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HOMEBREW Digest #4395
HOMEBREW Digest #4395 Sat 08 November 2003
FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
Digest Janitor: janitor@hbd.org
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Contents:
Spam Spoof ("Spencer W. Thomas")
RE: Capsaicin ("Sky Diver")
authentic irish stout (Alan McKay)
Cost of Beer - Definition provided ("Lee Ellman")
RE: Conical bottom dump valve options (Lou King)
Sanke conversion to corny ("Strom C. Thacker")
RE: Competition Email Notices ("Houseman, David L")
Re: nitro beer gas questions (Jeff Renner)
Re: Peppers in beer ("Dan McFeeley")
Re: Can't find 10 gal cornys? (NO Spam)
Wort Specific Heat ("Martin Brungard")
What I did on my summer vacation ("Dave Draper")
Why i stopped brewing / Cost of homebrew ("Frank Youngblood")
Re: Can't find 10 gal. Corneys ("Bruce Millington")
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Date: Fri, 07 Nov 2003 00:43:34 -0500
From: "Spencer W. Thomas" <spencer at umich.edu>
Subject: Spam Spoof
I have to tell y'all that the "spam" in yesterday's digest was so well
constructed that this Janitor immediately took it for real spam and hit
the "kill spam" button. Luckily Pat was able to restore it from the bit
bucket for our enjoyment!
=Spencer (ROTFL)
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 06 Nov 2003 22:34:13 -0800
From: "Sky Diver" <skydiverbob at msn.com>
Subject: RE: Capsaicin
I happen to have a bottle of Dave's Insanity Sauce, ingrediants on the
bottles states;
Tomato sauce, onions, hot pepper extract, hot peppers, vinegar, spices, soy
oil, garlic and salt. Thats all it says, no mention of ingrediants on the
web site, Ive heard that it is made from straight habanero peppers.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2003 07:59:16 -0500
From: Alan McKay <amckay at neap.net>
Subject: authentic irish stout
Steve wants to convert to nitro to get an 'authentic dry irish stout'.
Steve, in my opinion those commercial stouts on nitro are themselves
not 'authentic'. How can they be? Nitro is not naturally part of
the beer and brewing process. It doesn't belong there. Period.
It's a bastardization used to appeal to mass-markets.
Just say 'no' to nitro!
- --
http://www.bodensatz.com/
TCP/IP: telecommunication protocol for imbibing pilsners
(Man-page of Unix-to-Unix beer protocol on Debian/GNU Linux)
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2003 08:30:32 -0500
From: "Lee Ellman" <lee.ellman at cityofyonkers.com>
Subject: Cost of Beer - Definition provided
Slightly off topic but a great term for seat of the
pants homebrewers like me. Chad Stevens posted about
his cost per bottle based on annual expenses and wrote:
Iodophor, bleach, natural gas, electricity and various other consumables:
rough swag of $130 per year or $.1074 per bottle.
For those of you that don't know Swag is actually
s.w.a.g. which means "scientific wild asset
guess!" A great term not often used now
taught to me by a former boss.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 07 Nov 2003 08:49:29 -0500
From: Lou King <lking at pobox.com>
Subject: RE: Conical bottom dump valve options
David Reed [dsreed1 at msn.com] asked (several days ago):
>>I am considering the purchase of a 7.1g (stainless steel) Conical. I
am hoping to get some advice regarding the bottom dump valve from those
who have experience with them. Most models feature a 1/2" full port ball
valve - which seems undersized (prone to clog?) and also has threaded
fittings. With all the attention given to "perfect welds" it seems self
defeating to equip such units with threaded fittings. Morebeer.com
offers an upgraded version that features a sanitary 1.5" butterfly valve
instead of the 1/2" ball, but it is the opposite extreme on size and I
wonder if it is unmanageable or less efficient. I would be grateful to
hear any advice or insight from those who have experience with either
option. Thanks.<<
Sorry for the late response, I'm about a week behind on reading the
digest.
I have the 12.7 gal bb&mb conical with the 1/2" full port bottom dump
option, and have brewed 23 batches using it. I only had a "problem"
dumping the trub one time, using very flocculant yeast (I can't remember
which yeast though). However even with that problem, the trub did dump
with some coaxing (opening and closing of the valve). I.e., I did not
have to stick anything into the trub to help it (although that is always
an option -- sounds messy, though).
I do not normally dump the yeast, so your mileage may vary. Also I
don't know how the smaller vessel would behave if you decide to get the
7 gal version -- it might be about the same or even better because the
port would be larger in comparison to the vessel size. The other
possibility is it would behave worse because there isn't as much weight
on the trub. Like I say, I don't know.
