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HOMEBREW Digest #3667
HOMEBREW Digest #3667 Sat 23 June 2001
FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
Digest Janitor: janitor@hbd.org
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Contents:
Makes me proud to be a Belgian-American (Denis Bekaert)
AHA Conference Update (Drew Beechum)
H2O2 Oxygenation (Ken Schwartz)
lambic (Jim Liddil)
Re:Now that's a lunch break! (Julio Canseco)
Re: Now that's a lunch break ("Peter Fantasia")
Re: Fruit Beers Aaargh! ("Swintosky, Michael D.")
Classic American Pilsner vs. Cream Ale (Jeff Renner)
They don't write books like that anymore! (Brian Lundeen)
Breweries in Colorado? (Brad Miller)
Raising pH with slaked lime- problems (Troy)
counter pressure filling ("Micah Millspaw")
Rootbeer ("Sky Systems")
*
* 2001 AHA NHC - 2001: A Beer Odyssey, Los Angeles, CA
* June 20th-23rd See http://www.beerodyssey.com for more
* information. Wear an HBD ID Badge to wear to the gig!
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* Beer is our obsession and we're late for therapy!
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Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2001 22:23:10 -0700 (PDT)
From: Denis Bekaert <Denis-B@rocketmail.com>
Subject: Makes me proud to be a Belgian-American
You just have to check this link out! Now, I've
always been proud of my Belgian roots (75%), but this
deserves a special toast....cheers, and contact your
local School Boards about a similar policy....yeah,
right!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,510202,00.html
Denis in Beechgrove, Tennessee, where Moonshine is our
history, but brewing is our passion.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 22 Jun 2001 01:22:52 -0700 (PDT)
From: Drew Beechum <Drew.Beechum@disney.com>
Subject: AHA Conference Update
Brewers,
Welcome from the 2001 AHA Conference. (I'm currently in the 9th floor
of the Four Points Sheraton LAX)
Things are looking good here. A nice pub crawl of the area was lead by
Jay Ankeney on Weds. This was follwed by a great presentation on
Smoked Beers by both Ray Daniels and Geoff Larson. Geoff presented 3
years of his Alaskan Smoked Porter ('93, '98, '00).
Tonight (Thursday) saw the toast to open the conference, the first of
the lectures, and the first half of judging. Then 10 clubs got
together and poured an outstanding amount of beer for all those
present. Pacific Gravity <http://www.pacificgravity.com>, QUAFF
<http://www.softbrew.com/quaff/>, and the Maltose Falcons
<http://www.maltosefalcons.com> all won awards for their presentations
and beer.
Tommorrow (Friday) will see the kick-off of what we hope to be ana
annual event, The LA Beer Odyssey. Over 120 beer are on-tap from
various breweries (mostly So-Cal in origin) Those 120 are a mix of
American Beer, Draft Beer, and Real Ale! Quite impressive and it
should be a fun event to attend and judge (ala myself. Judging.. it's
a tough life!)
More updates to come!
- -- Drew
Webmeister, www.beerodyssey.com
Club Night Chair, 2001 AHA NHC
Judging Coordinator, 2001 LA Brewer's Open
Webmeister, www.maltosefalcons.com
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 22 Jun 2001 06:02:46 -0600
From: Ken Schwartz <kenbob@elp.rr.com>
Subject: H2O2 Oxygenation
Seems the chemists have pretty much established that H2O2 as a means of
oxygentating wort ain't such a good idea. However, a while back there
was a thread on using stir plates for yeast culturing, and a discussion
about how continuous oxygent feeds to such a setuip would result in
great yeast growth. At the time I had a brain fart that maybe is worth
tossing into the fray.
My idea was to run a bit of tubing from a jar into the yeast flask on
the stir plate. The jar contains H2O2, into which a nail or two is
tossed once a day or whatever. The liberated oxygen gas then travels
into the yeast flask. Since the yeast culture is presumably vented to
the outside (through an airlock or other mechanism) pressure buildup is
not an issue. At issue though would (among other things) be (1)
quantity of O2 required vs amount of H2O2 (and feed rate of iron!) and
(2) whether the O2 would be adequate in volume and duration (before
being swept out by CO2 production) to be of any real benefit.
