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HOMEBREW Digest #4449
HOMEBREW Digest #4449 Mon 12 January 2004
FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
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Contents:
link of the week - Jan 10 (Bob Devine)
adding yeast at bottling, or not? Liquid or dry? (Robert Marshall)
CO2 vs air in carboys (was bulk aging) ("Steve Arnold")
Re: creating clear canned wort ("Mike Dixon")
RE: creating clear canned wort ("David Houseman")
Bottling ("Dave Draper")
Starter trub ("PAUL SMITH")
Starter wort/bulk aging (Michael Grice)
re: Carbs ("-S")
Snorer's Stout ("Phil Yates")
Beer in Vienna (Stan Burnett)
Re: Invert Sugar ("-S")
Re: creating clear canned wort ("-S")
RE: Anchor Old Foghorn Clone ("Mark E. Hogenmiller")
coffee, caffeine, home roasting ! ("-S")
Melanoidin Malt usage ("National Midnight Star Brewery")
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Date: Fri, 09 Jan 2004 22:20:51 -0700
From: Bob Devine <bob.devine at worldnet.att.net>
Subject: link of the week - Jan 10
You think you have a recipe you're proud of? Just for comparison,
here is one that George Washington recommended:
http://www.wwnorton.com/college/history/archive/dig_hist/beer/assets/doc_01.htm
We have pre-prohibition beers. Does anyone want to try pre-revolutionary?
Bob Devine
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 09 Jan 2004 22:22:47 -0800
From: Robert Marshall <robertjm at hockeyhockeyhockey.com>
Subject: adding yeast at bottling, or not? Liquid or dry?
Hi all,
Since this is my first post after the New Year I wish wish everyone a
most joyous year to come!
I noticed someone posted a msg in the last couple of days where they
said they always add dry yeast
at bottling time and I wondered to myself how many brewers actually do
that with their homebrew?
The reason I ask is that I've noticed that many of my beers seem to take
an innordinate amount of time
to carbonate, and usually have a somewhat "tang" of corn sugar flavor
(which is what I use to bottle
condition).
If you do use dry yeast, do you simply pour it in the beer prior to
bottling, or do you reconsitute it in some
sterile wort and then add it that way? If the latter, would it be more
beneficial to use a liquid yeast rathr
than a dry yeast? That way, I could also use the same strain as I brewed
with.
Thoughts?
Robert
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 06:03:01 -0600
From: "Steve Arnold" <vmi92 at cox-internet.com>
Subject: CO2 vs air in carboys (was bulk aging)
Al wrote:
"...If you're careful about sanitation and careful about the absolutely
essential task purging air from your carboys with co2 when you rack..."
How do you purge air from your carboy before racking?
-Steve A
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 08:18:14 -0500
From: "Mike Dixon" <mpdixon at ipass.net>
Subject: Re: creating clear canned wort
> From: Matthew Riggs <braumeister at cox.net>
> Subject: Re: creating clear canned wort
> I have the same problem. Next time I am going to first boil the whole
> mess of wort to seperate some of the hot break. Then I am going to cool
> it, then can as usual. I know it seems like a bit of work, but it is not
> that much more and I only use the jars once, when canning.
If you cool it you will need to heat it back to boiling before canning.
>
> I might experiment and skip the cooling to see how much trub I get out
> with just the hot break. Will let you know how it goes.
I've tried it both ways. Boiled and cooled, siphoned then pressure canned.
Then I tried just runoff, heat to boiling and pressure can. The amount of
trub is larger in the batches where I just sparge, heat to boiling and can,
but not by much, and the color of the wort is much less caramelized in the
batches that are only sparged as opposed to boiled and cooled. Also you can
get quite a bit of starters if you make a normal batch size, since I
generally run off 7 gallons for a 5 gallon batch. Since you will NEVER have
a pressure canned starter without the trub, I just decant into a new
container and go.
