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HOMEBREW Digest #4442
HOMEBREW Digest #4442 Fri 02 January 2004
FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
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Contents:
RE: oak barrels ("-S")
Copper and Sodium Hydroxide (Fred Johnson)
Switching neutral ("Patrick Hughes")
Poles ("A.J deLange")
RE: Switching the neutral ("Richard Scotty")
Plambic Digest subscribers please take note ("John D. Misrahi")
re: switching neutrals ("Mike Sharp")
Re: Oak Barrels ("Rob Dewhirst")
Re: Brumalt enlightment ("Greg 'groggy' Lehey")
More Power To The Powerless ("Phil Yates")
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Date: Thu, 1 Jan 2004 01:19:07 -0500
From: "-S" <-s at adelphia.net>
Subject: RE: oak barrels
Brian of the great white north says ... ,
>I disagree with your assessment of burning sulfur strips as being of
dubious
>value and flavour impact. This is by far the preferred method of storage by
>winemakers,
Hold on there - you've taken my statement out of context. The question was
about STERILIZING oak barrels for beer, NOT barrel storage.
Burning sulfur pastilles will create some free SO2 which *inhibits* some
bacteria and fungi. Sulfite and burning sulfur pastilles are two different
ways of introducing SO2 and neither is capable of sterilization or even
Hbrewery level sanitization.
SO2 makes life difficult for many bacteria and fungi - but not all.
Specifically SO2 does a nice job of stopping acetos and lactos including
pedios. It does not stop many S.cerevisiae(S.c.) yeasts including wild
yeasts which will produce phenolic clovey and medicinal flavors. There is
an oft' repeated myth that SO2 somehow (magically) holds off wild yeast but
not cultured yeast. If we mean that certain non-S.c.yeasts are stopped
this is certainly true. SO2 at high levels will even stun S.c yeast - both
wild and cultured.. As a rule it does not kill S.c yeasts, probably some
non-S.c yeasts are undeterred too. At neutral pH of early fermentation
there are a lot of bacteria that can tolerate SO2.and make a mess of things.
>The gas itself does not seem to have a flavour impact.
Right, but the pastilles throw particles as well as drips and also produce
SO3 (which goes into solution as sulfuric acid). Pastilles should not be
used as a santization step immediately prior to barrel use, as some sources
claim. Most winemaking books suggest that after burning the sulfur for
*storage* that barrels be rinsed or spray washed before reuse. To the
extent this introduces a modest level of SO2 to the beer it should act as a
significant anti-oxidant and help reduce aldehyde levels. Any free sulfur
is another matter. There are bacteria which can "make a living" by
oxidizing elemental sulfur in acidic non-aerobic environments !
I still find the value of sulfur tapers in sanitization and flavor dubious
(i.e fraught with uncertainty and doubt). They may well have sufficient
anti-fungal activity to reduce the incidence of barrel rot.
====
This all begs the real question of oak barrels in beer - why are some people
hell-bent on introducing tannins and oxidation (barrels transpire some O2)
to beer, after going to great lengths to prevent this sort of damage ?
>From all I read traditional oak fermenters and shipping barrels were covered
with pitch to seal them and prevent beer+wood contact. Even the vanillin
and vanilla-like phenolic flavors which are a major benefit of oaking wine
taste smokey and out-of-place in beer to my tongue. I don't get the point
... now if you had a juniper-wood barrel you might have something !
-S
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 1 Jan 2004 07:31:01 -0500
From: Fred Johnson <FLJohnson at portbridge.com>
Subject: Copper and Sodium Hydroxide
Fellow brewers:
I only received one off-line response to my question about using a
solution of sodium hydroxide to clean my new copper counter flow
chiller. The Cole-Parmer chart indicates that a 20% solution of sodium
hydroxide with a 48 hour exposure period has "no effect", meaning no
deleterious effect. For aluminum, the chart indicates that 20% sodium
hydroxide will produce a "Severe effect: not recomended", so it does
look like copper is much more resistant to NaOH than is aluminum.
I was considering circulating a 5% solution for cleaning and perhaps
storing the chiller filled with a 0.5% solution. I really don't like
the idea of storing the chiller "dry", meaning it has residual water
sitting around in it growing things. I believe it should be stored with
something in it to prevent growth of fungi, bacteria, etc.
Anyone have any thoughts my plan? (I won't bother you all again on this
topic if I get no responses.)