The main advantage of such a setup is that it could provide a source of
cheap, continous, even regulated O2 for yeast culturing. I've not tried
it nor do I plan to but I thought someone might be able to pick it up
and run with it...?
- --
*****
Ken Schwartz
El Paso, TX
Fermentation Chillers, Thermostats, Brewing Paddles, more at
http://www.gadgetstore.bigstep.com
Brewing Web Page: http://home.elp.rr.com/brewbeer
E-mail: kenbob@elp.rr.com
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 22 Jun 2001 05:09:41 -0700 (MST)
From: Jim Liddil <jliddil@VMS.ARIZONA.EDU>
Subject: lambic
The recent issue of Zymurgy has an article on lambic. It is
unfortunate that there is not a mention of people like Martin Lodahl
(his writing and experiences) and Mike Sharp who really pioneered the
making of lambic-style beer in the homebrew arena. Or the various
PhD dissertations from Leuven that really helped inspire folks like
myself to pursue this Field. And also mention of the original Lambic
Digest was not in the article. Many folks trying this type of beer
making today can learn a fair amount from these pioneering efforts.
Now how does barrel geometry effect fermentation and flavor in
lambics? Should I put 30% hydrogen peroxide in my turbid mash wort
to get the oxygen levels up? If the FDA inspected Wyeast or White
Labs would they still be in business? Has anyone every seen a dime
from BT? Just some topics to think about instead of Australia and
hating Steve Alexander. :-) :-)
Jim liddil
North Haven, CT
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 22 Jun 2001 08:19:38 -0400
From: Julio Canseco <jcanseco@ARCHES.UGA.EDU>
Subject: Re:Now that's a lunch break!
Good post Jeff! It brought memories of my childhood in Mexico where
street vendors, just outside schools, sell a home made drink made from
pinapple skins allowed to ferment in water for a few days. Most likely
on wild yeast. It has, of course, a pineapply taste, somewhat vinegary
but it is served over crushed ice and a squirt of vinegary hot sauce on
top. Tepache is the name. Sold to anyone. I guess it contains a bit of
alcohol.
Hope MADD hasn't gone global.......
Adios,
julio in athens, georgia
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 22 Jun 2001 09:22:15 -0400
From: "Peter Fantasia" <fantasiapeter@hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: Now that's a lunch break
Jeff,
I have been thinking of making a low alcohol drink for family consumption.
Anything has got to be better than a Coke and a bag of cheetos. I believe
the recipe I saw was for "Kvass" a low alcohol brew with a rye base.
Anyone have any recipe suggestions?
Pete
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 22 Jun 2001 09:59:51 -0400
From: "Swintosky, Michael D." <Swintosk@timken.com>
Subject: Re: Fruit Beers Aaargh!
Matt,
I've brewed a rather nice "Holiday Stout", starting with a Makeson style
stout and adding 1/4 cup cocoa powder and 3 lbs Bing cherries for a 5 gal
batch. It's pretty harsh immediately after fermenting (about 3 weeks if I
recall), but let it age a bit. At 3 months the harshness has largely
mellowed. At 6 months it's great! Most listers will note that the amounts
of cocoa and cherries are somewhat on the low side. That is by intent.
When you taste this stout you will notice a difference in character and
flavor and wonder what it is. When you find out it has cocoa and cherries
you notice them lurking in the background. Very nice!
Mike
>A lot of other folks might have brewed wonderful
>fruit beers. The worst beer I ever made was a
>chocolate raspberry stout. I still have two
<cases (minus the one bottle I tasted) left. I'm
>letting it mellow with age. Let me tell you it
>will take a while. The combination of stout,
>bitter chocolate and tangy raspberries were
>simply too much. I've sworn off fruit beers for
>life...(snip)
>Matt Comstock in Cincinnati, OH
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 22 Jun 2001 11:17:28 -0400
From: Jeff Renner <JeffRenner@mediaone.net>
Subject: Classic American Pilsner vs. Cream Ale
Brewers
I've just kegged a 1/4 bbl. Sankey (7.75 gallons US, 30 liters) of a
CAP that a friend and I brewed 4/16 for his wedding next weekend.