Regarding the butterfly dump option -- I don't have it but at one time
considered changing all of my quick connects to the 1.5" sanitary
fittings. That's the cadillac, but (I decided) probably not worth the
cost. If I remember, it would have cost me over $600 to outfit my
brewery completely. I think it would work fine though, if that's what
you decide.
Definitely get the side port option though. You don't want to your keg
or bottling bucket from the bottom port because you'll never get all the
yeast to dump first. The yeast sticks to the side of the cone, and even
if you dump the bulk of the yeast first, I expect more will settle
afterwards.
Lou King
Ijamsville, MD
http://www.lousbrews.com
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2003 09:46:50 -0500
From: "Strom C. Thacker" <strom at wort.org>
Subject: Sanke conversion to corny
I have a similar project to this on my long term (i.e., may never
happen) list of things to do. I thought I recalled someone having
cut an appropriately sized hole out of a sanke keg and then just
using a corny lid in that hole, with no welding or other
modifications.
Has anyone out there done this? Does it work?
Thanks,
Strom
Newton, MA
>
>
>Date: Thu, 06 Nov 2003 19:06:40 -0600
>From: "Gary Smith" <mandolinist at ameritech.net>
>Subject: Re: Can't find 10 gal cornys Convert a Sanke?
>
>HI,
>
>It's looking like my best bet for finding affordable
>10 gallon cornys has turned into how to morph
>a corny top onto a keg.
<snip>
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2003 09:51:27 -0500
From: "Houseman, David L" <David.Houseman at unisys.com>
Subject: RE: Competition Email Notices
Dion/Michael,
Currently the BJCP sends out hard copy labels to competition organizers.
Russ has also provided soft copy of lists as well. The BJCP has a move
afoot to migrate to a paperless (mostly) organization, relying on email and
web presence for most, if not all, activities. Toward that goal, if there
is a way to provide shareware software to competitions that will take the
soft copy of the judge lists provided to competitions and create emails (and
perhaps labels for those without email), this would be of tremendous benefit
to the entire competition community. I don't know what the issues are with
the BJCP modifying the format of the soft copy of the judge list to help any
grass roots efforts to create this capability but it may be something worth
exploring if it means that we don't have to mail out hard copy of judge
lists and that competitions can rely largely on email rather than much more
expensive snail mail to reach judges for competitions. This could be a
significant snail mail cost savings I imagine.
Dave Houseman
MidAtantic Representative, BJCP
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2003 11:14:55 -0500
From: Jeff Renner <jeffrenner at comcast.net>
Subject: Re: nitro beer gas questions
"Steve Dale-Johnson" <sdalejohnson at hotmail.com> confesses from
Delta (Vancouver), BC, Canada:
>In the interest of pouring a reasonably authentic dry irish stout, I am
>considering switching my spare C02 tank to a nitrogen blend and one faucet
>on the fridge to a creamer faucet. Not to start the flame wars again (well,
>OK, flame away...) but I do enjoy a well poured Kilkenny or Guinness on
>occasion and well, it's my new fetish of the month for brew gadgets. I want
>the nearly flat beer with the thick creamy head, and you can't get that from
>a can or from how my taps pour now.
I'll leave the answers to your questions to someone with experience,
but I'll also suggest a different solution that might get you the
pint you want - a pocket beer engine, even more properly called a
pocket sparkler. This is a 5-10 cc syringe with a small orifice.
The one I use is called an oral irrigator (my son used it when he had
his wisdom teeth out years ago). It is 10cc and has a curved "spout"
about 1-1/2" (3cm) long that tapers to a very narrow opening - ,maybe
1/64" (0.3mm). One with a larger opening works well also, but the
head is not quite as creamy or fine.
Using a fairly low carbonated beer, I suck half a syringe full of
beer, then shoot it forcefully into the glass of beer. This produces
the milky, swirling look of a freshly pulled pint of Guinness or
hand-pulled ale served through a tight sparkler. As it settles out,
*if* the original carbonation was correct, I'm left with a collar of
creamy foam. If the beer was well made, it lasts through the whole
pint. Maybe not as well as a commercially served nitro-pint, but I
like it.
Note, don't try this with a well carbonated beer unless the glass is
half full (or half empty, as your prefer). Otherwise, you'll lose a
lot of beer. And be careful - a HBDer reported back some years ago
that he tried this with beer in a heavy glass mug. He did the
procedure and the beer fobbed up over the top of the mug, which was
sitting on his table. He lunged forward to slurp off the overflowing
foam and hit his front tooth on the heavy mug, chipping it. The
tooth, not the mug!