Cheers,
Mike
www.ipass.net/mpdixon/
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 09:24:31 -0500
From: "David Houseman" <david.houseman at verizon.net>
Subject: RE: creating clear canned wort
While I sometimes have to create a starter from DME, I usually just use the
wort from my brewing sessions. After filling my kettle, there's always some
extra wort in the mash tun, the second runnings (or dregs, depending on your
perspective). You can even add additional sparge water to the mash tun for
a batch sparge to get some second runnings. This I'll collect in a separate
kettle and boil, sometimes with just a little hops, to create start wort.
This is canned or refrigerated, depending on when I expect to use it. The
style isn't important for the starter. There's lots of "free" starter wort
available.
Dave Houseman
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 10:50:10 -0700
From: "Dave Draper" <david at draper.name>
Subject: Bottling
Dear Friends,
With the recent commentary on priming amounts for small numbers of
bottling, and general bottle priming as well, I thought I'd mention my old
article (coauthored with Mark Hibberd) on priming bottled beer that appeared
in the July/August 1996 issue of Brewing Techniques. A somewhat less
wordy version of it is still to be found on my beer page (URL below). Not
trying to toot my horn or anything, it's just another perspective on the
subject.
Speaking of BT, I'm sad to say that I no longer own a copy of the issue my
piece appeared in. I lent it to a brewer at my local Rock Bottom back in
north Texas (he used to give me big slugs of yeast from his fermenters for
me to use), and never got around to collecting it before I moved from
there, and have lost touch since. Anybody out there with that issue, a
scanner, and Adobe Acrobat who would take pity on my pathetic plight and
scan me the article in pdf form and email it?
Thanks and cheers,
Dave in ABQ
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
David S. Draper, Institute of Meteoritics, Univ New Mexico
David at Draper dot Name
Beer page: http://www.unm.edu/~draper/beer.html
...I drink cool ale... ---Kirk Fleming
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 13:24:32 -0600
From: "PAUL SMITH" <pksmith_morin1 at msn.com>
Subject: Starter trub
Personally, I've never had a problem. The tremendous pressure of the p.c.
generates a very clear break, the trub settles out to the bottom of my quart
ball jars, and I have brilliantly clear wort above. I sanitize the lids and
rims of the jars at each starter step, and nothing but this clear wort goes
into my fermentor. I crash cool my yeast at the end of the final pre-batch
step, and draw off the (now, beer) anyway.
Good to be back. Been away for quite some time. Brewing an Imperial IPA at
19.25 OG/90 IBU, in celebration of my wife's grandad's upcoming 85th b.d.
(the man is a hop fiend)...
Paul smith
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 15:06:18 -0600
From: Michael Grice <grice at binc.net>
Subject: Starter wort/bulk aging
Raj asks for opinions about aging in bulk versus aging in bottles. For
beer, the one clear advantage to aging in bulk is consistency of flavor.
For beer bulk aged in a carboy or keg, aging should affect all of the
beer in the container in the same way. All of the beer is under more or
less the same conditions. Any variations in conditions are eliminated
(or at least vastly reduced) by diffusion.
Each bottled beer, on the other hand, will age independently of the
other bottles depending on storage conditions. Depending on your bottling
technique, each bottle may not be the same. For instance, depending on
your technique you may have slight variations in the amount of yeast,
trub, priming sugar and oxygen in each bottle. Differences in storage may
be minor, or they may be pretty significant. For a beer which undergoes
extensive aging, this may mean that your finished product will have a
lot of variation.
***********************************************
As for clear, canned starter worts, I kicked around a couple of ideas
without thinking of anything useful. For instance, running the starter
wort through a coffee filter after boiling might work (and I do stress
the word "might"), but it's more work and is a pain to sanitize. I liked
Jeremy's idea about adding enzymes, although it had its drawbacks. Then
there's washing the starter yeast, or doing a mash with an extended
protein rest solely for starter work...
So I asked myself what the real problem is. Eliminating potential off
flavors from trub, right? So perhaps if you concentrated on getting rid
of the trub before it can introduce off flavors in the beer you'd be
better off.
My thinking is that you can reduce the risk of off flavors from all trub
by:
1. Decanting the starter beer off of the yeast prior to pitching
2. Racking the wort into a second fermenter a few hours after pitching
Let's say that 10% of a liter starter is trub. That's 100 mL. It's not
at all difficult to get at least that much trub into the fermenter after
the boil. I'm sure I usually have much more trub that that, although I
hope most of it is cold break.
