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HOMEBREW Digest #4206
HOMEBREW Digest #4206 Thu 27 March 2003
FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
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Contents:
Call For Judges: 2003 Upper Mississippi Mash-Out! (Christopher Hadden)
RE: Water treatment ("Dan Gross")
RE: overnight mashing, enzymes (eIS) - Eastman" <stjones@eastman.com>
Re: enzymes and overnight mashing (Todd Goodman)
HERMS help ("Reddy, Pat")
Re: sour mashing question (Michael Hartsock)
Re: sour mashing question ("Ryan Roecker")
Brewing Water ("A.J. deLange")
re:Books ("-S")
Where to buy bottled beer ("H. Dowda")
False bottom for Golden Gate Keg ("Mark Roles")
brewing etymology ("Christopher T. Ivey")
Re: Water treatment ("Martin Brungard")
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Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2003 00:32:12 -0600
From: Christopher Hadden <chadden@contecrayon.com>
Subject: Call For Judges: 2003 Upper Mississippi Mash-Out!
Al already announced it but now we're asking for your help!
The Minnesota Home Brewer's Association and the St.Paul Homebrewer's
Club are pleased to announce the AHA/BJCP sanctioned 2003 Upper
Mississippi Mash-Out. The Upper Mississippi Mash-Out is now a
qualifying event for the High Plains Brewer of the Year award!
Judging will take place May 1-3, 2003. During the weekend of judging,
the Twin Cities is host to a number of fun events including a pub crawl
and a Maibock festival!
Judging will take place at the Radisson Metrodome (
http://www.radisson.com/minneapolismn_metrodome ) and a block of rooms
have been set aside at a discounted rate for your convenience. New this
year is Beds for Judges! Contact Jonathan Crist for information at
cristj@bsci.com.
Competition Schedule:
April 11-20, 2003: Entries accepted
May 1-3, 2003: Judging
May 2, 2003 - 9:00 PM: Twin Cities Pub Crawl - starting from our
judging location - The Radisson Metrodome!
Email Kris England for reservations at
englandkris@hotmail.com .
May 3, 2003 - 6:00 PM: Maibock Festival at Town Hall Brewery -
Minneapolis, MN
6:15 PM - Blessing of the Bock
6:00-7:00 PM - Free Beer
Live music, special German menu
May 3, 2003 - 8:00 PM: Awards Ceremony at Summit Brewing - St. Paul, MN
If you are interested in judging, you may register to judge online at
http://beer.tzo.com/beer/links/03ummo.htm . The online registration was
developed by our own Al Boyce and it makes registration a snap - check
it out!
More information about the competition is available at:
http://www.mnbrewers.com/mashout/ . If you have any questions, feel
free to contact the Judging Coordinators at mash-out@nbrewer.com .
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2003 06:30:49 -0500
From: "Dan Gross" <degross@starpower.net>
Subject: RE: Water treatment
The subject of water treatment is causing Ed Dorn glaze over.
Ed,
Me too. I have been getting more interested in the effects of water
treatment over the past few months and I can pass a few things along to you
from my limited experience.
I am finding out that water chemistry can be very complicated and confusing.
My new tactic is to try and keep it simple and do only one thing at a time
to learn what effect it has on my beer.
The first thing I am working on is mash ph. For years I have been trying to
use the general purpose ph strips sold at my LHBS with limited success. A
recent posting on this forum mentioned ColorPhast ph strips which are made
to test a variety of narrow ph ranges. I found them available from Fisher
Scientific and ordered some a few days ago.
My understanding of controling mash ph is that the treatment (usually gypsum
or calcium chloride) is added to the mash. I have been adding mine to the
water before adding the grain, but it's not easy to get the stuff to
dissolve. I have been banking on the belief that it will dissolve once the
mash is working.
How much to add? This has been difficult for me to figure since the general
purpose ph strips are hard to read. I am hoping that the new strips will
give me better information. I have been adding the generally recommended
one to two teaspoons of gypsum to a mash with no dark grains and nothing to
stouts, porters or pale ales.
I have also been toying with other water treatments based on ProMash. That
has not been very successful since I tended to do too many things at once
and I have no idea what worked and what didn't.
