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HOMEBREW Digest #4001
HOMEBREW Digest #4001 Mon 29 July 2002
FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
Digest Janitor: janitor@hbd.org
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Contents:
Temperature cycling myth (George de Piro)
Gump on World's Fastest Fermentation ("Rob Moline")
Re: Scotmalt anyone? (Wes Smith)
Portland/Vancouver ("H. Dowda")
A possible mechanism for first wort hopping (steve thomas)
fast ferm (Randy Ricchi)
RE: RE: Beer road trip ("Parker Dutro")
NW brews and the Horse Brass (Kevin Crouch)
Thanks to the Hogtown Brewers (Denis Bekaert)
AHA Club Only Lost Results ("Tom Byrnes")
Subject: RE: fermenting in an engine block ("Mike Brennan")
Bitter Beer... ("Mac")
CLeaning Copper Tubing ("Parker Dutro")
Mini Kegging Techniques (Bruce McCroskey)
Re: How can I tell if my nose is working? ("Pete Calinski")
Tap A Draft Questions ("Tom Byrnes")
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Date: Sat, 27 Jul 2002 00:46:28 -0400
From: George de Piro <george@evansale.com>
Subject: Temperature cycling myth
Hi all,
Wil Kolb asks about the origin of the myth that says temperature cycling
speeds a beer's deterioration. Here's my best guess:
If beer is cycled from cold to warm with enough frequency it will throw a
haze. Unfilitered or coarsely-filtered beer will throw a haze after just
one or two such cycles. Even insipid, high-adjunct, filtered lagers will
throw a haze if cycled enough times. Many uneducated beer consumers will
equate haze with staleness, hence the birth of a myth.
Of course, we know that beer flavor is harmed by warmth, and that what
matters to flavor is keeping the beer cold for as much of its life as
possible, regardless of temperature cycling. Who cares if it throws a bit
of chill haze? Either dim the lights, use an opaque glass, or realize that
appearance and flavor don't necessarily go together.
Have fun!
George de Piro
Head brewer, C.H. Evans Brewing Company
At the Albany Pump Station
19 Quackenbush Square
Albany, NY, USA 12207
(518)447-9000
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 27 Jul 2002 01:04:43 -0500
From: "Rob Moline" <jethrogump@mchsi.com>
Subject: Gump on World's Fastest Fermentation
Gump on World's Fastest Fermentation
John,
Nice yeast huh? You took a 9 Plato wort, used 2 sachets in an
uncontrolled temp environment...and now you will just have to suffer the
consequences!
You are now forced to look forward to good brew!
Really, do as you wish...either rack to a secondary in a few days, for
a week or two...or just let it sit where it is for a week or so...
Then prime and bottle.
But be aware...your foolish play has doomed you to pronounced
esters....many of which you might actually enjoy! A temp controlled ferm
would have taken longer and tamed those rascally esters to some degree...
Ain't life grand when your yeast surpasses your expectations?
Cheers!
Jethro Gump
Rob Moline
Lallemand
"The More I Know About Beer, The More I Realize I Need To Know More About
Beer!"
>From: "John Misrahi" <lmoukhin@sprint.ca>
.Subject: World's Fastest Fermentation?
>i pitched 2 packets of dry danstar windsor yeast. I cleaned up and went
out,
>and when i came home it was fermenting nicely, big krausen, frothing, the
>side of the fermenter felt *quite* warm too.
>
>Anyways, this morning, the krausen has almost completely subsided, it
doesnt
>seem to be fizzing anymore, and , the kicker, the gravity is 1.010!!!
><SNIP>
>What do i do? Should I bottle it this quickly and let the aging happen in
>bottles? Or go borrow a carboy tomorrow and put it in that?
>help!
- ---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
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------------------------------
Date: Sat, 27 Jul 2002 16:21:32 +1000
From: Wes Smith <wsmith@acenet.com.au>
Subject: Re: Scotmalt anyone?
Folks,
I think you will find the "scottmalt" to be Golden Promise which has very
similar properties to MO but is a spring barley - not a winter barley.
Still a very good barley though.
Wes Smith.
>Date: Fri, 26 Jul 2002 22:30:32 -0400
>From: Jeff Renner <JeffRenner@comcast.net>
>Subject: Re: Scotmalt anyone?
>
>
>Ed Evans <eevans@moscow.com> asked
>
>
> >My preferred HB shop switched (based on customer feedback) from Marris Otter
> >to Scotmalt[1].
> >What's the word on Scotmalt? Any experience?
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 27 Jul 2002 07:35:48 -0700 (PDT)
From: "H. Dowda" <hdowda@yahoo.com>
Subject: Portland/Vancouver
When in the Portland area, with enough time, do not
miss the brewpubs over the river in Vancouver, WA.
