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HOMEBREW Digest #4694
HOMEBREW Digest #4694 Mon 10 January 2005
FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
Digest Janitor: pbabcock at hbd.org
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Contents:
Re: sulfur (sulfite/sulfide) smells ("Greg 'groggy' Lehey")
RE: Batch sparging and specialty grains ("Pat and Debbie Reddy")
Re: Batch sparging and specialty grains (Denny Conn)
sulfury lager, whole leaf hops, mill settings ("Dave Burley")
Wheat Milling ("Ed Measom")
Fw: Clinitest ("Dave Burley")
Sulfur in Czech pils ("Steve Dale-Johnson")
RE: Wheat Milling ("Doug Hurst")
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Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2005 14:24:46 +1030
From: "Greg 'groggy' Lehey" <grog at lemis.com>
Subject: Re: sulfur (sulfite/sulfide) smells
On Saturday, 8 January 2005 at 14:27:43 +0000, A.J deLange wrote:
> Peter A. Ensminger wrote:
>
>> In HBD 4962, AJ writes about sulfide (S^-2) versus sulfite (SO4^-2)
>> aroma in lagers. Hydrogen sulfide (H2S) is often described as a
>> "rotten egg" aroma. But what does sulfite smell like? Can you describe
>> this or give examples?
>>
>> I really love "Victory Prima Pils" and its aroma has a distinctive
>> character that I would describe as "sulfur". A young Pilsner Urquell
>> also has this character. I would not describe either of these as
>> having a "rotten egg" aroma. Would you say that this aroma is sulfide
>> or sulfite? BTW, I have gotten a sulfur aroma from some of my own
>> *very young* beers fermented with Nottingham (ale) yeast.
>
> Sulfite is usually described as "burning matches" i.e. it's the odor
> of sulfur dioxide. Many homebrewers will be familiar with it as the
> smell that evolves when Campden tablets are dissolved in water. And
> yes, that's the smell you want with continental pilsners.
Are you talking about the European continent? I haven't noticed
significant levels of sulphur dioxide amongst the beers I've had
there. I also don't think anybody would want that kind of smell with
any beer.
> They aren't continental pilsners without that hint.
Is it possible that this is a problem of beers exported to the USA?
Greg
- --
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See complete headers for address and phone numbers.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2005 08:08:33 -0600
From: "Pat and Debbie Reddy" <reddydp at Charter.net>
Subject: RE: Batch sparging and specialty grains
Hi Parker,
I've been doing nothing but batch sparging on my HERMS system for about 2
years now. My efficiency has suffered a mere 3% loss compared to a normal
sparge and I account for this using the "Efficiency Lock" feature in Promash
(as it has no specific adjustment for batch sparging). Meaning that, yes,
the entire grain bill gets a minor bump. The recipes I've been making for
years, some of which are relatively high in specialty malts, seem right on
the money using this approach. To answer your first question, I typically
add specialty malts directly to the mash with the exception of very dark
malts like roasted barley and black patent - these I add to my first sparge
for very dark beers (porters and stouts) but simply steep in cold water and
add to the kettle at the end of the boil for other beers.
BTW...my batch sparge technique consists of 2 steps. An initial volume of
sparge water added to the mash to bring the drainable volume up to 1/2 of my
preboil volume. Since my system only holds my HLT temp to within about a 10
degree window, I generally try to make this addition raise the entire mash
volume only a few degrees. I circulate for 10 minutes then drain the entire
volume. The next addition is equal to 1/2 of my preboil volume and is
typically about 168-170 degrees. Again, 10 minutes then I drain. I suppose
if I were doing 5 gallon batches I might shoot for one addition, but I am
typically doing 17 gallon batches and my mash tun can't hold the entire
sparge volume.
Hope this helped. Any questions, feel free to email me directly or call me
at 314-739-5937.
Pat Reddy
River Bound Brewing
Bridgeton, MO
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Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2005 08:31:55 -0800
From: Denny Conn <denny at projectoneaudio.com>
Subject: Re: Batch sparging and specialty grains
Parker, while you certainly could add your specialty grains only before the
sparge, I don't see why you'd want to or what you would gain by doing
that. I mash all my grist at once, batch sparging. If I need to increase
grain amounts, I do it across the board...specialty grains as well as base
malts. I'm curious about your reduced efficiency when batch sparging,
though...could you tell me what your efficiencies are, both for fly and
batch sparging? I find my batch sparge efficiency is right in line with
what most people get from fly sparging.
