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HOMEBREW Digest #4653
HOMEBREW Digest #4653 Tue 16 November 2004
FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
Digest Janitor: pbabcock at hbd.org
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Contents:
Mango Madness and Oxidation ("Graham L Sanders")
Bitter brew ("Tom Clark")
Re: pH meter accuracy question ("Greg 'groggy' Lehey")
Beer Geek on the Radio - Wednesday Morning ("Rob Moline")
North to Alaska! (John Palmer)
Christmas Ale Question (Chris Keenan)
Re: Christmas Ale Question ("Spencer W. Thomas")
Christmas stout ("Marc Sedam")
Yeast ("Chad Stevens")
Beer Line ("Antony Hayes")
pH meter accuracy question ("Mike Racette")
Civil War Brewing (kmstfb2)
Stained Al, Christmas Stout ("Dave Burley")
Lagering & Carbonation Question (Michael Fross)
RE: gluten free beer (Robert Hinterding)
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 13:22:00 +1000
From: "Graham L Sanders" <craftbrewer at bigpond.com>
Subject: Mango Madness and Oxidation
G'Day All
Those who know me, will tell you I love this hobby. So much so, that instead
of just making great standard beers everytime, I constantly experiment. Its
this constant thirst for knowledge that drives me. The last few years, I
have been going thru an an#l period with oxidation. Steve A has a lot to
answer for this, but causing all sorts of revelations. One is that oxygen is
bad for beer at any time of production. This includes when pitching yeast,
and one should be supplying only enough for the yeast, and no more. Drip
feeding O2 is the best option. but how far does this O2 badness extend.
In my interest to be satisfied, (not with SWMBO mind you), I have been
conduction experiments of adding a tiny pinch of Sodium Metabisulphite to
the keg at filling. I have been comparing two exactly the same kegs, one
with the Sodium Met added, and one not. Naturally doing all things right,
bleeding O2 out, no splashing etc. Also been doing some triangular tastings
as well to see if there is a difference.
And the results. Well its like decoction mashing, its there, but hard to
pick. If one was to sample a beer from either keg on its own, you would not
tell the difference. Beers taste great, but you cant tell which is which.
And thats all drinkers.(bear in mind these are fresh samples - one would
wonder if a aged keg would show better differences.). Triangular taste
testing, on the other hand, showed SOME beer drinkers tasted a difference.
They picked correctly the Sodium Met kegs to be different, and better. Note
the comment SOME. It turns out its the "experienced" tasters who could pick
it. Other less experienced drinkers could not. The interesting thing is
no-one could say "why this beer is better". Best I got, "it tastes fresher".
I'm going to do some long term experiments to see storage ability of these
beers. However the results to me are clear. For the an#l and for piece of
mind one should do it. For competitions its clear one should really do it,
it makes a difference, even in bottles. BUT, its a an#l preference. A normal
drinker, turning over beers quickly, should not worry.
Now yet again Phil chimes in >>>>>>>Graham comments that he went through 9
litres of beer in three days during one humid patch.So what?<<<<<< Well Phil
one would wish you southerners would lift your game. The average for
Australias beer consumption is about 100 litres per year average. Now us
Northerners actually consume closer to 200 litres a year, which means you
lot down there are letting the team down, big time. The "so what" is while 9
litres in 3 days is achievable, even for you, none of you can, and therefore
dont maintain that consistency.
No wonder those brewing Swedish maids that eventually made it to my place
complained like hell "gee Phill just doesn't have the stamina to perform
day in, day out."
What else >>>>>>>> Personally, anyone who chooses to live in places like
Townsville has in my view gone troppo before they even got there!<<<<< Well
it has a few benefits as well. the mango tree is more like a cannon ball
tree. Its utterly covered in mangos. We are eating mangoes like they are out
of fashion. 10 a day. And the mango lambic is getting pure fresh mango juice
squirted straight into the keg. Yes its tough having to suffer like this.
And suffer we do. When you get the dreaded "mango runs", you know you have
too much of a good thing.
Now Dave wants to be careful with what he asks people to do >>>>>>>If you
want a look at Graham Sander's Mug as well his beer mug check out:<<<<<<<.
