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HOMEBREW Digest #3743
HOMEBREW Digest #3743 Mon 24 September 2001
FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
Digest Janitor: janitor@hbd.org
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Contents:
re: sacc. rest and mash thickness ("Stephen Alexander")
Topsfield Fair Homebrew Competition Results (North Shore Brewers)
Too much carbonation (Bill Murray)
Competition details / Certified CO2 / Beer and Sweat 01 and 02 (David Harsh)
Brewing for Competitions ("David Houseman")
RE: Brewing for Competitions ("Marc Gaspard")
Bronze mesh ("Thomas D. Hamann")
critters (Aaron Robert Lyon)
time to lower the tax on beer? ("Mark Tumarkin")
Re: Isinglass use & clear beers (Jay\) Reeves" <jay666@bellsouth.net>
Strangest Brewing Event (JDPils)
(OT) Utah Beer ("Bissell, Todd S")
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Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 02:03:13 -0400
From: "Stephen Alexander" <steve-alexander@ieee.org>
Subject: re: sacc. rest and mash thickness
Thomas D. Hamann notes ...
>Gregory Noonan in 'New Brewing Lager Beer' says the duration of the sacc.
>rest affects fermentability and flavour and that a 120 minute mash is going
>to eke out every bit of diastatic power [...]
>
> [...] if I do a 120 minute mash at 69 deg C (156
>F) I will have a beer that attenutes well but is still high in dextrins
No. Noonans statement is misleading. Time has an impact on the total mash
activity but temperature impacts the survival of enzymes and their activity
level. A (normal thickness) mash at 70C for 120' will never be as
fermentable as at 65C for 40'. It's impossible to "eke out" the diastatic
power when you've burned off your enzymes with high temperatures. It is
true that for conventional mash thicknesses & temps 2 hours will exhaust
nearly all the enzymes.
Also dextrins and fermentability (potential attenuation) are two sides of
the same coin. The sugars that contribute to fermentability are made by
degrading the dextrins during the mash. Given the same extract more
dextrins necessarily means less fermentability, and more fermentability
means less dextrins.
>or
>maybe maltier than a mash held at 65 deg C (149 F) for 45 minutes.
Malty flavors don't come from the mash schedule.
>The same thoughts I have with mash thickness e.g. a thick mash = dextrinous
>wort. But what if I mash for 2 hours! Surely if I do the
>1. thickest mash possible
>2. at 69 C and
>3. rest for 2 hours plus...
>...I won't have a thin flavourless bodiless beer !
"thick mash = dextrinous beer" is another rule that requires interpretation.
Making a thick mash reduces the amount of free water available for the mash
enzymatic reactions. This slows the mashing process down. A thicker mash
also increases the temperature stability of the enzymes. These two opposing
effects (more surviving enzyme but slower acting) will have a difficult to
predict impact on the mashing process. When "mashing thick" water amount
is a VERY touchy variable too.
In some data from Hall via Harris at 155F(68.3C) increasing mash thickness
from 1.25qt/lb to 0.7qt/lb changed the fermentability from 65.0% to 64.4%
and the dextrins level from 26.6% of extract to 27.6%. Yes the thicker
mash is more dextrinous but you'll never notice this small difference. It's
far easier to adjust the mash temp upwards to reduce fermentability.
> Any thoughts?
I think there a are few mis-impressions here.
Malty flavors come mostly from malt ... Munich, Vienna or even mildly
roasted malts. After this there is a small impact from decoction boils and
first wort boils - tho' the latter add caramel as well as malty flavor.
Another approach to increased maltiness in a beer is to reduce or eliminate
the sparge water and use a higher fraction of the first wort. Search the
HBD archive for "no-sparge brewing".
Beer body/mouthfeel is due to several factors including protein,
carbonation level dextrins and alcohol level. Protein with carbonation or
other dissolved gas gives a certain weizen/Guinness type of mouthfeel, while
dextrins give a more syrupy effect like an doppel bock. The alcohol is an
odd case that we'll discuss another day. Anyway the alcohol level is
largely determined by the style.
If you want more protein type mouthfeel look to unmalted grain additions or
less modified malts and avoid mashing at 45-55C at all costs.
If you want more dextrins then take your conventional mash, of 1.2-1.5qt/lb
thickness and mash it at a higher temperature (69-75C) for a long enough
time to get a negative starch test and not much more - perhaps 30 minutes !
Adding crystal or dextrine malt will also increase the amount of caramel
and dextrins and contribute to mouthfeel and also sweetness (caramels are
sweet, dextrins are not !).
