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HOMEBREW Digest #4577
HOMEBREW Digest #4577 Mon 09 August 2004
FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
Digest Janitor: pbabcock at hbd.org
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THIS YEAR'S HOME BREW DIGEST BROUGHT TO YOU BY:
Beer, Beer, and More Beer
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Contents:
link of the week - becoming Einstein, one drink at a time (Bob Devine)
Re: I Hate Bottling/(but love)Coffee ("Stephen Alexander")
CPF oxidation ("Dan Listermann")
Chest Freezer/CO2 questions ("Jason Pavento")
Re: Pumps - Food Grade and Heat Resistant ("Rogers, Mike")
Counterpressure filling (Calvin Perilloux)
Re: CPF oxidation ("Pat Babcock")
Re: Re: Re: Re: I LOVE BOTTLING! ("Reddy, Pat")
re: Counterpressure Fillers and Oxidation (Tidmarsh Major)
Cleaning beer lines (Calvin Perilloux)
Melvico and other bottling thingys ("Jay Spies")
Pump ("Jay Spies")
RE: I hate bottling (Derric)
RE: Freezing fresh hops (Steven Parfitt)
more hating bottles, Prime Tab Sanitation (Mark Beck)
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Date: Sun, 08 Aug 2004 23:26:28 -0600
From: Bob Devine <bob.devine at worldnet.att.net>
Subject: link of the week - becoming Einstein, one drink at a time
A popular, but joking, theory has been that alcohol makes you smarter
because, just like wolves culling the feeble deer from the herd,
the brain cells killed by alcohol are the slow ones.
So drinkers have just the fast ones left! Hmm, maybe it is true.
[NOTE: you may have to join the following two lines]
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/
08/01/nalco01.xml&sSheet=/portal/2004/08/01/ixportal.html
Bob Devine
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 9 Aug 2004 03:03:57 -0400
From: "Stephen Alexander" <steve-alexander at ieee.org>
Subject: Re: I Hate Bottling/(but love)Coffee
First - Kudos again to PatB - he's da man.
- ----
Several luminaries discuss bottle conditioning(BC) vs forced carbonated(FC)
beers. ...
>"One never knows, do one?" Fats Waller, American Musician, 1904-1943
Fats may have been wrong in this case ... the flavor advantages of bottle
conditioning are clear enough.
I often brew used to brew a few extra gallons and then keg most and bottle
condition couple gallons of the same beer. You don't need a triangle test
and a statistical analysis to tell you that the bottle conditioned beer
would remain in far superior condition for much longer periods - it's dead
obvious ! One confounding point is that the two beers seldom have really
identical carbonation levels and that in turn impacts aroma perception and
foam/head and many other things. Still the differenceS are clear and the
advantage always in one direction.
The problem is not just about bottle conditioning. I had a rather nice FC
vienna lager on tap a few years ago and CP filled some bottle to take on a
trip. The trip never happened but tasting the unconditioned keg beer vs the
CP filled bottles a few weeks later also showed the same sort of flavor
differences I see between kegged and BC beers. Apparently minor air
inclusion is sufficient to set of a marked decline.
I am skeptical of the claim that bottle conditioning per-se is responsible
for dramattic differences in mouthfeel, or effective carbonation. The yeast
cells are nucleation sites and the foam active proteins and yeast both
settle at a good clip. We typically exclude most yeast from the keg and in
the case of long lagering the foam-head clearly drops over time as proteins
settle. I've several times had the experience of kegging a clear and
reasonably lagered beer ... the foam/head potential drops over time as more
in-'keg lagering' occurs. Disturbing the keg can resuspend 'stuff' and
dramatically increase head & mouthfeel.for several days, I strongly suspect
that claims of smaller bead bubbles, and different foam & mouthfeel in BC
beer are related to the suspended sediment in the pour..
Still in all - bottling is a PITA and an incredible bore w/ or w/o bottle
conditioning. 750ml bottles with screw caps that could stand a few
atmospheres might halve that work but kegs are the right size for all
occassions.. Scott & Dave vote for keg conditioning of various sorts and I
think that's the right track.