So by letting the wort settle after pitching the yeast and then carefully
racking it into another fermenter, you can reduce the amount of all the
trub in the beer at the same time. Will this eliminate the problem?
Probably not, but I think it's a nice compromise between too much trub
in the wort and the amount of work required. This is an area you could
easily run into the law of diminishing returns.
Michael
Middleton
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 17:17:55 -0500
From: "-S" <-s at adelphia.net>
Subject: re: Carbs
Bill Wible asks,
>So if Miller Lite and IC Light were ALREADY low-carb
>beers, then what is the BIG DEAL about Michelob freakin'
>Ultra??
The patented A-B process that also removes 98% of the
flavor is the big deal ... that and the advertising hype.
-S
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 23:02:11 +1100
From: "Phil Yates" <phil.yates at bigpond.com>
Subject: Snorer's Stout
Just recently, I've taken to knocking off a few bottles of stout of an
evening prior to dinner. I haven't made a stout for myself for a long time
and the commercial one I rather like is Sheaf Stout.
Jill complains that every night I do this, I snore very badly (is this
opposed to snoring very well?). She says I have a problem and has threatened
to have my nose drilled out, or whatever horrid things are done in the much
talked about snoring operation. I tell her I'm not the one with the problem!
My snoring doesn't bother me in the least. I'm not even convinced it is me
rather than the cat who sleeps religiously with me on such nights in the
spare room.
But what can be causing this? Does anyone else suffer this problem? I
haven't yet told Jill the stout I'm drinking is around 6.8% Alc by volume. I
suspect it is the alcohol content rather than having anything to do with the
colour of the beer. What is it about alcohol consumption that exasperates
snoring propensities in middle aged old farts like me?
There must be a scientific reason.
Phil
p.s. thanks, but no thanks Wes. I aint putting my arm down the "S" bend
after you told me the Wollondilly Water Frog has sharp teeth and an
aggressive disposition. If he doesn't like the offerings, he can climb out
of there himself!
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 05:41:08 -0700
From: Stan Burnett <stanb at xmission.com>
Subject: Beer in Vienna
Thanks for all the responses for places to drink beer in Freiburg and
Nurnberg last month. I had some nice brews. I'll be spending a few days
in Vienna at the end of the month. Recommendations? Again, I have limited
internet access or I'd do a search first.
Thanks!
Stan Burnett
Tabor, CZ
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 11:28:45 -0500
From: "-S" <-s at adelphia.net>
Subject: Re: Invert Sugar
Wes Smith writes ....,
>As a brewing adjunct they are ideal as they ferment very cleanly without
>having to rely on the enzyme invertase in the yeast to do the "inversion"
>which once again is sometimes not always complete. There is a school of
>thought that this is one of the factors that leads to "citrusy flavours" in
>high sugar adjunct brewing.
That's about the most extreme case to be made in favor of invert sugar in
fermentation ... and it's very weak. Yeast normally will produce
prodigious and effective amounts of invertase. Getting yeast to handle
sucrose is rarely more difficult than getting them to tackle other sugar
adjuncts. In winemaking chaptalizing with sucrose is common and tests
reveal no differences as compared to fructose & glucose additions.
There is no credible evidence beyond speculation that fermentation of
sucrose causes any greater extent of "citrusy flavor" than the fermentation
of the component glucose and fructose. I've attempted to produce the citrus
flavor by fermenting separate sucrose, glucose and fructose solutions - with
no luck in any case. Other speculation include infection and the low
nutrient environment of high sugar-adjunct wort as the cause. High sugar,
and therefore low amino acid, worts will cause yeast to produce more organic
acids and this may be a causative factor.
==
> ... candi sugar ... boiling the sugar with some citric acid.
> We have an oxymoron here - candi sugar is crystalline sugar, invert sugar
> is exactly the opposite as outlined above. What Graham has outlined is
fine
> - just skip the citric acid and you will certainly be able to produce a
> more interesting sucrose solution.