If instead you are looking for low amounts of dextrin and high
fermentability then mash at 63-65C. 40-45 minutes is usually enough but if
you are seeking very high fermentability (>76%) go for the 2 hours and lower
the temp a couple degrees.
Long mash times lead to wort darkening and coarser flavors in the beer.
Extreme mash times and thick mashing have a place in the arsenal of brewers
tricks - but you should save these for special occasions when nothing else
will work.
-S
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 03:54:32 -0400
From: North Shore Brewers <north_shore_brewers@yahoo.com>
Subject: Topsfield Fair Homebrew Competition Results
I'm pleased to announce that the 2001 Topsfield Fair Homebrew Competition
Results are now available at:
<http://hbd.org/northshore/Topsfair%20Results%202001.html>
Congratulations to James Tanner, who won Best of Show for his India Pale Ale.
Many thanks to all those who participated, and especially to all of those
who helped make the 2001 competition a success.
Cheers,
Seth Goodman
- --
Seth Goodman
North Shore Brewers
http://hbd.org/northshore
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 07:39:53 -0500
From: Bill Murray <bmurray@merr.com>
Subject: Too much carbonation
Question: I bottled a five gallon batch of orange-ginger mead two months ago
and when I went down to the basement the other day and poked my head in the
box, I see several bottles have broken... given my inability to wait to
taste it even though I know it is waaaaay too early, I opened another bottle
(12 oz crown capped) and sure enough, it is way too carbonated. What to do?
Open them all and dump them into the sanitized bottling bucket and rebottle?
Would this help or simply recreate the problem? This has not happened before
and I am stumped... any help would be most appreciated... thanks.
Bill
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 10:14:42 -0400
From: David Harsh <dharsh@fuse.net>
Subject: Competition details / Certified CO2 / Beer and Sweat 01 and 02
Len Safhay <cloozoe@optonline.net> asks:
> Are the bottle
> labels left on during the judging? If so, an obvious flaw is evident.
It would be, but they are not. Bottle labels are only there for the
organizers to keep track of the bottles until they are numbered and
labelled with the competition ID code. Note that the guidelines
generally require 12 ounce brown bottles with no raised lettering (Bass,
Chimay, etc.) so every entry looks the same. Grolsch enclosures are
often banned for the same reason. That's why organizers aren't supposed
to judge - you could know the brewer's identity.
This doesn't mean that some specialty beers that people make aren't
easily recognizable - one of our members makes a mead flavored with
cinnamon and atomic fireball candies - everybody within 100 miles knows
its Chuck's mead. How do you handle that? We've never quite figured
that one out.
- ----------------
Bud Certified CO2?
I realize that at times I am cynical, but could the idea of "certifying"
CO2 be a method of keeping all of the $$ in-house? Maybe someone could
supply some "certified" beer lines, ice, and drip trays too... I'd love
the opportunity to see a comparison of "regular" and "certified" CO2 on
a GC/MS.
Of course, if Bud were oxidized by stray oxygen, it would then have
*some* flavor ;)
- ---------------
Beer and Sweat 2001 was a great time - thanks to all who came, judged,
entered, and enjoyed themselves, although possibly not in that order.
Kudos to Eric Tepe for running a great party, to Roxanne Westendorf for
organizing the competition, and to Doug Lasanen for running the raffle.
Competition results can be found at http://hbd.org/bloat. If you are
planning ahead (and you should be), mark August 17th, 2002 for Beer and
Sweat next year!
Dave Harsh
Bloatarian Brewing League Cincinnati, OH
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 15:42:37 -0400
From: "David Houseman" <housemanfam@earthlink.net>
Subject: Brewing for Competitions
Len states:
"Never having attended a competition, I have a question: Are the bottle
labels left on during the judging? If so, an obvious flaw is evident.
The labels include the name of the brewer and the club affiliation. This
cannot help but skew the judges perception of the beer. Let's say you
are a judge confronted with two beers; one brewed by Joe Blow and the
other by, say, George Fix. Or you harbor a personal bias against a
particular club.
There doesn't need to be an overt desire on the judges part to be
unfair, but they will ineitably have some preconceptions that will
effect their ability to be objective.
Are the bottles that the judges see simply numbered? If not, they should
be."
Len, Please give the BJCP, AHA, beer judges and competition organizers some
credit. Of course the bottles that are presented to the judges are anonymous.
Have you read the instructions for entering? These usually even say no raised
lettering and the caps must be plain or blackened out. Everything is done to
ensure fair judging.