----------->Denny Conn
At 10:58 PM 1/9/05 -0500, Parker wrote:
>In a normal on-the-fly sparge, I would mash, drain and throw the specialty
>grain
>in the tun when I initiate the sparge. If I am batch sparging, should I mash
>as usual, drain, then throw the specialty grain into the tun, add the batch
>sparge water, let it sit, and drain again? Will this pull enough of the
>flavor
>out of the specialty grains? Also, when batch sparging, I bump up my base
>malt
>to account for reduced efficiency, which brings me into my target OG, but do I
>need to bump up the specialty grain, or would that just throw off the balance,
>seeing as how specialty grain doesn't contribute to the fermentables, and a 5
>gallon batch, whether batch sparged or fly-sparged, would call for the same
>amount of specialty grain to achieve the right flavor profile? Make sense?
>
>Parker
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Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2005 12:01:01 -0500
From: "Dave Burley" <Dave_Burley at charter.net>
Subject: sulfury lager, whole leaf hops, mill settings
Brewsters:
Mike Mullins has a "sulfur" odor in his lager.
Mike, first thing I would do is give the lager a diacetyl rest at around 65F
for a couple of weeks. I know this is not a "sulfur" odor, but, this rest
will also help take care of that sulfury aroma from the true lager yeast in
most cases. In fact that aroma is a characteristic of some really good
European lagers
Otherwise just wait and it will get better.
- ---------------
Ant Hayes has had trouble with whole leaf hops. Interestingly, I have had
exactly the same problems with the finely divided hops and the leaf hops are
superior to not clogging in my experience.
Ant, I put a "Choreboy" copper or SS mesh household scrubber over the end of
my inlet to my counterflow chiller and I get excellent filtration and no
plugging with whole leaf hops, but not the finely divided hops which plug
things up and don't filter out. Don't know what the equuivalent name would be
in South Africa. Try Whirlpooling the boiler to move the hops to the middle
and remove wort from the edge.
- ------------
Santa brought Dave Clark a new mill and he asks for advice on the setting.
Dave, the way I use it is to close the gap ( nip) all the way, turn on the
mill ( or crank it) and slowly open the nip until it feeds quickly and cracks
the grain into about 6 pieces but does not grind the husk. Then repeat this
procedure on the cracked grain, you will have a finer nip this time and you
will have an excellent grind and no stuck lauter as the husks will remain
whole . The fine grind will give you excellent efficiency.
Surprisingly, this takes less time than trying to grind the grain once through
a fine nip.
If you want to measure the nip use a sparkplug gapper.
Keep on Brewin'
Dave Burley
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2005 12:02:12 -0500
From: "Ed Measom" <ed_measom at earthlink.net>
Subject: Wheat Milling
In reference to Dan Listermann's posing on Wheat Milling, I have a few
observations to add.
I brew a lot of hefeweizen beer and use the malted German wheat and have
found that the mill jams up at the low settings on the fist pass. So, I pick
a medium setting and mill the wheat then go to a lower setting like I do for
barley malt.
On Saturday I mad a wit with 50% of the wheat the German malted variety and
50% unmalted wheat (and 50% of the grist Belgian Pilsner malt [that makes 3
halves?]). I found the unmalted winter wheat even harder to mill than the
German malted wheat. So, I had to run the winter wheat through first at a
wide gap, then medium and then finally at a normal low gap setting to get it
milled properly. My efficiencies were at the usual 75% conversion for my
system and the mash only partially stuck.
Good brewing,
Ed Measom.
Date: Sat, 8 Jan 2005 12:55:59 -0500
From: "Dan Listermann" <dan at listermann.com>
Subject: Milling Wheat
I have to take exception to those advocating milling wheat with a wider gap
than barley and even to mixing it in with barley. Wheat needs a narrower
gap than barley because it has a gumminess to it that needs to be overcome
to crack ( higher yield point in metallurgical speak) . Further there is
no husk material to protect. Mary Ann Gruber told me that water access is
what wheat is all about. I mill mine to the point where I worry about dust.
Dan Listermann
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2005 12:07:46 -0500
From: "Dave Burley" <Dave_Burley at charter.net>
Subject: Fw: Clinitest
Brewsters:
I have had several inquiries into how to obtain Clinitest KITS. Here is a copy
of a response which may be useful to some.
William,
You will have to go to your pharmacist and ask them to special order a
Clinitest KIT. If you have access to a testtube and an eyedropper you can
just buy the tablets, this incudes the color chart as does the kit.
If your pharmacy won't do it for some reason, you can locate a source and pay
a higher price at a wine hobby site.
Check out the archives under my name for the subtleties in using Clinitest in
brewing.
