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HOMEBREW Digest #3801
HOMEBREW Digest #3801 Fri 30 November 2001
FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
Digest Janitor: janitor@hbd.org
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Contents:
Wort Aerating Pump ("Bob Sutton")
RE: DC Area brewing supplies....and Hydrogen Peroxide bubbler... ("Ralph Davis")
Thomas Hardy ("Mark Tumarkin")
re: Saffron Beer ("Greenly, Jeff")
kegging pressures question (Steven S)
RE: DC-area Brew Shop Help ("Dunn, Drew A.")
Turkey Fryers . . (GASNER)
re: primeing in cornies ("Joseph Marsh")
Re: Priming with corn sugar or malt extract??? (Jeff Renner)
Cult Classic Beers ("Ray Daniels")
RE: fryers, filters and forcers (carbonation, that is) (Brian Lundeen)
re: Malt vinegar ("Steve Alexander")
Jeff R. and dangerous chemicals in food ("Matt Grady")
re: Priming in Corny Kegs?/rims? smoker ("Steve Alexander")
New Orleans homebrew supply (SimondsVachow)
Re: H2O2 and wort aeration (Pat Casey)
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Date: Wed, 28 Nov 2001 23:34:54 -0500
From: "Bob Sutton" <Bob@homebrew.com>
Subject: Wort Aerating Pump
Pat Casey asked about his plan to use an aquarium pump for aeration...
passing air through a jar of hydrogen peroxide...
Pat, bubbling through hydrogen peroxide, or most any other disinfectant,
will not sterilize the air. Microbes are opportunistic, and generally hitch
a ride on fine particle of dust. The bubble will provide an insular
environment to protect the micro-organism from your disinfectant.
Instead, I suggest you pump your air through a small sterilizing grade disc
filter - typically 0.2 micron (absolute). For improved dispersion and O2
solubilization, attach a sintered metal sparge stone to the end of your
tubing (typically one-eighth inch diameter here in the land of infidels).
Both the filter and sparge stone are commonly available at brewshops here in
the states. Presumably you'll find similar resources downunder.
As far as you pump pressure is concerned... your 0.12 kg/cm2 rating is
roughly equal to 47 inches of water pressure. If your wort is 1.045, your
pump could operate against a wort depth of ~45 inches. This would be
suitable for a 5-10 gallon batch, unless you have some unusual fermentor
geometry.
Cheers from the South Carolina foothills
Bob Sutton
Fruit Fly Brewhaus
Yesterday's Technology Today
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2001 01:03:09 -0500
From: "Ralph Davis" <rdavis77@erols.com>
Subject: RE: DC Area brewing supplies....and Hydrogen Peroxide bubbler...
I, like others in the Washington, DC area, was saddened to see Centreville's
"Brewtopia" go--a great name for a great shop... Had something to do with
the owner's divorce--wife mustn't have enjoyed good beer, I guess. (Where
are those St. Pauli-type girls when you need them?) Anyway, for those
Northwest of the city (Bethesda, Potomac, McLean, Fairfax, Leesburg, etc.)
Frederick is actually closer than Annapolis (or even Bowie) so one should
try the venerable "Flying Barrel" right in downtown Frederick. Bob's been in
business for over 10 years....in the building that birthed Frederick Brewing
Company (before they moved up, went nearly broke and got bought out)
Besides the supplies, it gives one a good excuse to visit that scenic
historic town...maybe even keeping the wife happy.
http://flyingbarrel.com/
The Flying Barrel
103 South Carrol Street
Frederick, MD 21701
Tel.: 301-663-4491
Oh, and about the guy wanting to bubble through Hydrogen Peroxide with an
aquarium pump.... wouldn't that supply a nice source of Oxygen, even though
not sterilizing the air??? Some of us don't want to spend the $$$ for an
Oxy set-up.
Ralph W. Davis
[6699, 91.9] Rennerian
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2001 04:34:52 -0500
From: "Mark Tumarkin" <mark_t@ix.netcom.com>
Subject: Thomas Hardy
Thanks to all for the help on the Thomas Hardy quote. When Jeff pointed out
that it was on the label, I had one of those Dohhh! moments. I'm giving the
style presentation/tasting at our club meeting Friday and wanted to use it
then.
thanks,
Mark Tumarkin
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2001 06:32:15 -0500
From: "Greenly, Jeff" <greenlyj@rcbhsc.wvu.edu>
Subject: re: Saffron Beer
"Steve Stroud" <strouds@gis.net> writes:
>IIRC, one of them was a saffron tripel. I believe that he added 1/2 tsp of
>threads to the secondary.
Just as an aside...