David Houseman
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 18:00:14 -0500
From: "Marc Gaspard" <mgaspard1@kc.rr.com>
Subject: RE: Brewing for Competitions
Len,
Every competition I've been involved in, both as judge and entrant,
asks that your labels be secured with a rubber band, thus facilitating
easy removal. Also, caps are asked to be free of any identifying marks,
either clean or blacked out with a permanent marker.
The bottles are then labeled with a sticky label with just an
alphanumeric
code indicating style category and subcategory for the judging and these
codes are usually cross-referenced in a database, so as to award points and
prizes.
Everything is done to make the judging as blind as possible. That is also
why
any judge who may have an entry in a show he is judging is asked to refrain
from
judging that category, and if a judge were to judge one of his own entries I
would
think there would be quite a bit of contention, both from within the club as
well as
from other entrants.
That said, some judges, especially if they're in the same club as you
and know
your beer, may recognize it. Some may excuse themselves from judging that
cate-
gory, others may go ahead and judge and try to be as impartial as possible.
As a judge, I've never had the experience of any problems of this sort
and, from
my experience, I'd say all the competitions I've been involved in, the
judges take
their work seriously and are extremely scrupulous. Certainly there may be
errors
from time to time, but the overall attitude is one of honesty and fairness.
Marc Gaspard
From: Len Safhay <cloozoe@optonline.net>
Subject: Brewing for Competitions
Never having attended a competition, I have a question: Are the bottle
labels left on during the judging? If so, an obvious flaw is evident.
The labels include the name of the brewer and the club affiliation. This
cannot help but skew the judges perception of the beer. Let's say you
are a judge confronted with two beers; one brewed by Joe Blow and the
other by, say, George Fix. Or you harbor a personal bias against a
particular club.
There doesn't need to be an overt desire on the judges part to be
unfair, but they will inevitably have some preconceptions that will
effect their ability to be objective.
Are the bottles that the judges see simply numbered? If not, they should
be.
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2001 21:37:21 +0930
From: "Thomas D. Hamann" <tdhamann@senet.com.au>
Subject: Bronze mesh
Is there a problem using bronze fly screen in an easy-mesh-masher, does
bronze deteriorate in a mashing environment or affect anything in any way?
Thanks
Thomas
(ruelps)
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 22:03:37 -0400 (EDT)
From: Aaron Robert Lyon <lyona@umich.edu>
Subject: critters
Brewers,
I'm sure someone else out there has had this problem, but this is my first
time and I'm weirded out. I am fermenting at a friend's place and we
found tens of thousands of little, tiny white bugs crawling all over our
fermenters and other liquid-holding vessels (especially on the air lock).
The basement has a direct passage to the outside and was originally dug
out of a crawl space, but that was quite some time ago and this is a new
problem. What are these? Can I get rid of them? Most importantly, will
our beer be OK? Thanks.
-A
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2001 05:38:55 -0400
From: "Mark Tumarkin" <mark_t@ix.netcom.com>
Subject: time to lower the tax on beer?
thought some of you might find this interesting, from Kim Thompson's
Ala-News...
The following is tongue-in-cheek, but it does strike close to home - this week
Alabama's wine tax was ruled unconstitutional because it taxed in-state
wineries at a lesser rate than out-of-state wineries. Expect that next bottle
of Muscadine wine you pick-up at the wine store to cost more.
Congress, get off your Bass
and pass the beer tax cut bill
WASHINGTON, DC -- Congress should immediately pass a bill that would
cut the federal tax on beer in half -- because cheaper beer is as all-
American as Killian's Red, Sam Adams White, and Labatt's Blue, say
Libertarians.
"For beer lovers, this bill tastes great and is less taxing," said Bill
Winter, the party's director of communications. "If Congress refuses to
act on this beer tax cut, then Joe Sixpack will be sadder, Budweiser,
about politicians' priorities."
The bill, HR 1305, is currently on tap for Congressional consideration.
Filed by U.S. Rep. Phil English (R-PA), it would slash the federal tax
on beer from $18 per barrel to $9 per barrel -- saving beer-drinkers an
average of 16 to 32 per six pack.
U.S. Representatives should support the bill, said Winter, because such
a tax cut fosters good feeling among ordinary Americans.
"This is a Molson Golden opportunity for Congress to repeal the 1990
tax hike that doubled the federal levy on beer," he said. "When, in the
Coors of human events, it becomes possible to give America's 30 million
regular beer drinkers a tax break, politicians should do so with gusto.
"The fact is, 44% of the price of beer is swallowed by federal, state,
and local taxes. It is a Grolsch violation of human rights to tax beer
so steeply -- especially when cutting the tax in half would reduce
federal revenues by only $1.7 billion per year."