It's been lagering since 4/25 at 32F.
There is a problem with it, though. There isn't as much in the keg
as there was in the lagering keg. About 3/4 liters has disappeared.
Damn, it's good! Even at 10:30 am. And I never drink at that hour.
Clean, crisp, malty, hops flavor. And head retention.
I had three weddings, a conference, and my own needs to brew for this
summer. I brewed two CAPs in April, then a Classic American Cream
Ale (CACA) the next week for the conference in Orlando using the same
recipe but fermented with Chico yeast (1056 or actually, White Labs
WPL001 in this case), than a fourth brew, a cream ale with the same
recipe but at a little lower gravity. I ran out of low temperature
fermentation space with the coming of spring, and my chest freezer
was occupied with lagering kegs. I've been drinking this cream ale
for the last few weeks. It's very nice.
But I have to say this. As much as I love ales, there is a reason
that lagers blew ales out of the water in most of the world in the
19th century. Damn, it's good! (Did I say that already?)
If there is any way you other brewers can manage to get a spare
fridge or freezer and temperature controller, do it and brew a lager,
preferably a CAP. You won't regret it.
I was going to brew a cream ale for my niece's wedding in August, but
now I'm going to have to figure out if there is enough time and a
place I can ferment a CAP.
Damn, it's good! (or did I say that?)
Jeff
- --
Jeff Renner in Ann Arbor, Michigan USA, JeffRenner@mediaone.net
"One never knows, do one?" Fats Waller, American Musician, 1904-1943
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 22 Jun 2001 11:13:26 -0500
From: Brian Lundeen <blundeen@rrc.mb.ca>
Subject: They don't write books like that anymore!
Drew Avis writes of an old brewing book:
> I like it because it is intelligently and wittily written, and
> chock full of
> the most terrible advice. I'll quote just one example to
> give a taste:
Drew, at the risk of upsetting the copyright police, I hope you will include
more excerpts from Mr Adams' book on a regular basis. They would be just the
tonic for a depressing Monday morning.
> Drew Avis, inventing the Belgian Stout in Merrickville, Ontario
Drew, living in the wilds of Merrickville as you do, surely you will have to
call this creation a p-Belgian Stout. You don't want to find yourself in
violation of the Stout Belgian Konvention, do you? ;-)
Cheers, and see ya in a couple of weeks,
Brian
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 22 Jun 2001 09:16:07 -0700
From: Brad Miller <millerb@targen.com>
Subject: Breweries in Colorado?
I will be visiting the Denver area of Colorado from the 30th
to the 5th and would like to hit ALL of the local breweries. Does
anyone live there or just know of the places I should go? I would
also like to take a look a the QC lab at Coors just to see what it is
like. (Don't laugh, I'm a science dork) Does anyone work there or
know how to arrange a visit? Any input would be great.
Brad
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 22 Jun 2001 10:17:18 -0700
From: Troy <thager@jps.net>
Subject: Raising pH with slaked lime- problems
I seem to have the opposite problem that many brewers face in that my
water's pH is too low! It comes out of the tap at about 4.8 and my 100% pale
mashes run at about 5.0 (adjusted for temperature - cooled sample is at
5.3). I posted about this about a year ago about trying to raise my mash pH
with chalk - in an experiment I incrementally added chalk to the mash with
no change of pH at all. This was "very odd" as many replies put it and I got
many suggestions. One suggestion I got from AJ and from Marc Sedam was to
use some slaked lime to bump up my mash pH. Well I have finally gotten
around to experimenting with this and have found some "very odd" things once
again...