Fred L Johnson
Apex, North Carolina, USA
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 1 Jan 2004 09:02:12 -0600
From: "Patrick Hughes" <pjhinc at eriecoast.com>
Subject: Switching neutral
I don't know of any reason to switch a neutral [the grounded conductor] , in
brewing applications, involving 120 volts or more, it is a conductor and
should be solidly connected continuous back to your power source. The metal
or mettalic components of your system should be grounded with the equipment
grounding conductor [the green or green w/ yellow stripe or bare copper
conductor if your wiring is following established protocol for
identification of conductors] not the grounded [white or gray] conductor.
This will always protect the mettallic components of your system from
becoming inadvertantly energized. The neutral and the ground should be
seperate and not connected together at any point in your brewing
equipment.If your ungrounded [hot] conductor is energized and your grounded
conductor [ neutral ] is not continuous back to the power source and one
were to place themselves in this return path you will find out why the
neutral is actually called a conductor. Not to mention you stand the chance
of damaging any electronic components in your system if you lose the neutral
while the hot is energized. GFCI protection is advisable and will not allow
you to connect the neutral [grounded conductor] to the green [grounding
conductor] at any point on the load side of the GFCI.
Safety First!
Patrick Hughes
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 1 Jan 2004 14:10:03 +0000
From: "A.J deLange" <ajdel at cox.net>
Subject: Poles
RE: Switching neutrals - Decisions with regard to such things are
better made with the help of the systems engineering approach rather
than simple adherence to the "better is the enemy of good enough"
mantra. The systems engineer would attempt to optimize over some
criterion, usually cost. The extra cost of the dual pole relay would be
compared to the cost of the repair (service call for the compressor in
my case) multiplied by the probability of the failure requiring the
repair (i.e. the direct cost of the "better" part compared to the
"expected cost" of not using it). Safety would be considered
(probability that someone would be injured if the neutral opened while
a phase stayed closed times the probability that someone would be
injured by this set of circumstances times the cost of defending the
lawsuit but this would have to be modulated by the expected cost of a
similar injury caused by switching only the phase when the outlet is
wired with reverse polarity (which occurs with proability 50% according
to the home inspector who looked at the place I live in now though in
my recent home improvement job I've only found 1 outlet with this
problem) as well as the costs related to other factors. Obviously
some products and projects have more of this formal systems engineering
than others (we always try to give our customers as much as they will
pay for) and it should be obvious that it does not insure the "best of
all possible worlds". When choosing an optimality criterion one has to
consider the question "optimum for whom?" The manufacturer of my
chiller saved a buck by using a single pole relay and thus made an
extra buck profit per unit (assuming he hasn't been sued in a reverse
wired outlet case). The cost of his decision was borne by me - the
user- when the system boundaries were expanded to include my brewery.
It's his job to optimize over his situation - it's my job to optimize
over mine.
If anyone thinks that my previous post was intended to say "Switch the
neutral!", it wasn't. It said use a SPDT if you want to switch only the
phase and a DPDT if you want to switch the neutral. I wish my chiller
manufacturer had decided to switch both but he didn't. I have to live
with this (or put in a double pole relay on my own). It's not actually
something that keeps me awake at night.
That said, I've seen many circuits where both the phases and the
neutral are switched (and sometimes fused as well) and many more where
it's only the phases. The designers of those pieces of equipment had
reasons for the choices they made.
And yes, many wires/cables are multiply insulated (and sometimes
armored as well). It depends on the application.
Happy New Year to all!
A.J.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 01 Jan 2004 15:40:25 +0000
From: "Richard Scotty" <rscotty2 at hotmail.com>
Subject: RE: Switching the neutral
Just thought I'd chime in on the subject as I began my professional carreer
as
an engineer with a major electrical manufacturer.
First and foremost, if you're having difficulty with relay contacts fusing
(sticking), you have seriously undersized your relay. You may want to
consider
purchasing a small motor contactor instead. I would expect a size 0 would
be
sufficient for most brewing applications, but consult the manufacturer's
tables
for your specific application. It'll cost a few bucks, but if you want to
eliminate the problem, this would be the appropriate solution.
Relay construction varies, but it is highly likely that all contacts are
attached to the same armature. In this case, if one of the contacts fused
and
held the armature closed, the neutral contact would remain closed as well.
Most of my brewery equipment is seriously over-engineered. I don't like
problems on brew day :-)
Rich Scotty
Chief Electrical Engineer
The Crapshoot Brewery
Highlands Ranch, CO
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 1 Jan 2004 15:22:30 -0800
From: "John D. Misrahi" <lmoukhin at sprint.ca>
Subject: Plambic Digest subscribers please take note
Due to a technical malfunction of sorts, the Plambic mailing list is
temporarily unavailable. Hopefully it will be up and running again shortly,
though some archive material is gone forever. I will post a notice here when
it is back in place. I think anyone who wants to remain a part of the list
will have to re-subscribe as I think that info was lost as well. I have
really enjoyed the good discussions there as of late and hope you will all
remain a part of it.