But what about people who say the federal government needs that extra
revenue?
"In a Pig's Eye Pilsner politicians need the money," said Winter.
"Congress ought to be debating how Lowenbrau taxes can go, not how high
they can remain."
However, Congress does deserve a Pabst Blue Ribbon for even considering
the bill, he acknowledged.
"Now they should get off their Duffs and pass it, and send it to
Presidente George W. Busch for his signature," he said.
HR 1305 already has 187 co-sponsors, which shows that a sizable number
of Congresspeople are willing to go to Labatt's for beer-drinkers, said
Winter. But more are needed to ensure passage.
"This bill deserves support across the partisan spectrum -- whether you
are a Lone Star Republican, a Red Dog Democrat, or a Sam Adams-style
Libertarian," he said.
"After all, this bill benefits every American, from St. Pauli Girls to
Old Milwaukee boys. It cuts taxes across the USA -- from Brooklyn
Browne Ale to Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, and from Molson Canadian to
Mexico's Corona.
"HR 1305 also benefits Americans 365 days a year -- from Pete's Wicked
Springfest ale to Saranac Summer Wheat beer to Kirins Autumn Lager to
Red Brick Winter Brew."
In addition, the beer tax-cut bill would promote diversity, said
Winter.
"This bill will encourage Americans to drink Murphy's Irish Stout,
Harpoon India Pale Ale, Paulaner Bavarian Alpine Extreme, Thames Welsh
Ale, Flying Fish Belgian Style Dubbel, Baron Premium Czech Dark Lager,
and Belhaven Scottish Ale," he said.
"This could help bring Americans out of the Becks Dark days of beer-
drinking intolerance and into the Miller Lite of multiculturalism."
For all these reasons, Congress should pass HR 1305 as soon as it
returns from its August break, said Winter.
"Congress, don't wait any lager," he said. "Demonstrate that you are
Guinness Extra Stout-hearted. Get off your Bass, hops to it, prove the
Kaliber of your convictions -- and Pabst HR 1305."
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2001 09:39:17 -0500
From: "James \(Jay\) Reeves" <jay666@bellsouth.net>
Subject: Re: Isinglass use & clear beers
In #3742, I said:
>
> After fermentation is over, I chill the beer to 50F (some cask aficionados
> may say you should never get it this cold), rack to a pin (5.5 US
> gal), add
> an 8oz(lq) bottle of Isinglass, plug it and roll it around a bit
> (agitation), then stick it in a fridge at 57-58F.
Oops! That should have been a 4oz (lq) bottle of Isinglass - I should have
checked that before I posted - sorry!
-Jay Reeves
Huntsville, AL
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2001 11:07:38 EDT
From: JDPils@aol.com
Subject: Strangest Brewing Event
Greetings Beerlings,
It has been a while since I posted or read the digest as moving consumed most
of my time this year. Now that we are settled I got down to shaking out the
new place and have made a couple batches. Yesterday when I was cleaning out
carboys on the lawn, I kept smelling what seemed to be someone burning
leaves. (We are not allowed to burn in my town) When I looked down there
was smoke coming from the ground and the grass was smoldering. Apparantly
the sun was shining thru a 14 gallon carboy that was out of its plastic
carrier, filled with bleech water.
It was acting like a magnifying glass and burning the ground! That will be
the last time I fill it up outside its carrier on grass. I don't expect this
to happen with normal carboys since the sides are straight.
Cheers,
Jim Dunlap
Woodinville WA
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2001 18:56:16 -0700
From: "Bissell, Todd S" <tbissell@spawar.navy.mil>
Subject: (OT) Utah Beer
Hi all,
Just a quick note this time. I have a buddy making a big career move, and
moving the whole family to Vernal, Utah. I've been lucky enough to travel
around the world, but have never been to Utah, so can't give him much of a
pass-down, as far as what to expect beer-wise.
He's not a homebrewer (yet! :), and drinks mostly semi-Macrobrewed Lagers
(Rolling Rock, for the most part). Will he be in luck there, or will he have
a nasty surprise waiting for him...?
What about Real Ale (for when I visit...!)? Are 22-oz bottles on the store
shelves? What about craft/microbrewed beer in general...?
Please respond via either the HBD List, or to bis9170@hotmail.com. Tks!
Cheers!
Todd Bissell
Imperial Beach, CA
(Brewery Name Someday Forthcoming!)
------------------------------
End of HOMEBREW Digest #3743, 09/24/01
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