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HOMEBREW Digest #4198
HOMEBREW Digest #4198 Tue 18 March 2003
FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
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Contents:
Pre-Prohibition Lagers (CAP) ("Jason Henning")
Calculating IBUs ("Asher Reed")
Dry hopping lagers (Hayes Antony)
flogging the pitchable yeast dead horse ("John Misrahi")
Refractometers (Calvin Perilloux)
Raudins historic brew books ("Nichols, Josh")
Ramstein AFB Beer Recommendations Requested (Kevin White)
Re: single-step vs. multi-step mash? (Denny Conn)
Dry Ice Purging ("Dave Burley")
RE: dry ice purging ("Mike Sharp")
Burton on Trent Water ("Christopher Post")
sensory overload (Jeff & Ellen)
Books ("Don")
RE: dry ice purging, Burton waters,fly sparging- not (Bill Tobler)
California Region - NHC Judges and Stewards Registration ("Jamil Zainasheff")
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Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2003 01:03:02 -0500
From: "Jason Henning" <homebrew1@thehennings.com>
Subject: Pre-Prohibition Lagers (CAP)
Hello-
Guy Gregory says, "And re: the discussion of CAP: Jeff Renner is simply the
most singular of homebrewers. He rescued this style, corresponds tirelessly,
and it's darn fine beer, which he nearly singlehandedly saved."
While I agree that Jeff is by far the most inspirational ambassador of this
style, I would give George Fix the lion's share of credit for reviving the
style. Dr Fix wrote about this beer over 20 years ago in Zymurgy. He also
wrote the BrewingTechniques article in 1994 that I feel got the ball
rolling. The article is available online at the BT web site at
http://www.brewingtechniques.com/library/backissues/issue2.3/fix.html. Jeff'
s BT article is also available and is at
http://brewingtechniques.com/library/backissues/issue3.5/renner.html.
It's hard to believe that it's been a year since George's passing. How about
we take a moment to remember his influence on this hobby and give a prayer
for his family.
Cheers,
Jason Henning
Livingston/Washtenaw County Line
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2003 07:00:28 +0000
From: "Asher Reed" <clvwpn5@hotmail.com>
Subject: Calculating IBUs
If there is one thing that makes me crazy about brewing it is calculating
IBUs. There are a handful of formulas but probably the two most common ones
that I have used are the Tinseth formula, and the formula that Ray Daniels
lays out in his book "Designing Great Beers" (which as I recall is the same
formula that is in a Papazian book) -- now, maybe I've been doing the
calculation all wrong because the results from these two methods will differ
by 25% or so. Other less common formulas seem to be just as random also --
does anyone here have any scientific experience with calculating IBUs?
Which of these two formulas is more reliable? Or is there a better
(accurate) way of calculating IBUs?
Thanks in advance,
Asher Reed
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2003 09:16:09 +0200
From: Hayes Antony <HayesA@aforbes.co.za>
Subject: Dry hopping lagers
There has been some talk about avoiding dry hopping of lagers, if you want
your lager to taste European.
What about late hopping?
My lagers have been scored down for grassy flavours. One judge suggested no
hop addition with less than 20 minutes to go, and no more than 20% of your
total hop bill. His view was that lagers were best brewed with a single
noble hop addition at 60 minutes to go.
This contradicts the recipes in Miller, Noonan, et al.
Does anyone know the exact hopping schedule for Pilsener Urquell?
Ant Hayes
Johannesburg
Confidentiality Warning
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The contents of this e-mail and any accompanying documentation
are confidential and any use thereof, in what ever form, by anyone
other than the addressee is strictly prohibited.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2003 08:57:41 -0500
From: "John Misrahi" <lmoukhin@sprint.ca>
Subject: flogging the pitchable yeast dead horse
Brian Lundeen writes:
>Next up to bat... Wyeast? Oh, why bother. Too many people are >obviously
>content with the status quo. No, Mr Bumble, no more gruel for me, I've >got
>more than enough to keep me happy.
I see it this way. If everyone was unhappy with the status quo and say,
boycotted the liquid yeast producers until they caved in , well something
would happen. Yes it would be nice to have larger quantities available. But
I (And most other homebrewers, I suspect) would rather not pay twice or
three times as much. Regardless of what the mark up is, more yeast = more
cost. I pay 10.50$ CAN$ around here for one White labs tube, and around half
that for a Wyeast 50ml packet. I'd rather pay less and spend 5cents on malt
extract to make a starter.
For spur of the moment brewing when i want something truly 'pitchable' I go
dry. Anyways, I understand the 'Big Yeast Cartels' do market their products
in 1L + volumes intended for breweries, brewpubs etc.. I'm sure the
homebrewer who wanted that much yeast could manage to order one. Or, do as I
do: get jars of slurry from your friends or friendly neighborhood brewpub.
