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HOMEBREW Digest #4015
HOMEBREW Digest #4015 Wed 14 August 2002
FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
Digest Janitor: janitor@hbd.org
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Contents:
re: As the light dawns I realize I am in trouble. (John Schnupp)
First Wort Hopping ("Fred L. Johnson")
re: Enzyme Lifetime and mashing considerations (Martin_Brungard)
Report on mash hopping (Paul Shick)
RE: Recent "mashing science" posts (Paul Shick)
RE:As the light dawns I realize I am in trouble. (Don Lake)
Scroungers and Engineers of opportunity ("Smith, Brian")
clone for singletrack copper ale ("Wagner, John")
4th Annual Palmetto State Brewers' Open ("H. Dowda")
Re: As the light dawns I realize I am in trouble. ("Kent Fletcher")
Ber may be good for you ("Jim")
clone of Sam Adams Light? (leavitdg)
SNPA Clone and AHA Pub Discount benefit ("Menzl's")
What is it! (ShoesBrew3)
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Date: Tue, 13 Aug 2002 00:16:05 -0700 (PDT)
From: John Schnupp <johnschnupp@yahoo.com>
Subject: re: As the light dawns I realize I am in trouble.
Well Bill, welcome to the club.
>Up until now this has been a fairly inexpensive hobby. A cheap SS 5 gal pot a
>carboy and when I went all grain a Phil's Mashing setup. Now though I am
>starting to convert a keg to a boil kettle and I am starting to design a
3-tier >10 gal. system.
Herein lies one of the secrets of any hobby, you don't have to spend a million
dollars to have fun and just because you spend a millionn dollars doesn't mean
you will have fun. You get out of it what you put into it. It took me several
years before I switched to all grain. OTOH, I was kegging by my 3rd or 4th
batch. I always had it in the back of my mind to do all grain and with that
thought in mind I aquired the equipment I needed over the years. When Service
Merchandise had a 15 gallon aluminium pot on sale I bought it. When I needed a
big cooler I got one that I could "claim" as brewing equipment when the time
came. Oh yeah, I didn't throw anything out either. You never know when you
might need it again. I'm a pack-rat.
>However, now that I am thinking bigger I have started to run into a little
>sticker shock. While pricing new equipment and complete systems I soon
>realized these were way out of my league and in all honesty look less fun then
>a home made setup.
See above. I'm not sure it's less "fun." Some people are not as handy with
tools, others don't have the time to build. There are lots of reasons people
buy new equipment. If you are handy with tools and have the time, you can
build lots of your own equipment for a lot less. It sounds like you have the
basic equipment you need. Surf to as many homebrew pages as you can. There
are tons of ideas out there and you will certainly find someone who did
something that you might like to try.
>we have a very good salvage yard through Penn State and they are constantly
>getting rid of interesting things that might be useful. Is there a problem
>with scrounging from salvage yards?
Sounds like you have a gold mine. Go for it. Just make sure that the SS pipe
you got for a great deal wasn't being used to pump something toxic. The key is
creativity.
Go Lion's Go
Long life Pa' Joe
=====
John Schnupp, N3CNL
??? Hombrewery
[560.2, 68.6] Rennerian
Georgia, VT
95 XLH 1200, Bumblebee
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 13 Aug 2002 07:21:50 -0400
From: "Fred L. Johnson" <fljohnson@portbridge.com>
Subject: First Wort Hopping
Steve Alexander recently wrote to HBD regarding First Wort Hopping (FWH):
>Personally I think the jury is still out on FWH and I've made 5 brews now
>with FWH as the only hopping and many more with mixes.
and
>FWH does add more hop flavor than expected if you thought that only late
>hops add flavor.
I understand the interest in comparing FWH to later additions, but I
think the first question to ask and the question that no one has
adequately answered for me is, "Does FWH add more hop flavor than
simply adding a single hop addition at the beginning of the boil (say
10 minutes into the boil)." Steve pointed out that it is not news
that "bittering" additions DO contribute flavor. I don't believe I
have ever heard anyone make a careful comparison of FWH to a single,
early bittering addition in terms of IBU or flavor contribution.
Although I highly respect the opinions of accomplished fellow brewers
(including Marc Sedam), until someone provides evidence that FWH is
not simply the equivalent to a bittering addition--numbers, not
subjective opinions, would go far--, I will remain skeptical that
there is much to FWH or mash hopping. (I know I'm setting myself up
for flames.)