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 27 Jul 2002 10:35:22 -0400
From: steve thomas <fabricus@hvi.net>
Subject: A possible mechanism for first wort hopping
Hello all--
There is serious contention as to whether first wort hopping (FWH) works,
and I have seen no published reports of why it should work.
I have made beer with excellent hop flavor where the last hop addition
was over 90 minutes before the end of boil, so I would say there is a real
effect from FWH.
So how could it work, and why are results so varied?
The times I have seen the best FWH effect were where the runoff was slow
and the wort was held _just_ below boiling for an extended time. The
gravity of the first runoff is very high, the successive wort additions
coming just fast enough to suppress an outright boil. At this level
bubbles form, mostly around the hop petals, rise, and usually disappear
before rising all the way to the surface.
So what is going on with this program that could optimize FWH?
A possibility: High temperature chemical reactions in the gasses in the
bubbles that form and then disappear.
There are many little appreciated properties of bubbles, amongst them
that they are always under pressure relative to the medium surrounding
them. Even less apparent is that smaller bubbles are under more pressure
than large ones under the same conditions. The principle is simple enough
once you stop to think about it: bubbles are bounded by water, the water
applies tension along its surface, the surface being curved applies
pressure inward, the more surface curvature there is per unit area, the
higher the pressure. This leads to the conclusion that there is a certain
minimum size for a bubble. At less than the minimum size the surface
tension compresses the bubble contents to a smaller size, being smaller
applies more pressure, being under more pressure grows smaller...until the
bubble disappears. This property yields all sorts of interesting effects:
carbonation stones work better at small pore sizes because the bubbles more
quickly attain the size where the remaining gas is squeezed into solution;
when wort is first brought to a boil it wants to boil over (it overshoots
the boiling point because the bubbles refuse to form, then the proteins
precipitate forming nucleation points and the solution boils evreywhere at
once), and makes the bubble chambers and cloud chambers beloved to particle
physicists possible. (The bubble chamber is reputed to been developed by a
guy looking at his glass of beer, looking at that one little stream of
bubbles rising from one point, wondering "hmm, how big would that defect
have to be?")
Now to apply this knowledge to FWH: The situation is concentrated wort,
bottom heat, hops, incipient boil. At the bottom of the pot bubbles form,
rise ,and in rising dissapear. The bubbles are steam (water vapor), and
volatile fractions of wort and hops. As the bubble rises from the bottom
it hits the cooler solution overhead and begins to condense. Condensing at
its surface, the bubble gets smaller, being smaller, its internal pressure
rises. Things stay pretty well balanced until the bubble shrinks past
the minimum bubble size; then the surface tension effect takes over. As
the surface tension slams the bubble shut the pressure and temperature
spike, like happens in a diesel engine when the piston squeezes the volume
down. In that tiny volume of the disappearing bubble is an ideal
environment for chemical reactions between the wort volatiles, hop
volatiles, and steam: gasses at massive pressures and elevated temperatures.
Under this theory of the mechanism of the FWH effect, a distinct
temperature gradient in the pot, maintained for a period of time, is a key
aspect. If true, it would go a long way to explaining the varied results
attained, and particularly the nearly uniform lack of success amongst
commercial brewers. (With steam kettles and lots of power the temperature
gradient will start small and quickly be erased as a rolling boil develops.)
- --Steve Thomas, aka DRSTRANGEBREW
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 27 Jul 2002 11:43:27 -0400
From: Randy Ricchi <randyr@up.net>
Subject: fast ferm
Give it another day or two to let stuff settle out and see if the gravity
drops a little more, then bottle it.
For that low an original gravity, and the decent pitching rate you used,
I'm not surprised it fermented out in a day.
John Misrahi wrote:
(snip)>I've made low gravity beers before but never had one ferment out
>so fast!!!
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 27 Jul 2002 09:25:27 -0700
From: "Parker Dutro" <ezekiel128@edwardwadsworth.com>
Subject: RE: RE: Beer road trip
I wanted to mention on a side note that the Horse Brass was the first
pub to offer a Rogue beer on tap. This is the reason behind my
recommending the Rogue brewpub. Owner Don Younger, along with his
brother (name escapes me) and Rogue owner developed ESB called
"Younger's Special Bitter" which you can get all over town at stores in
bottle. The Horse Brass, which is an Irish pub I believe, was the
obvious choice to unveil the new brew, however sadly Don Younger's
brother passed away on the very day the beer was to be offered to the
public. To this day, Younger's Special Bitter is featured on tap with
dozens of other great draft beers, including a few more Rogue creations.