Either way, it beats buying anything ;-p
just my 0.02$ (Canadian)
John Misrahi
Montreal
[892, 63] Apparent Rennerian (km)
"Actually John it uses a very complex algorithm to determine your average
time between "Generate" clicks, and from that can it figures out how drunk
you are, and what styles of beer you prefer. Obviously, you prefer obscure
Belgians!" - Drew Avis
Seen on a tee shirt - "The internet is full. Go away!"
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2003 07:33:52 -0800 (PST)
From: Calvin Perilloux <calvinperilloux@yahoo.com>
Subject: Refractometers
In Saturday's HBD, Don Hellen asks about refractometers,
are they worth it, and where to get them.
Yes, Don, they are indeed worth it, and they work well,
at least the one I have, which is spot on with hydrometer
readings, best my own eyes' focus can tell me. It's the
best little $60 toy I've bought in a long time. I do love it.
As for where to get one... just <Page Up>. You'll notice
that one of our sponsors is Northern Brewer, and that's
where I got mine. Some other brewshops on the Web have
them to, but, well, do check first with you local HB shop
just to keep the tradition going, OK?
Keep in mind that the refractometer is useful for wort
BEFORE you ferment it. Alcohol has its own effect on
refraction, and so once fermentation begins, the reading
you get with a refractometer is not accurate AT ALL for
calculating specific gravity. (At least not without some
awkward math.)
Calvin Perilloux
Middletown, Maryland, USA
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2003 09:23:14 -0600
From: "Nichols, Josh" <Josh.Nichols@us.gambro.com>
Subject: Raudins historic brew books
http://www.raudins.com/BrewBooks/
I just bought all three of their books.
I haven't got them yet and am excited.
Has anyone else bought them and tried any of the recipes
in the books?
Josh Nichols
Music City Brewers
Nashville TN
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2003 11:35:51 -0500
From: Kevin White <kwhite@bcpl.net>
Subject: Ramstein AFB Beer Recommendations Requested
Greetings to all:
A very good friend has been deployed to Ramstein Air Force Base
in Germany for at least several months. Can anyone offer beer/pub
recommendations that I can forward to him?
Thanks,
Kevin White
Columbia, MD
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2003 08:55:38 -0800
From: Denny Conn <denny@projectoneaudio.com>
Subject: Re: single-step vs. multi-step mash?
Mark, my take on it is a definite maybe. It pretty much depends on the
specific malt you'll be using. I gotten into the habit of getting a lot
analysis for each bag of malt I buy, looking at the S/T protein ratio, and
deciding on a mash schedule based on that. In the past, I've used DWC pils
malt, for example, in a single infusion. The Dingeman I'm using now has a
S/T of 35.7, so I've been doing a multi rest mash. But probably either way
will work well enough with most malts. The one thing I've found to avoid
is doing too long a rest at too low a temp. with well modified
malts...seems to kill the body. But aside from that caveat, I think you
could experiment with both methods and see which you prefer.
--------------->Denny Conn
Eugene OR (somewhere far away Rennerian)
At 12:29 AM 3/15/03 -0500, Mark wrote:
>Date: Fri, 14 Mar 2003 09:35:54 -0800
>From: Mark Beck <beckmk@whitman.edu>
>Subject: single-step vs. multi-step mash?
>
>I'm a relative newbie to all-grain brewing, and so far I've made some IPA's
>using single-step infusion mashes (a couple of which have turned out pretty
>darn good!) However, soon I hope to brew a Belgian Triple, and I'm
>contemplating using a multi-step mash. I plan to use a pilsner malt.
>
>In the Classic Beer Styles on Belgian Ales, it says that the recipes are
>calculated for a single-step infusion mash "for simplicity", or something
>like that. However, in the chapter where brewing details are given, a
>multi-step mash is described.
>
>So: Do I need to do a multi-step mash? What are some possible differences
>in flavor, attenuation, etc.?
>
>Any hints on brewing a Triple would be appreciated.
>
>Mark Beck
>Walla Walla, WA
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2003 12:08:51 -0500
From: "Dave Burley" <Dave_Burley@charter.net>
Subject: Dry Ice Purging
Brewsters:
In a private e-pistle Fred Johnson politely pointed out that he wasn't talking
about purging his bottles with dry ice/ CO2 but his bottling bucket with dry
ice/ CO2 to which I replied ( with some clarifying additions added for the
HBD):
First, I strongly advise you not to use a bottling bucket. This is a major
source of oxidation of beer. Just bottle straight from the secondary
carboy/fermenter. This was a stupid suggestion to use a bottling bucket
CharleyP made and it is still with us, unfortunately.
