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HOMEBREW Digest #4396
HOMEBREW Digest #4396 Mon 10 November 2003
FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
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Contents:
No one wanted to say it.....Glass vs. Plastic (Crossno Clan)
SWAG Definition ("Angie and Reif Hammond")
Nitrogen and hops don't mix/Hey Dave Draper ("-S")
re: Starter wort gravity revisited ("-S")
Steam rolled barley ("National Midnight Star Brewery")
convoluted copper cfwc (Randy Ricchi)
FWH Additions to Boil? ("Dave and Joan King")
link of the week - Nov 8, 2003 (Bob Devine)
Bottling ("Don Scholl")
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Date: Sat, 08 Nov 2003 06:17:03 -0600
From: Crossno Clan <crossno at tnns.net>
Subject: No one wanted to say it.....Glass vs. Plastic
When I first went to 10+ gallon batches I didn't have enough carboys,
so I split the batch between plastic and glass. I noticed every batch
the plastic finished 0.02 lower than the glass. It did not matter how
long I waited.
I could never tell a difference between the beers. The freeloaders who
drink my beer could not tell in triangle tests, so I didn't worry about
it. But did comment here, if you really care check 1997 or 98.
I finally sent bottles to several judges, they could detect no
difference. So now I RDWHAHB. Like I needed another reason!
Glyn
Middle TN
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Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2003 08:41:21 -0500
From: "Angie and Reif Hammond" <arhammond at comcast.net>
Subject: SWAG Definition
I learned SWAG was Stupid Wild A$$ Guess.
Reif
Durham NH
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2003 13:32:04 -0500
From: "-S" <-s at adelphia.net>
Subject: Nitrogen and hops don't mix/Hey Dave Draper
Guinness introduced nitrogen+CO2 mixes as a means to replace earlier air top
pressure in the UK cask systems. It was found that the mix gave nice head
with controlled gassiness in the beer. Excellent call by Alan McKay that
this is not a traditional process. I wouldn't advise the more traditional
air head gas either unless you can drain a cask in 48 hours.
Original reports in the N2+CO2 process were all positive pointing to the
dense creamy foam, then as more careful measures of N2 levels were
associated with blind taste tests things changed.
Commercial draught ales kept more than a week under a top pressure of
nitrogen were returned with complaints that they lacked hop flavor. In
careful studies of beer kept two weeks under shankmix(~80% nitro) had
10-11ppm nitrogen and were judged to have "NO HOP AROMA" and "BROAD HARD
BITTERNESS". Under 100% nitrogen beer attained 16ppm and flavors were
additionally criticized as "dull" and "empty".
Nitro may 'work' in a low hop flavor, low hop bitterness beer like Guinness,
but it will cause clear-cut flavor damage to most styles.
[Info from "Effects of Flavour Innovation in Brewery Equipment and
Processing", M.Meilgaard, JIB107#5pp271-286, 2001].
===================
Welcome back to Dave Draper - long time gone but not forgotten,
-S(teve Alexander)
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2003 16:23:04 -0500
From: "-S" <-s at adelphia.net>
Subject: re: Starter wort gravity revisited
Stephen.T.Kajdasz asks,
>Steve Alexander has stated that the gravity should be less
>than 1.028 to keep the glucose level at a desirable level. What I was
>wondering, and this may be a stupid question, if I want to step the starter
>up multiple times does the gravity of each subsequent wort addition have
>to be about twice as high as the previous addition (assuming the volume
>added is the same at each step) since the wort will be diluted when added
>to the mostly metabolized starter (in order to keep the gravity at say
>1.025), or is it sufficient to add 16oz of a 1.025 starter each time since
>you just want to give the yeast sugar while keeping the glucose level
>below 0.4%
Good question Stephen.
There is a great deal of variation in the way yeasts take up sugars
according to recent studies. Still the old rule of thumb that first
glucose, sucrose and other mono-saccharides are fermented, then maltose,
then maltotriose is usually a good approximation of the truth for
conventional brewery yeasts.
My suggestion that starter wort should be under 7P (no more than 1.028SG) is
a decent approximation of the wort gravity that would create a level of 0.4P
of glucose and so avoid causing carbon catabolite repression.
Carbon source catabolite repression has many consequences. It prevent the
transcription of many yeast genes and immediately impacts other systems
post-transcription. Among these it prevents yeast from assimilating maltose
and maltotriose and prevents respiration, even if oxygen is present
(Crabtree). There are many changes in the secondary metabolic pathways and
repressed cells fail to develop functional mitochondria (like petite
mutants).