And I've never heard of anyone repeating the results of the German
pilsner experiment that provided the only real fuel to the FWH
argument.
I am VERY interested in Steve Alexanders experiments in which FWH was
the ONLY hop addition. Please report, Steve!
- --
Fred L. Johnson
Apex, North Carolina, USA
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 13 Aug 2002 09:06:24 -0400
From: Martin_Brungard@URSCorp.com
Subject: re: Enzyme Lifetime and mashing considerations
Steve came through with more interesting stuff!
There was one comment that raised a question.
"Munich malt often have relatively low amounts of BA too and need to be
coddled to get good attenuation on their own."
I have been a fan of Al Korzonas' and Dean Fikar's Alt recipe that use a
high percentage of Munich malt (9L). I have experienced some difficulty in
creating a more fermentable wort with this grist. I have resorted to
substituting about 10 percent of the Munich with Vienna malt, assuming that
the lower kilned Vienna results in higher enzyme levels while hopefully
still providing the malty profile the style demands. Steve's comment above
raised the question, "What kind of coddling is needed to get good
attenuation?"
Martin Brungard
Tallahassee, FL
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 13 Aug 2002 10:09:59 -0500
From: Paul Shick <shick@jcu.edu>
Subject: Report on mash hopping
Hi all,
Some time back, I promised some HBDers a report on
a series of brews that used mash hopping as the principal
flavor addition. Marc Sedam (and the folks at Paddock Wood)
have been championing this approach, and it sounded like
a great way to utilize some nice English hop pellets that
I got for helping out with the MCAB/WBC festivities in
Cleveland.
I did a run of three batches, using the seasonal
Wyeast 1882 (Thames Valley II) yeast, supposed the "other"
Shepard Neame strain from their 2 strain culture. I chose
three English styles -- ordinary bitter, strong bitter and
English-style barleywine -- because the beers would still
be somewhat to style regardless of how much flavor/aroma I
got from the mash hops. For all three batches, I used a
neutral bittering hop (German Northern Brewer) as the only
addition aside from the mash hops, so there'd be no confusion
about where the hop profile came from.
The first beer, the ordinary, used 4 oz of East
Kent Goldings pellets in the mash, along with about 35 IBUs
worth of Northern Brewer for 60 minutes, OG 1.040, 10 gal batch.
The resulting beer, though, had some fermentation issues from
underpitching, which make it difficult to sort out a whole
lot about the process. There's some hop flavor there, but
it's hard to discern.
The second beer, the ESB, used 4 oz of Fuggles pellets
in the mash, along with what was supposed to be about 35 IBUs
worth of NB, OG 1.055, 10gal. The finished beer has a nice smooth hop
flavor, although there's not nearly enough of it for my taste.
The malt profile certainly dominates the flavor. It's probably
a bit underbittered, as well. There's no hop aroma at all, or
at least none that can be perceived above the malt and the
(mild) fruitiness. After tasting one carboy and seeing how
one-dimensional it tasted, I dry-hopped the other with some
Fuggles, hoping to make it more interesting. We'll see.
The barleywine, done on the dregs of the first two batches,
used 3 oz of Fuggles pellets and what should be about 50 IBUs of
NB (taking gravity correction into account) for a 5 gallon batch,
OG 1.095. Shockingly, it fermented from 1.095 to 1.021 in 2 days
at 70F, yet doesn't taste fuselly. The hydrometer samples were
malt-dominated, of course, but the hop flavor is woven into it
nicely (if unobtrusively.) It'll be a while before this beer is
bottled, but it's very promising. This yeast might be a good
one to keep in mind for English-style barleywines.
So, in summary, it looks like mash hopping does give a nice
smooth hop flavor, but that it requires higher quantities of
hops to get it to the level you might expect from similar
measures of late-addition hops. It does not seem to add any
hop aroma, at least in those styles I've tried. If you're not
planning any other flavor/aroma additions, you might need to
bump the quantities up to 8 oz per 10 gallons. I'm thinking of
trying this amount soon. By the way, Marc S. points out that
you need to use pellets for this technique -- whole hops apparently
don't yield up their oils without some agitation. Also, those
of you who recirculate with a pump while mashing should be warned
that mash hops seem to clog up the flow through the grain bed
a fair bit. About 2 cups of rice hulls added to the mash seems to
be enough to fix this, at least for my system.