Jeff
- --
Jeff Renner in Ann Arbor, Michigan USA, JeffRenner at comcast.net
"One never knows, do one?" Fats Waller, American Musician, 1904-1943
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2003 10:24:36 -0600
From: "Dan McFeeley" <mcfeeley at keynet.net>
Subject: Re: Peppers in beer
Gary Smith wrote about chile peppers . . .
>I'd suggest a good look at "Dave's Insanity Sauce" Don't know what
>peppers it has in it but... It sure keeps the SWIMBO's dit-brained rabbit
>from chewing at electrical cords...
I tried that method to keep our puppy (found in an alley, don't know the
breed but looks like a mix of German Shepherd and Black Lab) from
gnawing on the furniture. At first I mixed a little Insanity Sauce with
vegetable oil and daubed that on the areas he had been chewing on.
Dave's Insanity Sauce runs about 800,000 scoville units of heat so that
seemed the humane approach -- enough to chase him off but not enough
to hurt him.
Result? He loved it. Lapped up every bit. Next I tried a combo of
50% oil/50% Insanity Sauce. Same result. I gave up.
The dog loves the hot stuff, is apparently a canine chile-head from
birth. He can handle stuff that ordinary humans would keel over
from. My kind of dog. :-)
To keep this beer related, yes the dog loves beer. He gets excited
when I open a bottle, barks *very* loudly and licks his chops
expectantly because he knows I'm going to slosh a little in a dish
for him, about 1/4 cup full. SWMBO is disgusted with me.
And he has particular tastes. His favorite is Guinness, prefers dark
beers to light. My kind of dog. :-)
If there is a connection between enjoying hot stuff and enjoying beer,
the genetic connections seem to run pretty deep. Or maybe this is
just an unusual dog.
<><><><><><><><><><>
<><><><><><><><>
Dan McFeeley
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 07 Nov 2003 14:11:58 -0500
From: NO Spam <nospam at brewbyyou.net>
Subject: Re: Can't find 10 gal cornys?
The 10 gallon corny is the rarest bird of all.
Welders have mostly turned them all into
cylindroconical fermenters. I saw one on ebay
not too long ago that went for almost $300.
3 gallon kegs are next, those are also getting
hard to come by.
Bag-in-box systems are quickly replacing everything
in my area, as I have to assume other areas, too.
For the short term, this is going to mean more
available kegs for us homebrewers, but I don't think
its going to be all that long before all of these
5 gallon soda kegs (Coke and Pepsi) are going to
be hard to find, except for scrap metal.
Get 'em while you can!
Bill
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2003 16:12:45 -0500
From: "Martin Brungard" <Martin.Brungard at trow.com>
Subject: Wort Specific Heat
I'm in the process of creating a heat flow model for RIMS. One of the
important factors in the model is the specific heat of the liquid flowing
through it. Of course, in our case, its wort.
I am having difficulty finding any resources with specific heat information
on wort. I have found a fairly nifty site that includes a number of
calculators for sucrose properties. The website is:
http://www.univ-reims.fr/Externes/AVH/MementoSugar/002.htm
I might be able to use the information provided by that website, but I'm not
sure if its accurate enough to apply to wort. A typical wort contains a
sugar profile of about 12 percent mono-sacharrides, about 50 percent
di-sacharrides, and the remainder poly-sacharrides. Sucrose is a
di-sacharride and generally only comprises about 5 percent of a typical wort.
So you may be able to see my dilemma. Wort may not be all that similar to
sucrose...at least when it comes down to specific heat. There are a lot more
poly-sacharrides and other high weight molecules in wort!
So, I'm asking the mavens of HBD if they have knowledge or a source for the
specific heat of wort at differing specific gravities.
Martin Brungard
Tallahassee, FL
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 07 Nov 2003 15:53:05 -0700
From: "Dave Draper" <david at draper.name>
Subject: What I did on my summer vacation
Dear Friends,
Hello from the Land of Enchantment. Old-timers may remember me
first as Dave in Bristol (UK), then Dave in Sydney, then Dave in Dallas,
and finally Dave in Houston. It's been five years (almost to the day)
since the last time I wrote to HBD, when I typed out a message on
Rob Moline's laptop while we attended the first MCAB in Houston back
in '98. I am blinking in astonishment at how quickly those years have
flown by. At that time, I had just landed The Dream Job working for
NASA Johnson Space Center, but it turns out that there is an even
better dream here at the Univ of New Mexico. Long story short, I get
to keep on being involved in planning Mars missions while having the
highly rewarding experience of supervising students, while being free
of the crushing monolith of federal gummint bureaucracy (to say
nothing of the debilitating heat and humidity of the Houston swamps).