> ------------------------------
Alexandre Enkerli replied to a coffee question ....
Alex is right, the tiny amount of pulpy red berry around ripe coffee beans
is about 15P sugar, but you'd need loads fresh beans to get a gallon of pulp
and the pulp is reportedly harsh and has no relationship to typical coffee
flavor.
> No idea where to get berries but green beans are very easy to find.
> Among the best known resources is:
> http://www.sweetmarias.com/
Oh Alex - you forget that HBers are among the most frugal folk on earth,
and SweetMarias has boutique pricing. Those who reuse discarded gott
coolers found on the side of the road and buy sankes at a junkyards may
appreciate:
http://www.greencoffeeco-op.com/faq.asp
for a good selection of green coffee beans at the lowest prices to be had.
SweetMarias has a very nice website with reviews (and a nearly unreadable
forum) while coffeegeek.com and greencoffeeco-op.com have more usable forum
formats IMO. Nice folks all.
The roasting process creates the typical coffee flavor but note that well
roast barley can be made to taste rather similar to roast coffee with much
lower lipid levels than coffee beans, so the brewing value of coffee is
likely quite limited.
-S{teve Alexander}
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 9 Aug 2004 08:15:04 -0400
From: "Dan Listermann" <dan at listermann.com>
Subject: CPF oxidation
<Date: Sat, 7 Aug 2004 14:44:01 -0400
From: "Pat Babcock" <pbabcock at hbd.org>
Subject: CP Madness!!!
Also, there is generally a bit more pressure in the bottle after CP
bottling.
My hand-held unit usually pops out of the bottle after a fill - hard to
imagine air getting "sucked" in with the velocity at which the filler
propels
itself from the bottle when I relinquish my death-grip on it! >
After the counterpressure is released, the filler is withdrawn from the
bottle. The displacement of the stem's volume sucks air into the head space
of the bottle. Just watch the fill line descend as the filler is removed.
Dan Listermann
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 09 Aug 2004 05:19:52 -0700
From: "Jason Pavento" <jpavento at entravision.com>
Subject: Chest Freezer/CO2 questions
Hey y'all,
I recently received a Frigidaire chest freezer and kegging
setup as a gift and I have a couple quick questions...
I will obviously be using the freezer for purposes it was
not meant for (running at above freezing) and I have heard
that can shorten it's lifetime. Does anyone have any advice
on proper care and anything special I should do to keep it
running well for as long as possible?
Also does anyone know where I can get my 5lb CO2 tank
filled in the Milford MA area?
Jay,
Brewin' Rehab Homebrew at
The Boilover Brauhaus,
Milford MA 01757
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 9 Aug 2004 09:07:10 -0400
From: "Rogers, Mike" <mike.rogers at eds.com>
Subject: Re: Pumps - Food Grade and Heat Resistant
Michael asked advice on high temp pumps - Can anyone please recommend a
good source for an inexpensive pump?
Having ventured down this path a couple of years ago, I am very pleased my
purchase from www.morebeer.com <www.morebeer.com> .
H315: Pump - High Temp Polysulphone - $129
Description: After selling over 800 pumps we had the ideal brewing pump
custom built for Beer, Beer & More Beer by March Manufacturing. The main
factors we were looking for was a pump that was constructed of food-grade
material, would handle wort at boiling temperature, take back pressure (flow
restriction), and cost under $150. We chose to have the pump housing made
from polysulfone because it is a tough, food-grade plastic rated to
temperatures as hot as 250F. It offers many of the benefits of the ideal
material, stainless steel, without the prohibitive cost.
Mike Rogers
Cass River Homebrewers
Frankenmuth, Mi.
www.hbd.org/cassriverhomebrewers <www.hbd.org/cassriverhomebrewers>
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 9 Aug 2004 06:50:50 -0700 (PDT)
From: Calvin Perilloux <calvinperilloux at yahoo.com>
Subject: Counterpressure filling
Jeff Renner reports:
> I have also noticed that most homebrewers do not vent the keg of
> outside air once they have racked the beer into the keg and
> pressurized it with Co2.