My most recent brew was a CAP. It was brewed with only 6-row American and
corn and I decided to add nothing to the mash or sparge water. My extract
efficiency was lower than normal, so that was a good indication that the
mash ph was probably too high. I didn't bother to check the ph with the old
strips given my frustration with them.
Thanks for posting the question. I am looking forward to more information
too.
Dan Gross
Olney, Md
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2003 08:00:21 -0500
From: "Jones, Steve (eIS) - Eastman" <stjones@eastman.com>
Subject: RE: overnight mashing, enzymes
gregman asks what the 4 to 1 water to grain ratio that Horst Dornbusch
favors is equivalent to in real measurements ;^)
Assuming that 4 to 1 refers to liters/kg, it translates to about 1.9 qts /
lb.
Also, though this is just a guess, I don't think that the amount of
headspace in the mash tun contributes much to the heat loss when overnight
mashing. I suspect that in a closed, insulated tun, the headspace will soon
come to the same temp as the mash, but then will only lose heat at the same
rate as the rest of the contents.
Maybe you could remove the racks from your oven, heat it up to about 150 or
so, then turn it off and keep your cooler in there overnight. This should
minimize the temperature difference between the inside & outside temps, and
therefore greatly reduce the heat loss. Just be sure the oven isn't too hot
when you put the cooler in it. Another alternative would be to put it in the
closet and put one of those 1500 watt space heaters in there to raise the
ambient temp.
As Gary says, don't forget to vote in the AHA BoA election. Let your voice
be heard. The deadline is April 1.
Steve Jones, Johnson City, TN
State of Franklin Homebrewers http://hbd.org/franklin
[421.8 mi, 168.5 deg] Apparent Rennerian
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2003 08:39:57 -0500
From: Todd Goodman <tsg@bonedaddy.net>
Subject: Re: enzymes and overnight mashing
>"Sven Pfitt" <the_gimp98@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> 2. You will already have denurtured the 130F enzimes after hours above 145F,
> so don't worry about them.
Is the old nature vs. nurture argument rearing its ugly head in the HBD
now???
Todd in Westford, MA [630.3, 84] apparent Rennerian
Who would mash out before leaving his mash overnight and stick it in his
oven to hold temps
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2003 08:28:47 -0600
From: "Reddy, Pat" <Pat.Reddy@mavtech.cc>
Subject: HERMS help
While I am still a good month away from my first HERMS batch I have began
recipe formulation and have questions regarding water/grist ratio.
Specifically, what adjustments, if any, need to be made to account for the
water beneath my false bottom as well as all the water in my lines, heat
exchange coil, pump, return manifold, etc? Assuming I maintain a ratio of
about 1.5qt/gal in the mash tun, doesn't the fact that I'm constantly
re-circulating the wort and have to account for the extra water mean my
ratio is actually much higher? That's the big question I have. Secondly, I
am going to be using ProMash and I've been tinkering with it lately. Could
someone using a converted keg HERMS system and a step mash send me a sample
recipe please? It would save me a lot of headache while trying to learn the
software and build the brewery at the same time! Thanks.
Pat Reddy
CONTROLS ENGINEER
MAVERICK Technologies
pat.reddy@mavtech.cc
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2003 06:41:26 -0800 (PST)
From: Michael Hartsock <xd_haze@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: sour mashing question
I just bottled a stout that I made a sour mash with,
and it turned out great (ok, so the stout itself is
not great, but the sour element is right on target).
Here is what I did. I took a quart of first runnings
(or just pull out a quart of the wort at the beginning
of the boil if you are doing extract or partial mash).
I pasturised it in a quart mason jar and let it cool.
Then I threw about a third cup of unground malt into
the jar. (ok, so pull out slightly less than a quart
of wort to account for the malt you are going to put
in.) I put the top on the mason jar and very loosely
I put the ring on it to keep the lid on but allow gas
to escape.
I let it sit a week while the rest of the beer was in
the primary. Adjust this for how much sour you want.
then I boiled it real good to kill the bacteria and
blended in the mini-sour mash when I transfered the
rest of the beer to the secondary. Let it clear and
go!
mike
=====
"May those who love us, love us.
And those that don't love us,
May God turn their hearts.
And if he doesn't turn their hearts,
may he turn their ankles
So we'll know them
by their limping."