Paul Shick
Cleveland Hts, OH
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 13 Aug 2002 10:15:28 -0500
From: Paul Shick <shick@jcu.edu>
Subject: RE: Recent "mashing science" posts
Hi all,
I just wanted to thank Steve Alexander, Dave Burley and
Hans Aikema for their posts on enzyme activity at certain
temperatures. They've certainly added to my understanding
of mashing programs. Threads like this remind me of why
the HBD is such a valuable resource. Thanks, guys.
Paul Shick
Cleveland Hts, OH
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 13 Aug 2002 10:57:05 -0400
From: Don Lake <dlake@amuni.com>
Subject: RE:As the light dawns I realize I am in trouble.
Bill Lucus was sucked into the depths of this homebrewing quickly (9
months) and is now suffering from "hobby remorse" as he questions the
cost of advancing from PapZap bucket mashing into three-tier HERMS
systems with multi-pumps.
My advice is slow down and to buy your equipment in incremental pieces.
Thereby your wallet will barely feel it and more importantly, your
significant other will barely notice as well.
Relative to other hobbies, brewing is very inexpensive. If you don't
believe it, go take up golf or boating and then get back with me.
Furthermore, brewers are probably the most frugal & resourceful (and
often times cheap) people on the planet. Overall, homebrewing is not a
capital intensive hobby. It does require a fair amount of "time" and
storing your equipment eats up quite a bit of garage space. But that
also compares favorably to golf and boating.
Bill, enjoy your new hobby and keep in in perspective. And remember,
your friends will always be happy you took up brewing instead of a hobby
they can't enjoy.
Don Lake
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 13 Aug 2002 09:52:36 -0500
From: "Smith, Brian" <BHSMITH@bogmil.gylrd.com>
Subject: Scroungers and Engineers of opportunity
Bill,
As a seasoned veteran of the scrounger wars, I and tell you that your
greatest weapon is imagination and creativity. Look at every thing in the
yard from every angle, have no preconceived notions and you will be just
fine. Keep you eyes open when driving and watch the sides of the road, you
never know when someone is going to throw out the perfect piece of potential
brewing equipment (even if it's an old Chevy 350 block). Your already ahead
if you are watching the surplus sales from a university. Keep a eye out for
auctions of restaurant equipment. A favorite source for me is Mendleson
surplus electronics (www.meci.com). Neat stuff at great prices. So
solider, keep you eyes open and your imagination sharp.
Brian Smith
Big Ring Brewery and Winery
Bogalusa, La
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 13 Aug 2002 11:08:03 -0500
From: "Wagner, John" <wagnerj@tristate.edu>
Subject: clone for singletrack copper ale
I am looking for an extract or partial mash clone recipe
for Singletrack Copper Ale
from Rockies Brewing Company in Boulder Colorado.
Any help would be much appreciated.
John Wagner
Angola, IN
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 13 Aug 2002 09:25:07 -0700 (PDT)
From: "H. Dowda" <hdowda@yahoo.com>
Subject: 4th Annual Palmetto State Brewers' Open
Only a month is left to get your brews ready for the
September 28th PSBO4.
Judges and brewers are invited to come, judge and have
dinner on the grounds. Competition beers, kegs, hot
dogs, hamburgers...
Innovation remains a corner store of the PSBO
philosophy. Cash BOS awards, no category compaction,
a separate mead/cider competition with its own BOS and
a Just Good Beer Brew Off, all entries over six are
free...on and on
http://www.sagecat.com/psb/psbo4.htm
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 13 Aug 2002 10:26:29 -0700
From: "Kent Fletcher" <kfletcher@socal.rr.com>
Subject: Re: As the light dawns I realize I am in trouble.
Bill Lucas asked:
> Where have you found to be the places
> to rummage around for brewing related equipment. I live in what is still
a
> fairly small burg, no matter how much it would love to claim otherwise.
> This may limit the sources I have available locally. In particular though
> we have a very good salvage yard through Penn State and they are
constantly
> getting rid of interesting things that might be useful. Is there a
problem
> with scrounging from salvage yards? I know it would depend on the
specifics
> but I am looking for a general list of places people have had the best
luck
> finding stuff they could use in their brewing rigs.
Bill, you might want to check out:
"Brew ware : how to find, adapt and build homebrewing equipment" by Karl F.
Lutzen and Mark Stevens ; llustrated by Randy Mosher.
And I DO mean check it out, I found it at my city library, it helped me get
a jump start into this hobby-pastime-obsession-madness (you pick). Also I
believe Randy wrote an article for Zymurgy some time back on this very
subject. And of course search the HBD for "salvage" "junk" et al.