Interestingly, most brewers whose operation I have seen will
purge the keg of air by pushing a full keg of liquid out with CO2.
Maybe it's a local thing. (grin)
> Many times brewers are not pressurizing the bottles and venting
> out the air before they fill the bottle with beer from the keg.
You mean the reverse order, right? Venting first, then pressurising.
That way, (most of) the air gets pushed out with the vent open before
the pressurising is even done. I still wonder if there is O2 remaining
in there, due to turbulent mixing of CO2/air in the venting process.
Could that be the problem?
However, I can certainly agree with Jeff that counterpressure filling
with the hand models is a pain. In one of my previous house I had
a specific shelf and set of hangars set up for CP filling which helped
a lot, having a hanger/hook above the area, so I could hang the
sterilised filler there in between fills. I thought I was good
at it, and I rarely spilled or sprayed beer. Yet the bottled beer
never did have the shelf life I'd hoped for. Now I usually just fill
the (cold, wet) bottle from the tap on low pressure and use an oxygen
absorbing cap, generally with good results.
But my best results still come from the bottle conditioned ones.
Calvin Perilloux
Middletown, Maryland, USA
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 9 Aug 2004 08:54:47 -0400
From: "Pat Babcock" <pbabcock at hbd.org>
Subject: Re: CPF oxidation
Greetings, Beerlings! Take me to your CP bottled lager...
"Dan Listermann" <dan at listermann.com> wrote ..
> After the counterpressure is released, the filler is withdrawn from the
> bottle. The displacement of the stem's volume sucks air into the head
> space of the bottle. Just watch the fill line descend as the filler is
> removed.
True, as Archimedes would attest; however, it is pretty safe to assume that
the headspace prior to withdrawing the filler is CO2 rich, due to the sudden
expansion of that gas with release of the filler. It is also pretty safe to
assume that the beer continues to outgas during the entire operation;
therefor, the headspace is continuously being enriched with CO2 - up to the
point you cap it. After being capped, the resulting system will attempt to
reach an equilibrium pressure for each gas on each side of the beer/headspace
boundary.
In any case, the amount of air left in the headspace after withdrawing the
filler won't be that great. Tell me? Do you pasteurize your beers? If not,
then the yeast in the bottle will take care of the oxygen that makes it to the
beer side of the system - there should still be more than enough in the
bottle. Over time, the system will continue to seek equilibrium, and the yeast
will continue to take care of that oxygen - in any case, we're not talking a
whole lot of air or, therefor, oxygen here. (And the oxygen remaining in the
bottle will asymtotically approach zero with time under cap.)
The headspace in a keg is typically an entirely different situation, having a
higher head volume to beer ratio and a greater exposed surface area for uptake.
Anyway, my point through all of this is that it seems highly unlikely that any
perceived oxidation notes would be due to the concept of counter pressure
bottling in and of itself. Poor practices in handling the beer destined for CP
bottling is a much more likely candidate.
- --
See ya!
Pat Babcock in SE MI
pbabcock at hbd.org
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 9 Aug 2004 09:02:30 -0500
From: "Reddy, Pat" <Pat.Reddy at mavtech.cc>
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: I LOVE BOTTLING!
You heard me right, I love bottling! Of course, that's because I HAVE
to bottle my 10 gallons I produce every month. My River Bound Brewing
Club members expect their 6 pack (or 12) every month. I don't think
they'd be satisfied with me dropping off 6 pint glasses full of fresh
brew.
I have used a CP filler in the past but find that it's much simpler and
faster to bottle condition. I've become a real pro using a spring
loaded filling tube - 2 as a matter of fact! Last night I bottled 10
gallons of Cutthroat Lager, a bottle in each hand filling 2 bottles at a
time, in under 1.5 hours.