I agree that candi is re-crystallized sucrose, and inverting the sugar will
prevent the traditional recrystallization process - but I can't see that it
makes any difference to flavor. The flavor and color of candi are primarily
due to caramelization and to a lesser extent ...
>it is made from the roots of the Sugar
>Beet and Chicory plants. It is a "pure" sucrose product but for what ever
>reason, does not seem to throw the same flavours as cane sugar
I don't have much experience with sugar from beets, but there are commercial
amounts grown in the US and esp Europe and both the US and most of Europe
have some impressive barriers to free trade in sugar. Of course the vast
majority of sugar in the US, and almost certainly in Wes' Oz are from native
sugar cane. Sugar beets and chicory (that's a new one on me) are
cold-climate sources of sugar and are grown in places like France, Belgium
and Germany, as well as the central USA.
What is (or should be) obvious is that "pure" sugar is a relative term.
Common cane based white granulated sugar smells a *lot* like molasses. Try
sniffing a closed container of white sugar upon opening - it's dead obvious.
Date sugar also has a characteristic smell. Beet sugar is said to have a
noticeable bitter background flavor from the beets. No experience with
chicory root sugar, but of course it's not traditional - a recent new use
for chicory.
Brewers with a much greater interest in tradition than I have should
probably examine the common sources of sugar in Belgium around the time that
candi sugar came into brewing use. It's a good bet that it was from sugar
cane of the West Indies. Beet sugar was first prepared in 1747 by a German
chemist, but wasn't commonly used till the Brits blockaded French ports
during the Napoleanic wars, 1793-1815. It wasn't till ~1880 that beet sugar
took dominance over imported cane sugar. Westmalle has been making beer
since the early 19th century so ... Is there an historian in the house ?
-S
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 12:53:56 -0500
From: "-S" <-s at adelphia.net>
Subject: Re: creating clear canned wort
Rob Dewhirst is concerned about berak in his pressure canned starter wort,
>>1) Ignore it. It won't hurt anything.
>
>I disagree and so do most of the brewing texts. We're not talking about
>a few floaties in the bottom of the jar. This is something close to
>5-10% of the volume of the liquid in the canning jars. That is an
>unacceptably high level to me.
I disagree with your reading of the lit Rob. There are argument both in
favor and against allowing much break material into the main FERMENTATION.
That's a bit different than for the starter.
There's no doubt that pressure canning precipitates a lot more hot & cold
break, and in a canning process there is no way to eliminate this until the
jar is opened. The break material consists of coagulated protein and
phenolic materials, a large fraction of the minor metal ions of the wort
(Zn, Cu, Fe, ... ) and a lot of the malt (and hops if used) lipids. The
yeast are quite happy to have the break present as it acts as a nucleation
sites for CO2 removal, yeast use the metal ions as required co-enzyme
factors, and use the trapped lipids for cell nutrition. There are several
papers documenting the yeasts use of break. Of course late in the main
fermentation you don't want excess lipids hanging around. The best course
seems to be one practiced in some German breweries of removing break a day
or two into the main fermentation.
>2) Decant to another container.
>
[..]
>If I must sanitize another container (which
>then must ALSO be cleaned afterwards) to make a starter, [..]
I think you missed the turn. Store the started in the canning jar break
and all, and decant (pour off the clear top fluid) into your starter-vessel.
You certainly aren't going to make a starter in a canning jar, are you ?
>So I am still searching for a solution to reduce the amount of trub in my
>canned starters.
====
Jeremy Bergsman adds,
>If you were to spend a
>great deal of time and money you could probably work out a
>way to digest the protein with good enzymes
Unlikely as the proteins are denatured and not very susceptible to enzymatic
degradation.
>2) use laboratory media. I do this for my yeast handling but not for the
>final starter, since I try to avoid ingesting lab products on principal.
If
>you really want a clear starter this is the way to go. I use YPM which is
>IIRC 2% peptone, 1% yeast extract, and 2% maltose. This stuff is
expensive.
Jeremy - I'd like to invite you and Rob to a meeting of Anal Brewer's
Anonymous at my place next Wednesday (I'm on step 9). Spending $10 a quart
to get clear starter media is more than a little silly.