If you need additives to the beer, just put them into each bottle. Sounds
tedious but it takes less time than all that cleaning and sanitizing and
recleaning of the bucket and you get more uniformity and no oxidation and less
chance of infection.. You will be amazed at how this will improve your beer if
you are now using the bottling bucket method. This is especially true with
carbonation sugar. Try this first before you do any experiments with dry ice.
You will be pleased at how uniform your carbonation is with this procedure.
Most people don't realize how difficult it is to get a uniform mixture when
mixing small and large volumes. If you do get a good mixture, it is at the
expense of oxidizing your beer as you stir out the carbon dioxide and expose
the surface of your beer to air and infection.
BTW 48 teaspoons ( 16 Tablespoons) is 8 ounces - a cup. This will handle a 5
gallon carboy. Get yourself a one pint glass Pyrex measuring pitcher to make
up your sugar solution, add the sugar, dilute to 8 ounces , cover with plastic
wrap and boil it in the microwave. You may wish to make a little more of this
solution so you don't have an end effect problem in which it is difficult to
get the last few teaspoons full. One teaspoon of this sugar solution is added
per bottle into the empty bottle Do them all at once so you won't forget. This
will take two to three minutes or so. Some use a pipette, I prefer a
measuring spoon. Then add the beer and cap on the fob ( foam overflow) as I
suggested.
Your beers will no longer have an oxidation problem and no need for purging
with dry ice or CO2 gas.
Keep on Brewin'
Dave Burley
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2003 09:51:42 -0800
From: "Mike Sharp" <rdcpro@hotmail.com>
Subject: RE: dry ice purging
Dave Burley responds about dry ice purging
"Fred Johnson is contemplating using dry ice to purge his bottles before
bottling to remove oxygen.
"First, despite what you might have learned in grade school ( remember the
paper bag balance?) about carbon dioxide being heavier than air ( it is),
it will not totally displace the air. Like all gasses CO2 is totally mixable
with all other gasses ( one of the definitions of a gas). As a result, it is
impossible to just put gas in a container, with concomitant turbulent flow,
and expect the CO2 to push out the air 100%.
"Some years ago, I did some calculations for the HBD based on certain
reasonable assumptions and it would take approximately 100 times the volume
of the container in CO2 volumes to get oxygen to a low enough level."
Well, I think he was talking about purging his bottling bucket, but you're
right about the turbulent flow not not displacing the air. However, in a
wine bottling machine it's common enough to purge the bottle with CO2,
Nitrogen or Argon prior to filling (they call it Sparging), but it's done
gently. It does help to reduce airs in the bottle. I did some tests with a
winery back in the late 80's (or early 90's...?) to determine if CO2, argon
or nitrogen were best, and it made little difference. The thought was that
Argon, being heavier, would work better than nitrogen, but the headspace
oxygen levels didn't support that theory. Since liquid nitrogen was much
cheaper than liquid argon, they chose LN2 for the purge. Their wine was
already lively enough with CO2 to rule that out.
I also purge my kegs by displacing liquid, but rather than bother with
boiled an cooled water, I just push out my dilute sanitizer, and fill. I
mix the idophor at the low end of it's effective range, and don't bother
with rinsing. I used to work for a gas purification company (well, we made
gas purifiers, not purified gas), and the standard routine for purging a
closed system was to pressurize the system to 120 psi, and vent to
atmospheric. After 5 cycles, the oxygen levels were extremely low (require
special instrumentation to detect it). So in the event that I can't for
some reason fill and purge my keg with sanitizer, I do a cycle purge of a
few cycles to the highest pressure my regulator will produce, which is less
than 60 psi. I figure that's easily good enough for beer.
At bottling, beer is easier to deal with because you can use fobbing, but
even commercial beer lines do a pre-evacuation of the bottle (a kind of
reverse cycle purge).
Regards,
Mike Sharp
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2003 12:43:47 -0500
From: "Christopher Post" <chrispost@earthlink.net>
Subject: Burton on Trent Water
David Humes <dhumes001@comcast.net> had a question on reproducing Burton on
Trent water and the apparent conflict between Ray Daniels "Designing Great
Beers" and the ROW. I noticed this too in my unending quest to duplicate
the Marstons Pedigree Bitter experience (my beer epiphany, aged 16, August
1984 on my first visit to Burton on Trent...). But I think the following
link may explain the discrepancy:
http://www.brookes.ac.uk/geology/8361/1999/phil/water.htm#Introduction
This gives water/mineral compositions for a number of different sources in
the Burton area (I understand very little beer is brewed from Trent water
itself). It appears that the Marstons wells are unusual (unique?) in having
zero CO3 content, with exceptionally elevated sulphate and calcium levels.
Just for laffs I tried to duplicate this water from distilled/RO using
Strangebrew's water composition algorithm. For some reason it ignored the
constraint that CO3 should end up zero, so I resorted to trial and error.