At current retail market prices in the US for the grade of saffron I was
given, 1/2 tsp is worth about $ 9.54! I hid the tin from SWMBO; she's quite
certain I'm giving it to her... <sigh>
I have decided to spice the still mead I am going to make with several
strands. Should be a remarkably delicate flavor.
Jeff
Morgantown WV
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2001 07:39:38 -0500 (EST)
From: Steven S <steven@403forbidden.net>
Subject: kegging pressures question
Since i've recently dove into kegging head first I have a question to
pose. I've noticed that apparent pressure (as measured by the gauge on the
regulator) drops as temperature drops. I've also noticed that it drops
overtime, usually within the first few days of reaching its cold storage
temperature soon after kegging.
My assumptions are this:
Pressure drops as temperature drops due to expansion and contraction of
the gas at various temperatures.
As CO2 is absorbed into solution into the beer the "pressure" will drop
until the beer can absorb no more at which point pressure will remain
constant.
Are these assumptions correct?
Steven St.Laurent ::: steven@403forbidden.net ::: 403forbidden.net
[580.2, 181.4] Rennerian
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2001 08:11:49 -0500
From: "Dunn, Drew A." <Drew.Dunn@jhuapl.edu>
Subject: RE: DC-area Brew Shop Help
There is a very nice shop in Columbia, MD called Maryland Homebrew. Their
website is http://www.mdhb.com and the staff is quite knowledgeable.
Drew A. Dunn
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2001 09:00:34 EST
From: GASNER@aol.com
Subject: Turkey Fryers . .
Dave of Canada asks;
". . .do you mean you dunk a whole turkey in hot oil and deep-fry
it? . . ."
We have many quaint local customs in the various parts of the U.S. Not as
quaint, perhaps, as the costume of your 'Sargent Preston of the Yukon', but
quaint nonetheless.
Example: The U.S.A. is called the U.S. in the North, and the U.S.of A. by the
locals in the South.
In the South they grow peanuts. (Ex Pres. Jimmy Carter had a peanut farm, for
example) So they keep trying to find ways to use them all. Voila, peanut oil
deep fat frying of turkeys. That uses up gallons of the stuff.
In the North we follow the traditional Pilgrim ways. Very 'New England". For
instance, in Chicago we usually dress up in traditional Pilgrim costume:
Black clothes, tall black hat, big white collar and silver buckle shoes. Then
we invite some of the local Indians over for dinner. They bring the corn and
cranberries. Beer is traditional, but the saurkraut is an add-on in honor of
the many later German immigrants. The turkey is roasted with stuffing, of
course. Deep fat frying would probably wreak havok with good stuffing.
Earl (the traditionalist) Gasner
P.S. The 1/4 of the stuffing that has some apples chopped up into it is
placed in the neck end of the cavity. The other 3/4 goes into the 'other' end.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2001 10:06:06 -0500
From: "Joseph Marsh" <josephmarsh62@hotmail.com>
Subject: re: primeing in cornies
Gregor Zellman asks about sediment in cornies from primeing. Whenever I have
sediment problems I give the keg some extra pressuse and pour a pint. Then
bleed off back to normal serving pressure and you're set to go. That sucks
the sediment from around the dip tube mouth so you get good beer afterwards.
I find the rest of the gunk is kind of sticky so it stays in place unless
you really shake the keg around.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2001 10:21:51 -0500
From: Jeff Renner <JeffRenner@mediaone.net>
Subject: Re: Priming with corn sugar or malt extract???
"Kristen Chester" <kristen@cambridge.com> writes from Reston, VA
(which I don't think can really be [6695, 14.7] Apparent Rennerian)
>Should I prime my bottles for carbonation with corn sugar or
> malt extract?
<snip>
>one of the judges
>indicated that the corn sugar used for priming had hurt the beer
>(but maybe he was mistaken). On the other hand, I've heard that
>using malt extract has aesthetic effects, and can impact the flavor
>as well.
I think that any judge who thinks he can tell if a bottle was primed
with corn sugar vs. anything else is kidding himself. Some purists
use malt extract or saved wort, but the difference has to be minor.
Malt does have the appeal of reinheitsgebot of purity, but some
people have also reported a ring on the inside of the neck using it,
probably from a protein deposit. And I really don't think you'll
notice the difference in flavor or mouth feel, although theoretically
it ought to be superior to sugar.
Jeff
- --
Jeff Renner in Ann Arbor, Michigan USA, JeffRenner@mediaone.net
"One never knows, do one?" Fats Waller, American Musician, 1904-1943
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2001 11:44:19 -0600
From: "Ray Daniels" <raydan@ameritech.net>
Subject: Cult Classic Beers
Hello all,
For the last few years we have featured a regular item called "Cult
Classics" in Zymurgy. It gets good ratings with readers, so I would like to
continue it but we need some freshideas about what beers to cover. I
figured you guys (and gals) know enough beers that you would have some good
ideas, so I'm asking: what are your favorite craft and imported beers?