The Horse Brass also makes a great beer called Colby's or Corby's or
something like that. It's the house lager with the house imperial stout
on top. Strange but delicious! They carry a wide variety of imported
bottled beer as well, some into the 10-12 dollar range. Is it plain
that I like this place? I need to visit soon myself. Have fun!
Parker
p.s. If you feel like a movie, you can get a cheap one at the
Laurelhurst, or the Baghdad, or the Kennedy School, or the Mission. All
have cheap movies (3 bucks) and serve beer so you can drink and watch
the movie. I believe they all sell fresh pizza, too!
"Excuse me doctor, but I think I know a little something about
medicine!"
-Homer Simpson
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 27 Jul 2002 10:44:39 -0700 (PDT)
From: Kevin Crouch <kcrouching@yahoo.com>
Subject: NW brews and the Horse Brass
I sense that I'm going to be exremely unpopular
for saying this, and I should make and attempt to post
this anonymously if I ever want to be served beer in
this town again, but I'm not that technically savvy.
I am at the same time, both pleased and gaurded by the
number of visitors and locals who would send somebody
from who knows where to the Horse Brass on a visit to
Portland. Sure, the dingy English dive bar atmosphere
with bangers and cask-conditioned English ales is a
novelty to us here, and the beer selection is pretty
good, but there is nothing about the place that is
uniquely NW except for the local micros they have on
tap. Even then, I would personally recommend going to
the source, instead of spending an evening at a
struggling English knockoff with questionable beer
handling techniques. But if you can't go to the
source, where would one go to get a good variety of
LOCAL beers?
It is my perception that few pubs in the area, that
aren't British or Irish exports at least, offer
surprisingly little variety in the way of fresh local
microbrews. The taps are uniformly held hostage by
Widmer, Portland Brewing, Full Sail, and Bridgeport.
Its the same selection, I might add, that I find at my
neigborhood Safeway. In fact, a Widmer sampler pack
brought home to my patio often provides more variety
than the local pubs do. Yes, there are exceptions,
but when I start looking to the Rainier tap to fuel my
sense of adventure, something is wrong. Someone
mentioned Higgins. This place has amazing food and a
great beer selection, but don't bother coming if
you're not wearing a tie, as you'll most likely spend
more time looking at the bottom of the wait staff's
noses than through the Belgian lace in your glass.
For NW brews in a nutshell enjoyed at a
turn-of-the-century bar backing a smoky dive, The
Rose and Raindrop is more uniquely Portland than the
Horse Brass. Same ownership, different management.
And they have some 30 taps of local brews that are far
more representative and better handled than the
'Brass's.
On similar vein, I find it increasingly interesting
that many friend and brewing compadres consistently
gravitate to English and Irish pubs to drink imports
rather than seek out local brews. This is alarming and
depressing, but speaks volumes to the overall and
deepening sense of disenchantment that locals feel
about the quality of regional brews. It might also
suggest a refinement of the collective palate that is
advancing faster than regional breweries can
accomodate. Who knows. I'm sure we'll see a study
on it soon. There are some great beers being brewed
locally, but you'll have a hard time finding them in
pubs and taverns. Go to the source.
P.S. I can't believe I forgot to mention Hair of the
Dog. The tour there is a hit and the beers are
uncompromisingly rich and hearty old-world styles.
You can even work for beer for a few hours if you
want. Golden Valley Brewing in McMinnville makes some
good beers too. This is also wine country if you're
into Pinot Noirs.
Kevin Crouch
Vancouver, WA
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 27 Jul 2002 13:14:55 -0700 (PDT)
From: Denis Bekaert <Denis-B@rocketmail.com>
Subject: Thanks to the Hogtown Brewers
Just want to remind those members of the HBD that
don't belong to brew clubs, or don't attend if they do
belong that they may be missing a great opportunity
for learning and fun.
Last night my son, who is new to homebrewing, and I
went to a meeting of the Hogtown Brewers of
Gainsville, FL and met some really fine folks and had
a great time learning and tasting a wide variety of
alt and kolch styles. I was hoping that Paul would
feel comfortable enough to return after I head back
home to Tennessee in a few days, so that he would have
a support system locally to help perfect his brewing
skills.
He found a home with the Hogtown brewers and joined
the club last night! The meeting was held in the home
of Sue and Wayne Smith who not only built a brewhouse
addition on their house, but also have a WALK-IN BEER
COOLER...talk about beer envy.
As an added bonus for me, I not only got to meet Mark
Tumarkin and David Perez (finally!) after enjoying
their posts on the HBD for so long, but was also
presented with a HB teeshirt and beer glass.
Oh, yes...the HB folks also had some very nice things
to say about my homebrewed Krick. I promised to check
my journal and tell them the yeast I used, which I'll
do after I get back home. Thanks for the nice
comments!