Keep doing this and Pat will ban you mate. One thing Pat wont tolerate is
you trying to frighten the posters with obscene images. We do have standards
to keep!!!!!!!. And besides, I dont want all those desperate and lonely
female brewers now wanting to contact me. Bad enough Dr Pivo is sending
lonely Swedish visitors my way, now I have Dave wanting to set me up me
every female brewer in the USA.
But naturally there's a good side to this. If any want to do battle with
SWMBO your more than welcome. I wont complain if she is rolled. " A change
is as good as a holiday."
Shout
Graham Sanders
Oh
One benefit with all these mangos about. SWMBO is utterly gorging herself
full of the stuff. This is either an insult to my s*xual ability, or a
blessing, for she recons eating mangos is better than s*x. Now this does not
stop her thirst for lifes pleasures, for she is still very demanding. But
the mangos stop her dead. When mangos are going thru her at that rate of
knots, well she is totally out of action. I am FREE to do other
things!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Pity mango season is so short.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 22:31:02 -0500
From: "Tom Clark" <rtclark555 at charter.net>
Subject: Bitter brew
Some beer that I made over three years ago and was too bitter at that time
has now mellowed considerably with age.
Perhaps aging helps some.
Tom Clark
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 15:02:59 +1030
From: "Greg 'groggy' Lehey" <grog at lemis.com>
Subject: Re: pH meter accuracy question
On Monday, 15 November 2004 at 19:04:04 -0600, Gary Smith wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'm looking at some different pH meters and it
> looks like the pHep 4 & pHep 5 are nice
> candidates. Auto temp adjusting & the whole
> shebang. The only difference I have found
> between the two is the 4 has a 0.1 accuracy and
> the 5 has a 0.01 accuracy.
Are you sure that this is accuracy and not resolution? It's easy to
build a meter with another digit on the display. The question is
whether that digit means anything.
> Doesn't seem that there would be much practical difference to me as
> a brewer between the two of them but there is a price difference.
Agreed, more than one digit after the decimal point doesn't make much
difference.
Note that you'll need to calibrate either kind of meter from time to
time if you want useful readings. The first time I calibrated mine,
it was off by 0.4 pH (reading too alkaline). You'll need some kind of
buffer solution for that.
Greg
- --
Finger grog at lemis.com for PGP public key.
See complete headers for address and phone numbers.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 23:16:20 -0600
From: "Rob Moline" <jethrogump at mchsi.com>
Subject: Beer Geek on the Radio - Wednesday Morning
- -----Original Message-----
From: Wallace, Robert S [EEOBS]
Subject: Beer Geek on the Radio - Wednesday Morning
This message is to inform you that the Semi-Annual "Talk of
Iowa
Beer Show", produced and hosted by Katherine Perkins, will air this
coming
wednesday morning, November 17th, at 9:00 am (Central Time) on WOI AM
(640
kHz). I believe it will also be re-broadcast at 9:00 pm that same
evening.
I will be the guest on this show, and we will be talking about
beer in general, a bit about the plants and plant products that go into
brewing, and about some of the recent advances in the brewing
world. Certified and aspiring Beer Geeks may pick up some tidbits of
information about beer, brewing, and related subjects. Prizes will be
awarded for correctly answering beer trivia questions (see below).
If you are out of state (and thus, out of AM radio range from
central Iowa), you can catch the broadcast by live streaming audio via
the
World Wide Web at the WOI-AM radio web site. Go to:
http://www.woi.org and click on the "Listen to WOI" link, and then click
on
the "Listen to WOI - AM Stream" link - you'll be connected to the live
audio stream from the station..... - (NOTE: Realplayer software will be
needed, downloadable for free from this site.)
Alternatively, you can link directly
to: http://www.woi.org/stream/woi-am.ram if you already have
Realplayer
software.
Prizes for answering beer-related questions will be a $ 25 gift
certificate to Court Avenue Tavern (DSM) and a copy of Randy Mosher's
book,
"Radical Brewing". Toll free call-in number is 800-262-0640. If you
know
any other beer geeks, feel free to pass this info along as you see fit!
Cheers,
Rob
Robert S. Wallace, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Botany
Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Organismal Biology
Iowa State University
Ames, Iowa 50011-1020 U.S.A.