Life, as they say, Is Good.
I moved to Albuquerque during July of last year, and have finally
gotten my brewing setup going again at long last. I also finally made
the move to kegging from bottling, and have my first batch (an IPA)
on tap as we speak. It turned out very fine, to my delight. I've got
an amber (Full Sail-ish) ready to rack to secondary and will be brewing
a porter tomorrow, so we are definitely back into full production again.
So when I started thinking about brewing again, I decided to look up
the HBD and see how things are going in these cyberparts. I started
browsing recent issues and was delighted to see many names I
remember from lo! these many years ago. Jeff Renner, Spencer
Thomas, John Palmer, Dion Hollenbeck, to name a few I have seen in
the most recent couple weeks' HBDs. Looking forward to interacting
with y'all.
My brewing setup has evolved some over the years, as have my
standard operating procedures. I'm still using my converted-keg mash
tun that Eric Schoville made for me back in the Dallas days, and my
trusty aluminum 40-litre brewpot and jet-burner. I still proudly
ferment in plastic fermenters, and defy anyone to demonstrate
inferiority in beer made thusly. (Glyn Crossno sent me a pair of
bottles he'd brewed split-style, side by side in glass and plastic, and
my fellow tasters and myself could detect no difference, anyway.)
Although I used the George Fix 40-60-70 mashing procedure for some
years, I have reverted to single-temperature (plus mashout) infusions
as a matter of simplification. Basically, even though I have been
amongst the pointiest-headed of beer geeks, my emphasis is now on
keeping things relatively simple and trying to be consistent in my
procedures. I find this every bit as satisfying in my advancing age as
I did the more detail-intensive ruminations I used to indulge in.
I will probably resurrect my yeast-ranching sometime soon; my
attempts at that while living in Houston met with abject failure,
because of the intensity of the biota floating around in the hot humid
air of the Gulf Coast climate that I came to call, without the slightest
affection, The Sponge. I am hopeful that the bone-dry air here at
1500+ meters' (5000+ ft) elevation will preclude the formation of the
bizarre forms of life I found taking up residence in my slants.
Another good thing about being here is that I can devote my fridge
entirely to housing my kegs, since I really don't need the fridge to
ferment in as I did in Houston. Even during the hottest part of the
summer, our well-insulated home remains comfortably within ale-
brewing temperatures with only a minor contribution from our cooling
system (which is a swamp cooler, so costs very little to run). I will be
brewing some lagers over the winter by sitting the fermenters in our
guest room, keeping its door shut and a window cracked, and closing
the heater vent. Should work just fine.
I'm really happy with the kegging setup, too, now that I have room to
have that join my brewery. I don't miss bottling one little bit, and
having the beer to drink just a day or two after packaging is splendid.
For brewers contemplating kegging but who (like me) were slightly
daunted by the textual descriptions of the care and feeding of kegs, I
say: It's MUCH simpler than it sounds on paper when you have the
components in front of you to work with.
I did a search of the HBD archives on my name earlier today just to
remind myself when I'd made my last post here. I was very surprised
and gratified to find many highly complimentary mentions of my
contributions over the years from several of you, and I want to say
thank you for your kind words.
This is getting long, so I'll quit for now. Happy fermentation to all,
Dave in ABQ [2136km/1327mi, 255.8 Rennerian]
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
David S. Draper, Institute of Meteoritics, Univ New Mexico
David at Draper dot name
Beer page: http://www.unm.edu/~draper/beer.html
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 15:01:40 -0700
From: "Frank Youngblood" <f.youngblood at cox.net>
Subject: Why i stopped brewing / Cost of homebrew
Thomas Rohner writes:
>Have you ever thought about how much money you >save, during a 8 hour
>all-grain session.(green fees, hardware store....)
>Or the coolness factor brewing your own beer.(Hey this >guy brews his
>own beer!) So you don't need to buy a custom Harley >Davidson $$$ to
>be cool.
I brew my own AND ride a Harely. Do I get double coolness points?
Frank Youngblood
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2003 22:24:24 -0500
From: "Bruce Millington" <bmillington at verizon.net>
Subject: Re: Can't find 10 gal. Corneys
Gary,
Go to www.homesweethomebrew.com He has a limited supply, and I'm sure he'll
help you out. BTW, no affilliation.
Bruce Millington
------------------------------
End of HOMEBREW Digest #4395, 11/08/03
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