If you intent to grow yeast with some degree of respiration (which is very
efficient and can produce high quality yeast) then glucose repression is bad
news. If you just intend to let your starter ferment out anaerobically -
it's much less of an issue *BUT* the fact is that yeast do not like the
stress of high gravity fermentation. Ideally yeast prefer growth on
<10P(<1.040SG) starter wort. Yeast grown on 15P(1.060SG) or higher wort
should be discarded - the hi-gravity stress causes performance problems. It
is an error to think that growing yeast in a high gravity starter prepares
then to thrive in a hi-gravity fermenter. It just stresses them into worse
performance when pitched.
Back to the question - yes, as long as you keep the diluted glucose below
0.4% you'll avoid catabolite repression. After your starter has been
bubbling away for 6 hours it's safe to assume all the glucose is gone. If
you had a 1 liter starter, either fully fermented out or else at least 6hrs
into bubbling, then you could add another liter of 1.056SG starter wort
which will cause the 2 liter combination to average just under 0.4% glucose.
Alternatively you could add as much 1.028SG wort as you please and never hit
0.4% glucose.
If you add concentrated wort to the starter don't go overboard - keep the
effective combined OG under 1.048. Alcohol reduces growth and stresses
yeast too. Incremental additions of concentrated wort is exactly how the
very high alcohol beers are made using normal brewing yeast - it causes less
stress but still too much to accept in a starter.
-S
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2003 19:45:09 -0500
From: "National Midnight Star Brewery" <NationalMidnightStarBrewery at hotmail.com>
Subject: Steam rolled barley
I am thinking of playing around with malting some barley to see how it goes.
The local Co-op has "Steam rolled barley" at $12.50USD for 50 pounds. Does
anyone have any idea what "Steam rolled barley" is and if it is suitable for
malting?
Thanks for the bandwidth and consideration!
William Menzl
Midland, Michigan [99.8, 344.8] Apparent Rennerian
National Midnight Star Brewery
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 08 Nov 2003 19:52:51 -0500
From: Randy Ricchi <rricchi at houghton.k12.mi.us>
Subject: convoluted copper cfwc
Has anyone used St. Pat's convoluted copper counter flow wort chiller? How
is it? Seems like it should work pretty well. At 5/8" ID, it should be even
faster than Heart's chiller. The question is, could it be too fast? Another
question would be do the convolutions trap and or hold gunk, making it
harder to clean? Any insight would be appreciated.
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2003 21:06:06 -0500
From: "Dave and Joan King" <dking3 at stny.rr.com>
Subject: FWH Additions to Boil?
I grow my own hops, use them for First Wort Hopping. In formulating a
recipe, I sometimes hold back the 1st boiling hop additions in order to
control the IBU level. Anyone know if there's any detrimental affect from
holding the first wort (whole) hops in a pan, wet with sweet wort in a hop
bag, until say 1/2 hour into the boil? That would be about an hour since
being left behind by pumping the sweet wort off the FWH, and into the brew
pot. I'm wondering about oxidation, other affects? Thanks for any
thoughts,
Dave (your hop head) King from BIER (Brewers In the Endicott
Region)
[396.1, 89.1] Apparent Rennerian
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 08 Nov 2003 21:53:02 -0700
From: Bob Devine <bob.devine at worldnet.att.net>
Subject: link of the week - Nov 8, 2003
Okay, week 2. I don't know where I got this idea to send
out a link each week but I'm having fun looking for good ones.
Everyone has probably heard of UC Davis and its strength in
studies for wine and beer. Charlie Bamforth is one of the
reasons Davis has a good reputation. Here's his web site:
http://foodscience.ucdavis.edu/bamforth/
Bob Devine
Santa Fe, NM
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 9 Nov 2003 09:18:57 -0500
From: "Don Scholl" <dws at engineeringdimensions.com>
Subject: Bottling
Over the weekend, I received a 5 gal. Pepsi keg full of my favorite barley
wine. Since I do not have a CO2 bottle to pour this wonderful liquid, I was
wondering if there was a way to bottle this with yeast and priming sugar? If
so, how would I go about doing it?
Don Scholl
Twin Lake, Michigan
(140.9, 302.4)Rennerian
------------------------------
End of HOMEBREW Digest #4396, 11/10/03
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