Tel: +001-515-294-0367
FAX: +001-515-294-1337
Web
Site:
http://www.ag.iastate.edu/departments/eeob/faculty/profiles/WallaceR/wallace
.html
- ---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
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------------------------------
Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 22:40:26 -0800
From: John Palmer <jjpalmer at altrionet.com>
Subject: North to Alaska!
I had the real pleasure of meeting Pete, Aimee, Dennis, and Lisa at
this year's AHA conference in Las Vegas, and I must say you have never
met a more dedicated group of brewers! I can't think of any other group
that would go to the lengths necessary to get a firm grip on a walrus'
"tap handle" in order to fill a glass!
And, the idea to have the conference in AK is a good one. I must say,
that is one place I have never been and it would add to my incentive
for going. Not as geographically convenient a drive as Vegas, but for
Alaska, I am more willing to foot the bill than say, Ohio, for example
(unless they're playing Michigan the same weekend).
John Palmer
john at howtobrew.com
www.realbeer.com/jjpalmer
www.howtobrew.com - the free online book of homebrewing
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 07:49:29 -0500
From: Chris Keenan <keenanc at gmail.com>
Subject: Christmas Ale Question
Hi all,
I recently (about a week ago) brewed a Christmas Ale from a kit. It
is one that you add the spices to the fermenter when you pitch the
yeast and then remove the spice bag after 4 days when you rack to the
secondary...
Well I brewed this on 11/6 (the Saturday before last). Instead of
putting the spices in (cinemon, orange, cloves, etc.) when I pitched
the yeast (as I did last year and infected the entir batch) I put them
into the last 5 minutes of my boil, cooled the wort, and pitched the
yeast. The instructions recommended that I remove the spice and rack
after 4 days. I waited a week, as the airlock was still going. When
I opened the fermenter (a plastic bucket) There still was a "yeasty"
foam (kind of a slimy foam type thing) on top of the beer. I racked
11/13 and when it went into the seconary, it was fine, a few hours
later the foam was coming back to the top of the beer, and last
evening when I got home from work I had a "yeast foam" on top of the
beer. I used White Labs Belgian Ale Yeast ( WLP500) I guess my
questions are as follows...1) Is this okay or normal 2) Is there
anything I can do to get rid of this before I want to keg it? 3)
Should I do anything or just relax?
Thanks, I am kind of worried as this got infected last year.
Thanks!
Chris Keenan
Arlington, MA
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 08:39:01 -0500
From: "Spencer W. Thomas" <hbd-mod at spencerwthomas.com>
Subject: Re: Christmas Ale Question
Chris Keenan is concerned about the "yeasty foam" on top of his beer.
He asks "is this okay or normal?"
Yes, Chris, this is perfectly normal. "Top fermenting" (ale) yeasts
often produce a cap on the fermenting beer. In the secondary this cap
will be almost pure yeast. If you're using a bucket as a fermenter you
can very easily harvest the yeast for reuse using a large sanitized
spoon (into a sanitized jar).
=Spencer in Ann Arbor, MI
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 09:52:38 -0500
From: "Marc Sedam" <alechemist at bellsouth.net>
Subject: Christmas stout
Doug,
Why not try a cherry stout? It's got a holiday kind of flavor to it, and
would go well with turkey/lamb/meal of choice. I made one for a friend that
was well received. Regular sweet stout recipe and added a can of the Oregon
cherry puree in the secondary and kegged with sour cherry concentrate as
priming sugar (you can calculate how much by looking at the grams of
carbohydrates/serving and figuring out how many servings you need to get
around 150g sugar. I usually add more "grams carbohydrates" than grams of
corn sugar because there's bound to be some unfermentables in there. Pretty
tasty stuff, really.
Cheers!
Marc
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 07:28:59 -0800
From: "Chad Stevens" <zuvaruvi at cox.net>
Subject: Yeast
Y'all,
Anyone have a haploid/diploid/tetrapoid breakdown of various commonly
available brewing yeast? I assume most single strain ale are haploid and
most single strain lager are tetrapoid but are there any diploid strains
floating around out there? I do a lot of re-pitching; it's more a question
about stability than anything.
Thanks,
Chad Stevens
QUAFF
San Diego
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 19:35:23 +0200
From: "Antony Hayes" <anthayes at telkomsa.net>
Subject: Beer Line
My beer lines are 30cm and 50 cm respectively, and since using Moritz method
as outlined by Llew, I do not have a foaming problem. It helps to have a
decent tap.