John Misrahi
Montreal, Canada
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 1 Jan 2004 13:23:38 -0800
From: "Mike Sharp" <rdcpro at hotmail.com>
Subject: re: switching neutrals
"Ronald La Borde" spoke something that's been on my mind while I've been
reading about "Switching the neutral"
"What if the hot side contact did stick, and the neutral opens, now you have
a potential hot box. So is this good or bad?"
In fact, that's why switching the neutral is a no-no in the code, unless you
guarantee to open the hot side at the same time. If you have welded
contacts, you're using the wrong device to switch the load. Generally
speaking, resistive loads will not weld contacts...inductive loads like
motorized chillers will. But then the switch must be rated for the reactive
load, and you'd be surprised how big the switch must be for inductive loads.
If you look carefully at the business end of an inductively rated switch,
you'll usually notice double contacts--in series, not parallel. This is so
the total air gap the arc must cross between the contact faces increases
twice as fast. The moveable contact is held in place with a spring, so that
if one face does weld, the contact will pivot up, allowing the other face to
break the circuit. Larger switches may have an arc-quenching coil at right
angles to the contact movement. This blows the arc out and away from the
center of the contact, cooling it faster and causing most of the scarring to
take place outside of the point of contact when the switch is closed.
If you have a two pole switch, and you're worried about welded contacts,
wire the poles *in series* with the hot side. Switching the neutral is
usually not a good idea.
Regards,
Mike Sharp
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 1 Jan 2004 20:05:12 -0600
From: "Rob Dewhirst" <rob at hairydogbrewery.com>
Subject: Re: Oak Barrels
> I disagree with your assessment of burning sulfur strips as being of
dubious
> value and flavour impact. This is by far the preferred method of storage
by
> winemakers, since filling with sulphite solution robs them of their
precious
> oak (again, if a neutral barrel is desired, this is not an issue). The gas
> itself does not seem to have a flavour impact.
There was a message a while back (Paul Gatza?) about burning sulphur and the
repeatedly bad flavor impact this method had on beer.
My impression is generally suphites and beer do not mix.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2004 13:17:18 +1030
From: "Greg 'groggy' Lehey" <grog at lemis.com>
Subject: Re: Brumalt enlightment
On Wednesday, 31 December 2003 at 18:50:06 +0100, Thomas Rohner wrote:
> Hi Wes
> as a german speeking guy, i hop i can translate it for you.
> It's not Bru-malt (at least that's what i think) it's Bruehmalz.
This seems reasonable.
> (Normally it would be a u with those double dots on it, instead of
> the ue, but i can't post this character on the HBD) The word means
> exactly what you guessed, bruehen=brewing.
Well, brauen means "to brew". Bruehen is more difficult to translate.
My dictionary says that it means "to blanch, to pour boiling water
over". In a brewing context you might use it to represent "to steep",
though I have no idea if this is the case.
> But it comes from the malting method. In the traditional floor-
> malting, they used thicker layers of wetted grains. By doing that
> the stuff heated up(brewed). That's what the maltsters want to
> avoid, for regular malts.
What is traditional flour malting?
Greg
- --
Finger grog at lemis.com for PGP public key.
See complete headers for address and phone numbers.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2004 15:49:51 +1100
From: "Phil Yates" <phil.yates at bigpond.com>
Subject: More Power To The Powerless
Groggy Greg from South Australia asks if I'm located in North East NSW.
No Sir!! That would put me uncomfortably close to "Captain Ego Of The
North".
Southern Highlands of NSW Greg, we enjoy a cool climate. Well we did, this
summer would burn the back end out of a malt roaster! I take your point
about not going over board regarding an emergency generator for brewing.
Perhaps I should add that apart from brewing fridges etc, I wouldn't mind
running some lights and of course the water pump without which, no brewing
can be done at all. I was told to allow quite a bit more for electric pumps
starting up, as opposed to just running them.
Jill's dad offered a spare thumping big 35kva generator he had. The beast is
run by a giant caterpillar diesel engine and could probably light up the
entire hamlet of Berrima. I could start selling electricity to the locals on
brew days!
Without getting scientific, I figured 10kva would cover all my brewing
activities along with a few other past times such as shearing wombats.
Cheers
Phil
------------------------------
End of HOMEBREW Digest #4442, 01/02/04
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