Pat Reddy
River Bound Brewing
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 9 Aug 2004 10:04:31 -0400
From: Tidmarsh Major <tidmarsh at bellsouth.net>
Subject: re: Counterpressure Fillers and Oxidation
> Date: Sat, 7 Aug 2004 13:59:26 -0400
> From: "Dan Listermann" <dan at listermann.com>
> Subject: Counterpressure Fillers and Oxidation
>
> Commercial brewers induce foam
> into he head space by "knocking" the bottle or blasting a jet of CO2
> or water into the head space. The process is called "fobbing." The
> foam, being very rich in CO2, pushes the O2 in the air out of the headspace.
> The cap is then installed on a bed of CO2 foam minimizing O2 in the head
> space.
Fobbing can also be accomplished in bottle conditioned beer. I've found
that when I use Prime-Tabs (no affiliation, etc.), the tablets in the
bottom of each bottle cause the beer to foam, and I can usually manage
to get a cap on the bottle just as (or slightly after) the foam fills
the headspace.
Tidmarsh Major
Tuscaloosa, Ala.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 9 Aug 2004 07:06:27 -0700 (PDT)
From: Calvin Perilloux <calvinperilloux at yahoo.com>
Subject: Cleaning beer lines
David Perez reportedly dislikes the fun of cleaning out brew lines.
Oh my, how can this be? Dave, just hang a bottle brush and a really
nasty bottle inside your fridge, so every time you get ready to take on
that tedious line-cleaning task, you'll be reminded that there are
worse things than flushing lines!
Personally, I like to completely disassemble my taps and line system
and scrub the insides with a long tubing brush, then flush with hot
cleaning solution (PBW), and then run sanitiser like StarSan through
it.
If you do this EVERY WEEKEND, you know your beer is being served
in good shape.
Yeah right! Every weekend? Yes, I am joking. What does help,
though, is to keep the serving port clear, and keeping that spray
bottle of StarSan or Iodophor nearby helps. And whenever I'm cleaning
kegs, I make sure to disconnect the beer lines from the serving kegs
and give them a flush with cleaner and then sanitiser, rather than
cleaning only when a keg runs out. This seems to make it a lot easier
to get a good cleaning done later on.
And yes, once every six to twelve months or so, I do disassemble the
entire setup down to the internal tap gaskets.
Calvin Perilloux
Middletown, Maryland, USA
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 9 Aug 2004 10:48:09 -0400
From: "Jay Spies" <jayspies at citywidehomeloans.com>
Subject: Melvico and other bottling thingys
All -
Skotrat opines thusly:
>>I rarely bottle any longer but when I do I use my MELVICO Counter-pressure
bottler.<<
Amen to that. A good friend of mine in my brew club has a Melvico, and I
used it to bottle a barleywine batch in Feb of 2000. We purged each bottle
with CO2 3 times before filling (the Melvico fills at about 25 psi, and you
can fill, purge, fill, purge, fill, purge with CO2 before the beer flow
starts.) I also used O2 absorbing caps. I also pushed out the sanitizer in
the receiving keg with CO2, and then purged the remaining headspace with CO2
after it was filled. After 4+ years I can detect no oxidation (I know big
beers like this can hide a good bit of oxidation, but I'm pretty good at
picking it up). I own a HopTech CP filler. I have since stopped using that
after being unable to eliminate oxidation (and reporduce what the Melvico
can do). The Melvico is a stellar little tool. Expensive, and a CO2 hog,
but stunningly good at what it does... Melvicos are currently collectors
items. See here: http://kegman.net/4482.html
My point is that done right and with the right equipment, CP bottling can be
done without oxidation. I use the Melvico normally only for big beers that
I am unsure will self-carbonate acceptably (and when I can pry it out of my
friend's fingers). For all others, I brew 12 gallons, fill 2 kegs, then use
primetabs and a cobra tap to fill just abut a case with the rest of the
batch. I push the beer out of primary with CO2, so I can use a cobra tap to
fill bottles once my 2 kegs are full.
>>Is it the CP bottlers?
Is it laziness by the brewers to bottle correctly (Off the cobra tap)
Is it the kegging process used by the homebrewer?
Is it just that homebrew does not stay "fresh" as long if not bottle
conditioned?<<
Yes, yes, yes, yes, IMO...