Ant Hayes
Johannesburg
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 12:48:28 -0700
From: "Mike Racette" <mike.racette at hydro-gardens.com>
Subject: pH meter accuracy question
Gary Smith asks:
"Any realistic reason I would want the .01 vs .1
accuracy with all grain brewing?"
No need to get 0.01 pH accuracy in brewing, but if you think you may someday
decide to make wine too, then its generally considered that at least 0.01
accuracy is best.
Miker
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 15:56:10 -0500 (EST)
From: kmstfb2 at exis.net
Subject: Civil War Brewing
I am trying to design a recipe that would have be authentic for Union
Troops in the Civil War. The group I am brewing for would represent
troops from New Hampshire. After searching HBD, I did find a Confederate
Receipt Book but have not found anything for northern troops. Any ideas or
references would be helpful. Thanks and Happy Brewing Tom
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 17:58:52 -0500
From: "Dave Burley" <Dave_Burley at charter.net>
Subject: Stained Al, Christmas Stout
Brewsters:
I agree with Mike Bennet's suggestion to Robert Zukosky's blackened Al kettle
to not worry about it, but disagree with his comment on the cause of the
color.
Aluminum Oxide is colorless and coats every aluminum pan or the pan would
dissolve in contact with acid and even water. It is the Al203 which gets
stained and gives the color. Don't worry. An alkaline cleaner like sodium
carbonate ( washing soda) may remove the coloring matter.
For those old enough to remember those colored "anodized" aluminum drinking
"glasses" this was just dye applied to aluminum which had been given a heavy
coat of Al203 by anodizing it.
- ---------------
Doug's SWMBO asked him for a Christmas Stout. He asks us for suggestions on
the design.
Doug when you do a Christmas Stout try using some lactose ( like in a milk
stout) to sweeten it a little along with your spices ( I'd use Cinnamon,
cloves and other Gluhwein related spices) . Milk stouts were made in Britain
supposely for nursing women, but all the ladies of all ages favored a few
pints of this stout in the kitchen at Christmas ( and other times) . Even
consider a spruce beer flavoring. I've only made spruce beer in the Spring,
but guess it would be OK to use the ends of the branches in the brew kettle
even at this time of the year. And very appropriate. Let us know.
Keep on Brewin'
Dave Burley
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 20:06:59 -0600
From: Michael Fross <michael at fross.org>
Subject: Lagering & Carbonation Question
Hello all,
I'm in the process of making my first lager and I completed the Diacytal rest
and have just gotten it down to lagering temperature (36F). I'm planning on
leaving it at that temp for three or four weeks (OG: 1.048) but was wondering
if I could kill two birds with one stone by carbonating it now.
I think I've read that the yeast doesn't care if it's fermenting under pressure
or not, but I'm wondering what everyone thinks. Carbonate while lagering or
wait until it's complete?
Many thanks.
Frosty
------------------------------
Date: 17 Nov 2004 13:18:20 +1100
From: Robert Hinterding <rhh at sillyyak.com.au>
Subject: RE: gluten free beer
Sean McCabe <greenfieldmills at hotmail.com> asks about:gluten free beer
>I know this has been covered before but who out there has experimented with
>gluten free beer?
I am happy to answer any questions. I have been experimenting with gluten
free beer for 2 years. A lot of the information about gluten free brewing
is either misleading or full information is not provided. Your first
problem is getting gluten free malt. You may be able to get some from
http://www.bardsbeer.com or you will have to malt it yourself. The
procedure for malting sorghum is different to that for barley.
Brewing is another problem, the major problems are the high gelatinisation
temperature of sorghum (>75C), and the enzymes are less heat stable than
those in barley malt. The best way to get around this is by using a Schmitz
process decoction.
>
>I am looking for a supplier for the ingredients and have a question about
>using my old brew pot. By using my old brew pot I will not contaminate my
>batch of gluten free beer with that bad old gluten stuff, will I?
Not unless you don't clean it.
Happy brewing
Robert
- --
Robert Hinterding
The Gluten Free Brewer
Northcote, Victoria, AUSTRALIA
------------------------------
End of HOMEBREW Digest #4653, 11/16/04
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