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2003 08:53:09 -0600
From: "Ryan Roecker" <rroecker@swri.edu>
Subject: Re: sour mashing question
Steven S has asked about sour mashing...
I have done several sour mashes. Here are my experiences:
2-row has worked just fine for me. I have also used pilsner malt with good
success. I have never used any techniques like adding yogurt cultures to get
more sourness. In my experience, two days of festering produces plenty of
sourness just from what ever came on the grains. My process is simple: I put
the grains in an insulated cooler, add 160F water, stir a few times the
first hour, and then forget about it for a couple days (one day is not
enough in my experience). Just don't forget the thermometer in the cooler.
You'll need it to get you sparge water ready--you don't want to open that
thing any more than you have to! I sparge as usual. The bad smells always
disappear after a few minutes in the boil. I have done it once with malted
wheat but not raw. The last time I did it I was surprised to see a fairly
thick, nasty layer of purple and pink mold covering the grains. I was
skeptical, but I scraped it off and continued on as usual. The beer is still
in the carboy, but I have tasted it occasionally and it has quite a bit of
sourness but is very pleasant and round tasting. I' sure it's going to be my
best sour mash yet. It seems to me that letting it sour for a whole week
would be excessive, YMMV.
Going back to your first comments about adding fruit... I used to get
similar comments from people about my fruit beers. I found that my problem
was I was following the guidelines in a lot of the homebrewing books that
say a couple of weeks is long enough to let the beer sit on the fruit. I now
let the beer sit for at least a couple months on the fruit and have gotten
much better results. Also, I typically shoot for at least 2lbs of fruit per
gallon of beer if I want the fruit to be very obvious in the finished
product.
Ryan Roecker
San Antonio, TX
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2003 15:04:41 +0000
From: "A.J. deLange" <ajdel@cox.net>
Subject: Brewing Water
For Ed Dorn: Brewing water chemistry is at least inticate, at best
confusing and, at worst, extremely complex. This is, perhaps, why there
is no book (that I know of) that does a creditable job of explaining it
in practical terms that would be understood by many or most brewers
given that the majority haven't even thought about chemistry since high
school or undergraduate college years. Part of the difficulty is that
the problem is quantitative (e.g. how much calcium chloride should I
add) and that puts it in the realm of courses that are not generally
taught to freshmen. Furthermore, most people don't like quantitative
work but it has to be done in some cases.
You are right that the most pressing aspect of brewing water chemistry
is balancing the alkalinity of the water against the acidity of the
malts in order to acheive proper mash pH. Base malts release acid when
the phosphate they contain reacts with calcium (and to a lesser extent,
magnesium) in the brewing water. If the brewing water has less effective
calcium hardness (calcium hardness plus half the magnesium hardness)
than three and a half times the alkalinity then there will be "residual"
alkalinity (alkalinity not neutralized by the malt acid) and mash pH
will be higher than desired. To acheive a good mash pH one must increase
the acid released by the malt by increasing the hardness (adding gypsum
or calcium chloride does this and is probably the most common form of
water "treatment" in brewing), decrease the alkalinity (by boiling or
treatment with lime) or adding acid. This last is best done (I guess
I'll have to admit that this is my opinion) by using malts which contain
acid (darker malts) or by adding preferrably mineral and, only as a last
resort, organic acids (not desired because their anions all have
directly perceivable flavors). Whichever of the methods is chosen,
something must be calculated and the data required to do this are the
hardness of the water (calcium and magnesium) and alkalinity (not that
the pH does not need to be known as long as it is less than 8.3 or so).
Without that data one can only take a stab at the amount of gypsum to
add or the amount of lime required for decarbonation or the amount of
sulfuric acid to add or the quantity of patent malt required. Given that
one has no quantitative guidelines at the outset the only approach is to
incrementally add the chemicals or malt to the mash, mix thoroughly,
wait a few minutes and check the pH adding more if required or backing
off with calcium carbonate if overshot. This is bound to end up in a
miserable brew day in which the brewer pursues pH back and forth on
either side of the desired band as the mash tun becomes loaded with
gypsum and chalk. I can remember one day in which a fincky pH probe led
me down the garden path - it takes some experience to know how to use
the damn things. While this may sound discouraging you will eventually
gain experience as to how much of what is required for which beer. If
attempting decarbonation without quantitative data, boiling is about the
only way to go though it is possible to work your way through lime
decarbonation by incremental addition if you have a pH meter and know
how to use it for this application.