A quick question for the collective: What do folks think of O2 absorbing
caps? Effective? Crap? I know not to soak them before use, but any
opinions on their effectiveness in scavenging O2 from a taste perspective?
Jay Spies
Head Mashtun Scraper
Asinine Aleworks
Baltimore, MD
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 9 Aug 2004 10:56:14 -0400
From: "Jay Spies" <jayspies at citywidehomeloans.com>
Subject: Pump
All -
Mike Sez:
>>I am interested in purchasing a pump to transfer hot wort among other
liquids. Can anyone please recommend a good source for an inexpensive pump?
Any other pump purchasing tips will be appreciated. Thanks for the help.<<
I use (2) Beer Beer & More Beer pumps in my system, B3 stock #H315. $129
shipped. Great little pump, fast flow, resistant to 250F liquids, and
pretty quiet. It's been unremarkable, which means that I turn it on and it
goes. No problems. I've seen 'em cheaper, but since B3 sponsors the HBD,
give them a shot. Great service and products...
Jay Spies
Head Mashtun Scraper
Asinine Aleworks
Baltimore, MD
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 9 Aug 2004 08:56:29 -0700 (PDT)
From: Derric <derric1961 at yahoo.com>
Subject: RE: I hate bottling
> I understand that a bottled conditioned beer has
more
> active yeast than a CP bottled beer. ... However,
a
> CP filled beer does still have live yeast assuming
> no filtration, just less, right? ... Or is it during
> the act of bottle conditioning that the yeast
> prophylactically prevents the oxidation from
> occurring at a later time?
I think the latter. A CP bottled beer has live yeast,
but the yeast have "no food" and, probably, aren't
using O2 very much. Bottle conditioning has yeast,
O2,
*AND* fresh yeast food, so you get yeast growth, O2
consumption, etc.
> ... could you "bottle" condition in a keg (recall
> recent HBD questions about keg conditioning with
> sugar), then CP fill, *and* get the same benefit?
>From my logic, I don't think you'd get the benefit.
There is no added "food" at CP time, so the yeast
don't
do much.
> ... Could you, say, add live yeast upon CP bottling
> to improve the long term stability of artificially
> carbonated kegged beer?
Again, to my thinking, no, since there is no "food"
the
yeast aren't going to do much.... throw in some sugar
and maybe so!
Derric
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 9 Aug 2004 09:42:45 -0700 (PDT)
From: Steven Parfitt <thegimp98 at yahoo.com>
Subject: RE: Freezing fresh hops
>Date: Sun, 8 Aug 2004 16:31:26 -0700 (PDT)
>From: Chris Locke <lockechris at yahoo.com>
>Subject: Freezing fresh hops
>
>I am getting ready to harvest my hops and was
>wondering why they should be dried first. Can't I
>just freeze them immediately after harvesting?
>
>Thanks for any advice,
>Chris.
Dry them first or they will give a very grassy flavor.
Then freeze them for long term storage. Compress as
much air out of them as you can before freezing them.
Steven
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 09 Aug 2004 10:08:32 -0700
From: Mark Beck <beckmk at whitman.edu>
Subject: more hating bottles, Prime Tab Sanitation
I like to bottle condition a 6-pack or two each time I keg. In order to do
this, I got some PrimeTabs, which I thought would be the perfect
thing--just pop a few in each bottle, and then you're good to go. Problem
is that they come in a package of 250, so I use maybe 10% of them at a
time. Once they get opened, I don't know how to keep them sanitary.
I bottled some IPA using a package of Prime Tabs that had been previously
opened, and I got a small layer of film floating on the beer in each
bottle, and I guess it's because of sanitation problems from the Prime
Tabs. Anyone know what this is? I got the nerve up to try one, and it
didn't have any obvious off flavors.
In the future, I'll probably take the suggestions over the past few days to
cask-condition my kegs (not force-carbonate) and then I can just directly
fill a few bottles at kegging time.
Mark
------------------------------
End of HOMEBREW Digest #4577, 08/09/04
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