Brainstorm a list of five and e-mail it to me, will you? (ray@aob.org) The
pay off will be in seeing an article (and clone recipe) based on your
suggestion in some future issue of Zymurgy.
Thanks,
Ray Daniels
Editor, Zymurgy & The New Brewer
Director, Brewers Publications
ray@aob.org
Call Customer Service at 888-822-6273 to subscribe or order individual
magazines.
For more information, see www.beertown.org
Don't Miss:
Real Ale Festival - Feb 27 - March 2, 2002 - Chicago, IL
www.realalefestival.com
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2001 11:58:13 -0600
From: Brian Lundeen <blundeen@rrc.mb.ca>
Subject: RE: fryers, filters and forcers (carbonation, that is)
You know, all this talk about turkey frying has reminded me just how far we
still have to go to reach the gastronomic utopia that is Scotland. Any place
that deep-fries pizza must be considered one of the great culinary
civilizations of all time.
On to brew stuff:
Glen Pannicke (and a few others) talk about filtering their air being pumped
through their wort. Now maybe, living in Central Canada (geographically
speaking), I'm blessed with Really Clean Air(tm) and I can get away with
this, but I haven't used a filter in years and my beers aren't infected. I
also have to wonder why only pumpers feel the need to filter their air.
People who shake their carboys, people who use those little drilled tubes to
suck in air as the wort is being racked, are all getting unfiltered air
mixed into their wort. What is it about an air pump that makes people think
that they have to include an in-line filter? I sanitize my tubing and air
stone, certainly, but beyond that, I don't feel the need to provide sterile
air.
Gregor Zellman finds himself caught between opposing sides of the
carbonation debate:
> One is saying you should prime the beer in the kegs, apply
> just enough pressure to get a good seal and let the kegs sit
> for a couple of weeks. And they mention to check the pressure
> from time to time. They promise that you get nicer (smaller)
> bubbles and in general better carbonated beer and even better
> foam . The other group says all this priming is bull
> (especially the smaller bubbles story) and do force
> carbonation.
Speaking from a non-chemistry perspective, I have to believe that carbon
dioxide molecules are really not smart enough to know what their source is.
The advantage that priming has is time. The CO2 is being released into the
liquid more slowly, and therefore the beer can more easily take it into
solution. I would expect force carbonation does not yield as "stable" a
product initially, but that over time, you would be hard pressed to tell the
difference between the kegs. So, force carbonating would seem to have the
advantage of getting you drinkable beer sooner.
Of course, these are just my opinions, I don't expect the Spanish
Inquisition over all this. (waiting for it...)
Cheers
Brian Lundeen
Brewing at [314,829] aka Winnipeg
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2001 13:09:09 -0500
From: "Steve Alexander" <steve-alexander@att.net>
Subject: re: Malt vinegar
Gene Collins asks about malt vinegar ...
Gene - I've been making malt vinegar for ~ 2 years. This and EV olive
oil are the standard salad dressing at my house. You make an unhopped
beer with 5-6% ABV and after yeast fermentation you introduce a vinegar
acetobacteria culture to convert the alcohol to acetic acid. Many HB
shops sell "mother of vinegar" acetobacteria cultures, one is
www.grapeandgraery.com (yada). There are a number of booklets in the
topic of vinegar making and they are uniformly awful (like HB books from
the 1970s). The acetobacteria need oxygen so an 'open' vinegar
fermentation is necessary and this fermentation is very slow, one to several
months. There is some possibility of an infection that will create acetone,
tho' the aroma/taste are obvious.
IMO caramel/crystal malt adds nice qualities to the vinegar, but roast
malts do not. Making vinegar is a good use for late runnings after
you've boiled them down to about SG=1.055. You can also make slightly
larger beer batches and divert some wort for vinegar making before the
hops additions. Malt vinegars have sugar added (about 30gm/L from
memory) after the fermentations & sterilization which is necessary for
the proper taste when used on salads, etc. You can decrease the amount
of sugar if you use a lot of crystal malt, but you still need 5%
alcohol in the beer or else the vinegar will taste thin and watery.
Commercial malt vinegars retail at ~$25/gallon so it's a cost-effective
side hobby for an HBer who already has wort and the hardware needed.
Also you can easily beat the flavor profile of the supermarket stuff
using your favorite unhopped APA or Munich wort recipe.
If you want you can contact me offline for more details.
-S
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2001 14:22:54 -0500
From: "Matt Grady" <gradym@us.ibm.com>
Subject: Jeff R. and dangerous chemicals in food
Is it just me, or does it seem like Jeff Renner knows just a little bit
<too> much about the uses of lye in food preparation (i.e. -
'authentic' pretzels, masa harina...)? What's going on up there
in Michigan, anyway?