If you want to gain some knowledge in this area, become an amateur
chemist. Dig out the old chem books or go to Amazon and buy some new
ones. If you've had it before, the basics should come back to you pretty
quickly. When you are comfortable with the basics, reveiew tha law of
mass action and/or the Henderson-Hasselbalch equation. These are the
bases for the reactions discussed here. There is lots and lots of stuff
on this in the HBD archives (including recipes for various cities
brewing waters). It isn't gathered together in any coherent form
anywhere but it is here. There are also a couple of brewing books
(deClerk, Hardwick) which have what you want but you need to be
comfortable with basic chemistry to read them.
So do a little leg work and stay tuned to this channel. There are
several guys here who know quite a bit about this subject. Ask specific
questions and/or look in the archives.
A.J.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2003 11:06:15 -0500
From: "-S" <-s@adelphia.net>
Subject: re:Books
I seem to be having some posting trouble lately - here's a several day-old
one.
...
A correction:
Marcus Schmitz and Boris de Mesones(a VLB grad) have written me to note an
error in my comments on brewing books.
Wolfgang Kunze's, "Technology of Brewing and Malting" is NOT a Weihenstephan
undergrad text. VLB Berlin uses Kunze's book and Weihenstephan is a rival
school which probably uses texts by Narziss. Narziss, I understand retired
from the Weihenstephan chair position around 1992, but this hasn't stopped
the trickle of fine technical papers which bear his name. I was led astray
by some old Siebel advertising which used Kunze's book in courses
co-developed w/ Weihenstephan.
While poking around on the Weihenstephan website I noted that their
"links"page
http://www.wzw.tum.de/blm/bt1/linkseiten/linksonst.htm
has a link to HBD's "The Brewery" website,
http://hbd.org/brewery/index.html .
"The Brewery" is a great collection of 'Best of HBD' discussions. I wish
more HBD posters looked there, since 80% of the basic tech topics are
clearly answered there.
===
More on Books ........
Another topic is where to purchase technical brewing books.
The ASBC 'Methods of Analysis' is available to non-members at
http://www.asbcnet.org/PUBS/METHODS/top.html
for a whopping $465USD
Kunze's text used to be available from Siebel in Chicago, but I don't see
that anymore. I purchased my copy directly from VLB Berlin; they take Visa,
MasterCard and AmExpress. To order from VLB go to
http://www.vlb-berlin.org/english/books/kunze/index.html
and click 'order online'. The price is 99.90euros plus shipping. Surface
mail time was approximately 10 days in my case. The 'International edition
is in English.
===
I special ordered 'Malting & Brewing Sci' years ago at Border's, but most
bookstores now list this as out of print. I'd strongly suggest that
anyone searching for an expensive or difficult to find book begin the search
at: http://isbn.nu/welcome.html . ISBN.NU does not list every book with
an isbn number (which is a bit disappointing) but most anything currently in
print can be retrieved and various vendors price-compared at this site. The
2 volume M&BS set was apparently reprinted by Aspen Food Press in 1995. The
new set lists at about $300US.
One online booksellers that I can *highly* recommend is
http://www.booksamillion.com (BAMM). They usually have the best prices on
the web and a better selection in stock than most - and shipping is
typically free on significant orders. For a $5 annual fee you can join
BAMMs 'club' and take an additional 10% off most orders (no brainer for a
$50+ book purchase). BAMM beats the pants off Amazon IMO.
M&BS vol 1:
http://www.booksamillion.com/ncom/books?id=2483579503200&pid=0412165805
$118.80US
M&BS vol 2:
http://www.booksamillion.com/ncom/books?id=2483579503200&pid=0834216841
148.50US
Brewing Yeast & Fermentation:
http://www.booksamillion.com/ncom/books?id=2483579503200&pid=0632054751
$182.69US
Katherine Smart's several books entitled, "Brewing Yeast Fermentation
Performance" are available from BAMM too, but these are collections of
specific technical papers and not good reference material, IMO.