My numbers from the water utility look like this:
Ca: 9(3-17)
SO4: 7.4(0.8-14)
Cl: 9.5(4-15)
Na: 9(3-16)
Mg: 3.8(0.2-7.3)
Hardness(CaCO3): 40(14-66)
Tot. dissolved solids: 69(18-120)
AJ looked at the numbers and came up with:
Bicarbonate at about 52mg/L and
Alkalinity of about 42
On with my experiment with the lime. Marc says his water is similar and he
mixes a 3% w/w solution and adds this by the drop and checks pH with each
drop and with about 2-3 drops gets his pH in the correct range. Well, I
tried this.
First of all I mixed the slaked lime (pickling lime from the grocery) per
Marc's instructions I mixed 12g with 400 mL of distilled water. (Marc said
3g in 97mL). I placed this in a clean jar and shook it up. The lime would
not dissolve into the solution!!!??? I tried shaking really well, even tried
heating the water, no luck. When I set the jar down it all drops to the
bottom.
Anyway, I made an experimental mash of 100% pale malt - 2lbs in 3quarts
water @ about 153F. Measured pH out of the tap - 4.8 - pH of cooled mash
sample was at 5.3. I shook jar of lime and added one drop - no change. Added
4 drops - no change. Added 10 drops - no change. Added up to 50 drops with
no change. I then added a tsp. and still no change. Then I added a tbsp and
it crept up to 5.8. This is about where I want it, but 1) why is it taking
soooooo much??? and 2) Do I want to add all of this to my mashes? It comes
out to be about 1.5 tsp. of this solution per quart of mash water. This
seems like a lot! and 3) If I treat my mashes like this, should I only treat
the mash or should I add the lime solution to my entire brewing water...?
I did a second exp. and added 1 tsp. to 1 quart of water and it jumped the
pH up to 11 - max that my papers could read.
BTW, I am using pHydrion and the Merck colorpHast papers and they both read
the same so I am thinking that these readings are fairly accurate - at least
in the ball park.
Thanks in advance for any thoughts.
Troy
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 22 Jun 2001 14:43:33 -0500
From: "Micah Millspaw" <MMillspa@silganmfg.com>
Subject: counter pressure filling
>From: Jeff Renner <JeffRenner@mediaone.net>
>Subject: Re: Counter Pressure Filling a Lager
>Ant Hayes <Ant.Hayes@FifthQuadrant.co.za> writes pf his problems cp
>bottling highly carbonated lagers and asks
>>Does anyone have any tips - would it help to chill the bottles?
>Yes, put those bottles in the freezer. The reason your PET bottles
>don't foam so badly is that they have very little heat capacity and
>so don't warm the beer very much. While you're at it, put the cp
>filler in the freezer as well.
I must say that this advice of putting the bottles and filler in the freezer
is possibly the worst c-p filling tip that I have ever heard.
Putting your (hopefully) clean sanitzed bottles and filler into a freezer is
throwing out a invite for all of the 'fine' micro flora that infest freezers.
This practice will likely lead to much more signifcant problems than
foamy beer.
My advice is, first get the beer colder, if you going to put something into
the freezer it should be the beer (just don't freeze it) the closer that you
get the beer to its freezing point the better it will retain the CO2 in
solution, giving you more time to get the bottles crowned. Second, put a
guage on the gas/foam bleed off valve if your filler. This will allow you
to monitor the pressure within the bottle so that you know when you have
reached equilbrium and it is safe to disengage to filler from the bottle.
Third, have someone help you with the crowning. Two people can bottle
and crown more effecting than one.
Micah Millspaw - brewer at large
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 22 Jun 2001 17:25:00 -0500
From: "Sky Systems" <rhenson@skysystems.com>
Subject: Rootbeer
I'll take the recent discussions on Ginger Ale and force carbonating soda to
post a question that has been on my mind for some time now. I've been
brewing beer now for a few years now, and would love to try my hand at a
good root beer, but I haven't been able to find a recipe. Working with
grains and hops and all with the beer, I would like to craft a root beer in
much the same manner, not just using an extract. Does anyone have a good
root beer recipe, or know where to find resources on it? Is it safe to
bottle in my beer bottles?
Thanks for any help!
------------------------------
End of HOMEBREW Digest #3667, 06/23/01
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