Biggest thing is perhaps that Clinitest won't respond to non-reducing sugars
like sucrose and does respond to many disccharides like maltose and lactose
(ala Milk Stout) and some trisaccharides. You can change the sensitivity of
the test by changing the number of drops of beer you add.
Clinistix will not do the job as they are based on an enzyme and are specific
to glucose. Dark beers will hide the color, anyway, or so I am told. Perhaps
the use of both Clinitest and Clinistix could be useful to determine the sugar
profile by subtracting the Clinistix result from the Clinitest result.. I've
never done this combo.
Check out this website:
http://jchemed.chem.wisc.edu/JCESoft/CCA/CCA5/MAIN/
1ORGANIC/ORG18/TRAM18/B/MENU.HTM
( link them back together)
An exampleof Clinitest in wine analysis :
http://www.vinquiry.com/pdf/ClinitestReducingSugar2001.pdf
A little background on reducing sugars:
http://www.biosci.ohiou.edu/introbioslab/Bios170/170_2/benedict.htm
http://www2.volstate.edu/CHEM/1030/Labs/Carbo9.htm
http://opbs.okstate.edu/~Blair/Bioch2344/Chapter10/Chapter10.htm
http://www.bionet.0catch.com/carbohydrates.html#RS
BTW Benedict's solution and Fehling's solution reactions are basically the
same with different reagents. I believe Clinitest is Fehling's solution
reaction. The heat of reaction provides the necessary temperature to complete
the reaction in the case of Clinitest.
Keep on Brewin'
Dave Burley
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2005 10:27:58 -0800
From: "Steve Dale-Johnson" <sdalejohnson at hotmail.com>
Subject: Sulfur in Czech pils
Mike Mullins asked about an overpowering sulfur aroma/taste in a czech pils,
and several have made good comments.
I have experienced similar in a pilsner made with Wyeast 2278 Czech pils and
heaps of not-so-fresh (as it turned out) Saaz pellet hops. I do not know
which element if either was the problem, but as I have used 2278 before and
since and had manageably high levels of "clean" sulfur that would dissipate
in lagering, I am loathe to blame the yeast. I suspect it may have been
sulfide as described, perhaps from a dry hop infection or poor sanitation on
my part. I dumped the beer as it did not dissipate in the keg over several
months. This was a few years back.
I recently made a big Oktoberfest that rang in about 1.070 and used Wyeast
2035 American Lager as it was what was on hand and is supposed to add a nice
complexity. It did very nicely and made a nice, complex, malty beer, but
also with a strong (but clean) sulfur note that is clearly similar to
sulfite if not a little cleaner. Part of this batch was kegged about three
weeks ago, and a portion was bottled at the same time.
The kegged portion (transfered in to a keg purged with co2 by pushing out
sanitizer solution) was exposed to no oxygen and is still clearly sulfury -
no surprise as it is a young beer that had been lagering with a little yeast
in secondary for just over 1 1/2 months. My surprise was testing a bottled
sample for carbonation and finding it both carbonated and already clean
smelling and tasting. I suspect that the exposure to headspace air caused
the sulfites to bind up the oxygen the beer was exposed to, both protecting
the bottled beer from oxidation and quickly cleaning up the sulfur.
Apologies for the long way of getting to my suggestion, which is that
perhaps allowing the beer to decarbonate and then bottling it with a little
sugar may help the beer shake its sulfur, and free up your kegs so you are
not as rushed in making a decision on dumping it.
Steve Dale-Johnson
Brewing at 1918 miles, 298 degrees Rennerian
Delta (Vancouver), BC, Canada.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2005 12:39:33 -0600
From: "Doug Hurst" <dougbeer2000 at hotmail.com>
Subject: RE: Wheat Milling
I find myself agreeing with Dan Listerman when he says that wheat should be
milled more finely than barley. The point of milling grain is to make as
much starch as possble available to the enzymes. The only reason to avoid
a fine crush is to preserve the barley husk which is used as a filter aid in
lautering. Pro-brewers use hammer mills to pulverize their malt when using
mash filters because they don't need the husks for filtering. Since wheat
has no husk anyways, I see no reason not to crush it finely. I would use
rice hulls as additional filter aid if I were concerned about lauterability.
Doug Hurst
Chicago, IL
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2005 17:23:17 -0500
From: "aboyce at mn.rr.com" <aboyce@mn.rr.com>
Subject: 2005 MASH-OUT REGISTRATION NOW OPEN!
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SIGN UP NOW! This is a party you WON'T want to miss!
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End of HOMEBREW Digest #4694, 01/10/05
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