Munich malts.
All I can think of is performing the standard test method and looking at the
colour of the extract.
Sean Richens
srichens@sprint.ca
(that's right, I'm wearing my own clothes today, Brian).
From: "Alejandro Roberto La Valle" <alex66@infovia.com.ar>
Existe alguna carta de colores para medir una malta tostada y saber a
que tipo pertenece, algo asi como el catalogo Pantone para las tintas o los
muestrarios de pinturas
------------------------------
End of HOMEBREW Digest #3601, 04/07/01
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