Hope that helps.
Kent Fletcher
brewing in So Cal
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 13 Aug 2002 15:19:04 -0500 (Central Daylight Time)
From: "Jim" <bermingham@antennaproducts.com>
Subject: Ber may be good for you
Twenty years of study indicate that beer might just be better for you than
red wine. Of course we already knew that. But for those who would like to
read about it can find the article from CNBC and the Wall Street Journal at
the following link. http://www.msnbc.com/news/793342.asp?pneJim Bermingham
Millsap, TX
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 13 Aug 2002 17:28:06 -0400 (EDT)
From: leavitdg@plattsburgh.edu
Subject: clone of Sam Adams Light?
I have been challenged to make a clone of Sam Adams Light....and
wonder if any of the serious brewers on this list have an idea as
to how to do that?
I know that they use a decoction for the Boston Lager,...and wonder
if that is really needed for the light?
I suppose that one could use some 2 row...a little crystal, and
perhaps some munich or vienna..for color and flavor...but how
to keep the flavor up to snuff...while, I assume , that the alc
content and calories are low....perhaps that is an assumption that
I should not make? ie, perhaps this is just a lighter Sammy...
rather than a 'light beer'?
Any ideas would be appreciated!
I recently brewed, and just now tasted a wonderful English Strong Ale
(7.3%abv)...if anyone wants the recipe.
Happy Brewing!
.Darrell
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 13 Aug 2002 21:31:38 -0400
From: "Menzl's" <menzl@concentric.net>
Subject: SNPA Clone and AHA Pub Discount benefit
First, thanks to all (10!) who replied to my question inquiring if a 122F
rest was necessary
for a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale Clone using American 2 row, crystal, and
dextrin malts. The
unanimous reply was "NO". My first all grain batch on Saturday went perfect
and it is
the best looking batch I have made to date. Lots of fun and cheaper by far.
Not to bring up the AHA membership "benefits" discussion again but I thought
I would
relate a quick story. After all the posts a while back I decided to join
the AHA
if for nothing more than to see what it was all about. I have yet to
receive my
membership card but I happened to be at the Alcatraz Brewing Company in
Auburn Hills
(just prior to the Rush concert nearby) and I thought I would ask about the
AHA pub
discount program. The most helpful waitress Jonelle, indicated that she had
not heard
about it but she would ask. I ordered the Pale Ale and when she came back
she
indicated that they did not participate but that the manager had heard about
it and
the beer was on them! That is what I call a discount! And I didn't even
have my
membership card! The manager (Tony) then stopped by and we had a quick chat
about their
brewing operation. He indicated that he did not know where to get
information about
the pub discount program so that they could participate. If this type of
response
is typical for the micros, it will not take long for the pub discount
program to
really take off. (Unfortunately, I did not have specifics to pass along to
Tony at the
time but I will pursue.)
William Menzl
Midland, Michigan [99.8, 344.8] Apparent Rennerian
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 13 Aug 2002 22:22:06 EDT
From: ShoesBrew3@aol.com
Subject: What is it!
What is it?!! I've been homebrewing for a about 3 years now, and im
obsessed. I eat, sleep, think, and live beer. I cant figure it it out.
What makes this "liquid" so captivating to me? Can somebody tell me.
Hell, there's thousands of you out there that do the same thing. We cant
wait to attend the the next beer meeting or get that next magazine in the
mail. We are constantly thinking about the next recipe or what we can do to
imporove the last one. Am I the only one that gets giddy when I find out the
local brewpub has a new beer on tap?
I brew out of a 7.5 gal quarter keg and and use a "Phil's" lauter tun. Im
constantly thinking about the ultimate 3-tier system. You know what im
talking about-pumps, swithches, quick disconnects and other toys.
C'mon guys/girls, what has beer ever done for us besides make our pocketbooks
smaller and are bellies bigger. I mean shouldn't we be trying to solve the
Middle East Crisis, war on drugs or world hunger. The only thing im trying
to solve now is what picture to put on my Winter Fest 2002 label. Im so
ashamed.
Will this "hobby" ever mellow out, or am I doomed to a life of barley, hops,
and yeast (gee, that doesn't sound to bad)?
Thanks for listening to my ramblings. As you can figure out, this was
written after a couple of brews-cheers!
Erik
Drink'in in Cleveland
------------------------------
End of HOMEBREW Digest #4015, 08/14/02
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