Just kidding, Jeff...CAP is my favorite winter beer to make. Would
a little lye added at bottling do anything for the style, by the way?...
:-)
Matt Grady
Burlington, Vermont
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2001 15:02:35 -0500
From: "Steve Alexander" <steve-alexander@att.net>
Subject: re: Priming in Corny Kegs?/rims? smoker
Gregor Zellmann discusses corny priming and ...
>But if I have the time, I would tend to prime the kegs with
>DME or Glucose and just wait.
I'd prefer DME to glucose, but avoid sucrose. I've been running some
experiments and there appear to be real reproducible problems with sucrose
fermentations. It doesn't attenuate as fast as either glucose or fructose
and there are some flavor differences.
>The only disadvantage I can see with this
>method is that one gets extra sediment in the keg and this worries me a
bit.
If the yeast is reasonably flocculent it won't be a problem. Don't cut a
half inch off the tube - it makes little difference.
Personally I don't believe that priming produces superior carbonation to
forced carbonation. I do think that krausening has advantages but that's a
different topic. Yes the bubbles from forced carbonation are initially big
and gangly but after settling for a week or two there is no difference. I
think the difference is due to large CO2 nucleating particulate in the
shaken beer.
===
Steve Lane writes of smokers ....
>I would love to put a meal on the smoker at 7:00 am, go to work, and come
>home to 10 hours of temp controlled smoked ....whatever.
Same here Steve,but putting a RIMS controller on the heating element isn't a
useful approach IMO. Smokers are only useful to the extent they provide
both modest heat and smoke. I prefer wetted hardwood for the smoke source
and once the wood catches fire it will continue to burn quickly and with too
much heat.
I haven't tried it, but I think we want to control the amount of air getting
to the fuel source with a controlled damper to reduce it's burn rate.
-S
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2001 21:13:17 EST
From: SimondsVachow@aol.com
Subject: New Orleans homebrew supply
Tray:
You'll find an absolutely outstanding homebrew supply store in Uptown New
Orleans on Magazine St. near Jena St. Tell Elvis and Gabe I said hello. It's
a small place with a pretty comprehensive supply. I live in the Chicago area
now and I've yet to find a place that will sell me a bag of Munich. Despite
the fact that his shop is a fraction of the size of the places I've found in
these parts, Elvis regularly stocks German-malted Pils and Munich malts.
Elvis is also an outstanding brewer and just a damn fine guy.
Drive on up Jena toward the lake, across St. Charles and go a few blocks up
to Freret St. Take a left on Freret where you'll find a little place called
Dunbar's on the lake side of Freret. If you're lucky it will be Thursday
when the special is turkey necks and mustard greens. The gumbo on Friday is
also outstanding.
Drop in on Acadian Brewing if you have the chance. It's on the Metairie side
of North Carrollton near Canal St. They brew excellent German lagers.
Here's a hot tip for a night out in New Orleans. Eat at Mandina's on Canal
(between Jeff Davis and Carrollton), dessert at Angelo Broccato's on N.
Carrollton (just head toward the lake off of Canal), then slide across
Carrollton to Acadian Brewing (brewer of fine German lagers). Then drive
back down toward the river on Carrollton, take a right on Oak and catch the
Rebirth Brass Band at the Maple Leaf Bar (every Tuesday night).
Knowing what it means to miss New Orleans,
Mike Vachow
Lake Forest, IL
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2001 13:56:09 +1100
From: Pat Casey <patcasey@iprimus.com.au>
Subject: Re: H2O2 and wort aeration
Arghhh, I'm getting flogged over this H2O2 business - brings a tear of
nostalgia to the eye for the good old days of the penal colony of New
South Wales. I should have mentioned that I was thinking of having some
sort of wadding with the H2O2 so that I would not be sanitising the
outside of the bubbles only. Possibilities included some sort of in line
arrangement - put those old White Labs vials to use.
While it was not in the front of my mind, hovering around in the back
was some earlier discussion on the digest about possible ways of using
H2O2 as a potential source of O2. Now the indomitable Mr Sanders has
suggested the possibility of adding manganese oxide as a catalyst to
hasten the release of O2. Very interesting, any comments?
I should add that the homebrew supply scene here is a bit primitive
compared to the US, someone has said that here it is like what it was
there 20 or 25 years ago, so there is not the availability of gadgets
and gizmos. And if you want to order from the US, the exchange rate, two
of ours for one of yours, is enough to drive you to drink. Would it be
askew to claim this as another reason to brew?
Thanks everyone,
Pat
------------------------------
End of HOMEBREW Digest #3801, 11/30/01
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