===
For the proficient German readers www.amazon.de is a great resource with the
familiar Amazon interface. For example Hubert Hangofer's (an HBD
contributor) recent HB brewing book appears at
http://www.amazon.de/exec/obidos/ASIN/3405156262/qid=1048359192/sr=1-1/ref=s
r_1_16_1/028-2338814-1284544
for a mere 12,60 euros.
Half a dozen German language brewing books by Ludwig Narziss can be summoned
up at the same site.
===
For out-of-print books, Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk have good resources for
attempting to find such books from a coalition of used book sellers.
-S
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2003 08:19:19 -0800 (PST)
From: "H. Dowda" <hdowda@yahoo.com>
Subject: Where to buy bottled beer
Need to know where a good beer shop is in:
Washington, DC. In the New Hampshire Ave NW area or
near the NW side brewpubs.
Nashville, TN. In the area around Vanderbilt and
Centennial Park or close to Bosco's.
Looking for good selection of Belgians, bocks,
barleywines...
TIA
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2003 13:56:23 -0800
From: "Mark Roles" <m_roles@msn.com>
Subject: False bottom for Golden Gate Keg
Does any one know where to get a false bottom for a Golden Gate keg? I
found some listings in the archive, but I think some of those are out of
business now.
Thanks! Mark Roles
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2003 18:31:15 -0500 (EST)
From: "Christopher T. Ivey" <cti3c@unix.mail.virginia.edu>
Subject: brewing etymology
Greetings,
I've been curious about the etymology of some of the terms used in brewing
and wondered if any of you might have come across any insight into their
origins. For example, "wort" is used as a common name for many small
herbaceous plants (e.g., mugwort, bladderwort, St. John's wort). How did
it also come to mean the sugary solution that yeast turns into beer?
Other words seem (to me) unusual and specific to brewing (or at least
usages are specific), such as sparge, lauter, mash, krausen, lager,
trub, etc. Any thoughts?
Chris Ivey
Champaign, IL
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2003 21:59:49 -0500
From: "Martin Brungard" <Martin.Brungard@trow.com>
Subject: Re: Water treatment
Ed Dorn asked a question I posed several months ago. After getting only a
few good inklings of an answer, I pondered and studied the issue. I think I
can provide some guidance now.
Ed pretty much nailed it on the head when he figured that the treatment for
mashing is to make the mash more efficient and that pH control is to
facilitate enzyme activity and control tannin leaching.
Now he asks, as I did, when do you do what to your brewing water? My studies
have led me to the following conclusions.
When brewing with a specific water style, all the water used (mash and
sparge) should be treated with the same mineral adjustments.
The need to consider Residual Alkalinity (RA) only applies to the mash. In
conjunction with the hardness adjustments that are a result of the minerals,
the alkalinity for only the MASH water needs to be adjusted to provide a RA
that promotes the proper mash pH.
The SPARGE water should be acidified to bring the pH down to the proper
sub-5.7 range. Of course, this knocks most of the alkalinity out of the
water. But this doesn't matter, since the whole RA thing ceases to matter
once we've finished the mash schedule.
Minerals added to the water don't evaporate, so there is a concentrating
effect throughout the boil, but that doesn't matter. Think about it...if you
were brewing in Burton, that natural water would also undergo the same
concentration. Minerals should be added at the beginning, when you are
drawing your water amounts.
And when it comes to pH, the only numbers that really matter are the pH
during the mash and the pH of your adjusted sparge water. Hopefully, the RA
concept helps you adjust your water to let the mash reach a proper pH by
itself. Ed already pointed out one person's experience when his LHBS owner
told him to add 2 capfuls of acid to his sparge water. The owner probably
had used pH papers or a meter to figure that one out for that local water.
After figuring that out, pH monitoring isn't needed.
Ed's Virginia Beach water is similar to Pilsen water. Its pretty soft.
Considering this water, I would say there is another mineral Ed needs to have
on hand...chalk. That water could use more alkalinity on occasion, for
darker grists. That will keep the RA from going too low. I understand that
low RA probably promotes a more fermentable wort, plus its naturally more
tart. This may not be the goal for all beers.
Ed, I don't believe the answer is written in any homebrewing texts out there
when it comes to this issue. I hope I wrote something that you can believe.
I do.
Martin Brungard
Tallahassee, FL
------------------------------
End of HOMEBREW Digest #4206, 03/27/03
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