===
My sincere advice is to store the canned wort break and all. If you feel
the need for emotional reasons, you can leave some of the break in the
canning jar when you pour it off - decant - but it's really not required.
It's a good idea in any case to transfer & decant your starter while the
fermentation is active since this collects the live in-suspension cells and
leaves behind dead cells and trub.
If you think break from a starter is "too much" you should collect 5gal of
your freshly cooled unpitched wort and chill it well for a few days at near
freezing as I have done. The amount of cold break that accumulates is
impressive. Most folks with in-line CFC chillers never remove this huge
load of cold break unless they rack/decant.
-S
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 13:59:34 -0800 (PST)
From: "Mark E. Hogenmiller" <hogenmiller at yahoo.com>
Subject: RE: Anchor Old Foghorn Clone
In HBD 4447 Dave Craft asks:
> Has anyone tried the Anchor Old Foghorn clone recipe
in the July Zymurgy?
>
> The SG is shown as 1.101 and ending 1.043. That is
under 60% attenuation
> and seems low. I had a bottle of this last night and
it was not as sweet as
> the EG would indicate. Do strong beers not ferment
out to full
> attenuation. I have made a few strong beers and
they seemed to finish out
> in the normal range if aerated and pitched well.
I made the Old Foghorn Clone from this recipe in Mid
November. The starting gravity was 1.102 and finished
after 25 days down to 1.020. I used White Labs
California Ale WLP 001 from a starter and aerated with
Oxygen before pitching. It is conditioning in the
bottle, right now, and still comes off a little sweet.
Remember to Mash at the low end of the range Approx.
148F to insure good attenuation.
Mark Hogenmiller
Burke, VA
Brewers United for Real Potables (BURP)
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 20:04:20 -0500
From: "-S" <-s at adelphia.net>
Subject: coffee, caffeine, home roasting !
Bob Hall, Spencer Thomas and Alexandre Enkerli all interested in home coffee
roasting ! Well add another to the list - I started roasting a couple
months ago. I have to say that the coffee roasting methods aren't
particularly similar to malt roasting, Alexandre's comments aside. The
roasting temps for coffee are higher and roasting times (<20 minutes)
notably brief.
Spencer's comments about the use of PIDs and advanced methods for home
coffee roasting considerable overstates the case I think. Home coffee
roasting technology is in serious need of the sort of innovation and
ingenuity that HBD has provided to HBers. A hot air popcorn popper as
coffee roaster is sufficient to make about 2 pots of coffee per run - a toy
system IMO. No one even discusses the background knowledge in enough detail
to make any sense. There are vague discussions of the dreaded "baked"
flavors from too-long roasting, but little interest in understanding what's
really happening.
Well by Monday I'll have my hands on a copy of Sivetz "Coffee Technology" -
(think M&BS but written by a guy as opinionated any HBDer). Is a 'Home
Coffee Roasting Digest' possible ? I'd certainly enjoy it. The Sweet
Maria's list is decent but has commercial restrictions(no dissing the
vendor) and rejects nearly all of my email addresses as a non-customer.
CoffeeGeek is a great place to read user reviews too.
Coffee isn't about to replace beer in my list of beverages, but it's has
some advantages.
-S
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 21:22:38 -0500
From: "National Midnight Star Brewery" <nationalmidnightstarbrewery at hotmail.com>
Subject: Melanoidin Malt usage
I am planning on making a PU type pilsner and I am planning on adding some
Melanoidin malt to mimic the "decoction" flavor. I have done a lot of
searching and typical usage appears to be 0.125 to 0.5 pounds. I have
copied my grain bill below. Anyone have any advice on how much Melanoidin
malt is appropriate?
Grain Pounds
Pilsner Malt 8.00
Light Munich Malt 1.00
Dextrin Malt (carapils) 0.25
Melanoidin Malt 0.25 (first guess)
Thanks for the consideration!
William Menzl
Midland, Michigan [99.8, 344.8] Apparent Rennerian
National Midnight Star Brewery
------------------------------
End of HOMEBREW Digest #4449, 01/12/04
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