So, if you have not checked out your local clubs, I
strongly suggest you do so. I hope you are as
pleasently surprised as Paul and I were.
>From now on, we'll plan our visits to Paul's family
around the monthly Hogtown Brewers meetings...and I
think I just may have to join even though we live ten
hours away....
Again, thanks to my new friends in the Gainsville FL
brewing community for the great time.
Live long, brew large and drink frequently...
Denis from Beechgrove, Tennnessee where moonshine is
our history but homebrewing is our passion
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 27 Jul 2002 16:21:26 -0400
From: "Tom Byrnes" <kmstfb2@exis.net>
Subject: AHA Club Only Lost Results
In response to Mike Rogers inquiry about the May AHA Club Only competition
our club had the same problem. I
received a letter from AHA today stating that the mailer
with all the scores sheets got lost in transit back to AHA.
Oddly enough they knew our entries total score but did
not have the actual judging sheets,I guess the checks
were in the same mailer. Whoever does the competition
mailing for your club probably got a similar letter.
Tom Byrnes
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 27 Jul 2002 18:46:50 -0500
From: "Mike Brennan" <brewdude@tampabay.rr.com>
Subject: Subject: RE: fermenting in an engine block
Pornopolis, CA (a.k.a. San Fernando Valley) wrote.
" You've got a box?! Man, I wish I could go so high-tech. I ferment in a
pothole in the street. Once I came to check the gravity on a batch (dry
hopped with dog fur!) and CalTrans had paved it over (that happens so
rarely). The workers probably drank it first too."
Pothole? Thats luxury! I have to ferment directly in my mouth. On brew
day I fill up my mouth with wort in the am and drop a few yeast cells in and
3 hours later I swallow. Wish I had a pothole to ferment in.
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 28 Jul 2002 13:33:12 -0500
From: "Mac" <D.McHenry@ev1.net>
Subject: Bitter Beer...
I'm new to home brewing. It's been 3 weeks since I bottled my first batch.
Seems to taste a bit bitter to me. Do I just need to let it age a while
longer? I used a "Mexican Style Beer" extract for my first batch.
How can you tell how much alcohol is in the beer? Seems like more than
regular beers as far as I can tell. Would a hydrometer give me that
reading?
Thanks in advance,
Mac
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 28 Jul 2002 12:19:24 -0700
From: "Parker Dutro" <ezekiel128@edwardwadsworth.com>
Subject: CLeaning Copper Tubing
What is the best way to clean a round copper manifold of the dull,
orange-ish splotches that appear after use? I have soaked it in my
Straight-A but I must need to scrub it or something, because it's still
"dirty". How does anyone else get their copper stuff nice and clean?
Parker Dutro
P-town, OR
"Excuse me doctor, but I think I know a little something about
medicine!"
-Homer Simpson
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 28 Jul 2002 07:43:19 -0700 (PDT)
From: Bruce McCroskey <bruce@mccroskeys.net>
Subject: Mini Kegging Techniques
I am going to use a couple 5L mini kegs in addition to
bottles with my next 5 gallon batch. The mini kegs I
bought are the "self tapping" kind with a built in
"pull and turn" valve near the bottom. I also bought
a "Phil's Gasser" for dispensing using CO2. As this
will be the first time I've used mini kegs, I have a
couple of questions.
How full I should fill them? As with bottles, I'm
sure they should not be filled to the brim, but how
much space should I leave?
Are there any mini kegging techniques or pitfalls I
should be aware of?
TIA,
Bruce McCroskey
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 28 Jul 2002 22:14:40 -0400
From: "Pete Calinski" <pjcalinski@adelphia.net>
Subject: Re: How can I tell if my nose is working?
Bill Macher in Pgh, PA asks.
"How can I tell if my nose is working?"
Stand by, I am developing a Smell Board for PC and Mac. Should be available
soon. It works with the Sound Board and Video Board to stimulate three
senses at once.
Tongue now removed from cheek.
Actually, this post was to stimulate your sense of humor.
Don't hold your breath for the Smell Board.
Pete Calinski
East Amherst NY
Near Buffalo NY
***********************************************************
*My goal:
* Go through life and never drink the same beer twice.
* (As long as it doesn't mean I have to skip a beer.)
***********************************************************
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 28 Jul 2002 23:23:14 -0400
From: "Tom Byrnes" <kmstfb2@exis.net>
Subject: Tap A Draft Questions
I'm researching the tap a draft system for possible purchase
and would like the opinion of users.
I am getting differing opinions on whether beer be can be
forced carbonated using the 8 gram cartridges.
Some merchants say yes others say that you need dextrose.
What have your experiences been with this product.
What do you think about the carbonation issue. Thanks Tom
------------------------------
End of HOMEBREW Digest #4001, 07/29/02
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