My best shot after a whole 5 minutes experimentation, for addition to 5
gallons of distilled/RO water, was as follows:
MgSO4 10grams = 2.2 tsp
CaSO4 19 grams = 4.8 tsp
NaCl 0.5g = 0.1 tsp
CaCl2 2.6g = 0.8tsp
to give total Ca of 271 ppm, Cl 82, Mg 52, Na 10, SO4 766(!)
If that won't give you Burton Belly, nothing will...Interestingly this
composition absolutely nailed the ionic concentrations for Marton's Crossman
St. wells, except the sulphate was too high (I was maximising the Ca level
within the constraint of the Marton's Field Wells' SO4 levels of 753 ppm and
1 decimal place accuracy). It seems to me there's no way of exactly
duplicating one or the other using simple salt additions - either the
Calcium level is too low or the Sulphate is too high.
Cheers (I'm off to the lav)
Chris
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2003 19:48:04 -0500
From: Jeff & Ellen <JeffNGladish@ij.net>
Subject: sensory overload
Peter Ensminger wrote, "I recently judged a flight of smoked beers. After
one or two, the smoke character in all subsequent beers was minimal or even
totally absent. Was this because the beers had less 'smoke' or because my
senses became habituated? I'm not sure."
I brew and enter a lot of smoked beers in competition and wonder sometimes
what the heck the judge had sampled just before mine. Tasted individually,
I'm sure different evaluations would result. It's the same with pepper
beers and very hoppy beers, like IPA's. The judges' pallets need to
recover from each sample.
The last time I had a chance to judge the smoked beer category, we poured
all of the entries in the flight and then smelled and wrote comments on
aroma before tasting any of the beers. Then we sampled them for flavor in
the order of least smokey aroma to most smokey. I think it was a good
experiment and recommend it to other judges for this style.
Has anyone thought about adding a section to the competition form for
herb/spice/veg/smoked beers for level of spiciness/intensity? It may make
judging them more fair.
Jeff Gladish, Tampa, FL
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2003 17:32:55 -0800
From: "Don" <don@steinfillers.com>
Subject: Books
We at a local homebrew shop (Stein Fillers) are assembling a reference
library of both periodicals and books. We have, of course, back issues from
Brewing Techniques, Zymurgy and the usual how-to homebrew books. We also
want the technical manuals that most of us (homebrewers) wouldn't go out and
purchase, but would be good references.
The question I have for the group is what books should be on our wish list
for a comprehensive library on brewing?
Don
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2003 20:38:58 -0600
From: Bill Tobler <wctobler@sbcglobal.net>
Subject: RE: dry ice purging, Burton waters,fly sparging- not
Dave Burley has a full-proof method to "get the air out" of your kegs and
bottles. Yesterday, he said:
"The best way to do it is to put cool boiled water in the bottle ( or keg)
and push it out with CO2. Then you KNOW there is no air in the bottle ( or
keg). This is the way I keg all my brews. Works great. Blowing in CO2
doesn't, despite what you think you learned in grade school. The paper bag
with the CO2 in it sunk down because the MIXTURE of CO2 and air was heavier
than the pure air." snip...
Another way to do this, without having to boil the water is to fill your
clean keg up with tap water, push it out with CO2, then push some sanitizing
solution into the keg from another keg, being careful not to get any gas
from the keg with the sanitizing solution into the receiving keg. This is
easy for me, as I keep a 3 gallon keg with StarSan in it in the brewery all
the time. I transferred the 10 gallons of water into my kettle and will
boil it and use it for my next brew session. I try not to put too much
water down the drain, if I can help it. This is easy for me as my system is
set up all the time. If your system is put up between brew sessions, you
can still save the water in 5 gallon buckets and reuse it later.
Thanks Dave for a great idea. I will probably do this from now on.
Bill Tobler
Lake Jackson, TX
(1129.7, 219.9) Apparent Rennerian
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2003 19:30:38 -0800
From: "Jamil Zainasheff" <jamilz@citlink.net>
Subject: California Region - NHC Judges and Stewards Registration
American Homebrewers Association
First Round National Homebrew Competition
California Region 2003
(San Diego area)
It is nearly time to judge the first round of the 25th Annual National
Homebrew Competition and we need judges and stewards. If you are interested
in judging or stewarding, please register online at
http://www.quaff.org/nhc_reg.html
When:
Judging Friday April 25, 6 pm and Saturday April 26th 9 am and pm if
necessary.
Where:
St. Dunstan's Episcopal Church
6556 Park Ridge Blvd.
San Diego, CA 92120
You'll also find directions to St. Dunstan's on the web site.
Jamil Zainasheff, Judge Coordinator
jamilz@citlink.net
Antoinette Hodges, Organizer
------------------------------
End of HOMEBREW Digest #4198, 03/18/03
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