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HOMEBREW Digest #4810
HOMEBREW Digest #4810 Tue 26 July 2005
FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
Digest Janitor: pbabcock at hbd.org
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Contents:
Ballantines ("Dave Burley")
Need water help ("Randy Scott")
Brewtek CL920 yeast (Randy Ricchi)
How much DME to prime? ("Mike Westcott")
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Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2005 09:56:29 -0400
From: "Dave Burley" <Dave_Burley at charter.net>
Subject: Ballantines
Brewsters:
Some years ago flying back to the US my South African Airline plane stopped
for fuelling in Eastern Africa. We departed the plane and were sent to an
Outdoor refreshment area. Despite the fact that it was 3AM I ordered a
coke. Blam! This coke was just like the Coke I remembered from my youth.
That experience came about since all the ingredients which had been used in
the original Coca Cola were produced locally, not conjured up in a US
factory. Same thing has happened to beer over the years. I want to
remember those tastes. I do this by not trying to produce currently
available beers, but those from an earlier time.
Like AL I remember Ballantines (IPA and less so the XXX) from the sixties
and I have independently in private communications commented on the
"aromatic" (in the organic chemistry sense) piney aroma with a very grassy
Hops nose that I remember from the 60s.
The piney aroma reminded me of Southern CA wines from that same era and the
Redwood Tanks that were in use at the time. Reading about Ballantines I
discovered in the shameless handing around of this technology/recipes, that
Ballantines had been stored in Cypress tanks versus the oak tankage of the
Newark, NJ site. Question is did this have an effect? As AFAIK all tanks
were waxed.
I think the grassiness came from Fuggles and about that same time I believe
WA hops sold as Hallertauer were actually Styrian Goldings or Fuggles which
are the same bine, just the first is seedless. Others may be able to confirm
or deny this. We must also consider Cluster hops which were popular in the
USA and were around at this time as a potential bittering hop with a
relatively low nose.
I doubt that Bullion hops (and especially distilled hop oils from Bullion)
were used in the original formula since these are relatively new, coming
onto the UK scene in the 1920s. I do not recall the black currant,
licoricey, back of of the throat bitterness of Bullion in early versions of
Ballantines. Ballantines IPA and XXX were clean.
As far as yeast go, I suspect something like the original Yuengling yeast
would be close to the yeast used that would be available today. I suspect a
warmish fermentation might be closer to the truth in the original version,
but 60s could have easily been cooler.
Colorwise I would get hold of some German or US style "Caramel" malt rather
than the redder British style crystal. Ballantines was browner than reddish
and not very dark.
One thing we all must remember in trying to recover these historic ales is
that beer is a changing thing and always has been in response to commercial
competitive pressures and availability of raw materials, as well as customer
demands.
Keep on Brewin'
Dave Burley
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Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2005 10:45:14 -0500
From: "Randy Scott" <ras at rscott.us>
Subject: Need water help
I've been trying to improve my all-grain brewing, and have started to pay
more attention to my water chemistry. I've been trying to read up on the
topic but high school chemistry was a long, long time ago and I'm not even
marginally proficient at it (as will become obvious shortly, I'm sure).
First, I got an analysis from our municipality, as follows:
Calcium 46.8 mg/L
Magnesium 11.5 mg/L
Bicarbonate 372 mg/L (Alkalinity 305 mg/L)
Sulfate 31.0 mg/L
Sodium 6.84 mg/L
Chloride 17.0 mg/L
>From everything I've been reading, this water appears to be totally
unsuitable for any beer style whatsoever. Alkalinity is extremely high, and
calcium quite low in comparison; while magnesium, sulfate, and sodium are
all at the bottom end of, or below, the recommended quantities according to
Miller's Homebrewing Guide.
I've also tried testing the tap water with aquarium test kits - and, if I'm
interpreting them right (which I'm not sure I am), the results are quite
different from the city analysis. My "Carbonate Hardness" (= alkalinity, I
think) test comes out to 160 ppm, far lower than the 305 the city reports.
I know these cheap aquarium test kits aren't very accurate, but I was
expecting something better than a nearly 2x error factor.
I also have a "General Hardness" test, which comes out to 230 ppm, but this
is confusing. I think this is the same thing as "total hardness as CaCO3",
but I'm not sure. If so, according to John Palmer at
http://www.howtobrew.com/section3/chapter15-1.html , (Ca (ppm)/20 + Mg
(ppm)/12.1) x 50 = Total Hardness as CaCO3, (although I'm not really sure
what the "as CaCO3" means) which, if my math is right, means the city's
figures come out to a general hardness of 163. (I'm pretty fuzzy on this -
enlightenment appreciated.)
I've also tried boiling the water and retesting - general hardness remains
unchanged (as expected), and carbonate hardness drops to about 100 ppm.
This would be somewhat surprising if the city's Ca numbers are right,
because according to Miller's book (p. 67), this water doesn't have enough
calcium ions to precipitate that much of the carbonate.
So, now for the questions:
Q1: How confused am I in the above?
Q2: Is my understanding of the relationships of carbonate hardness to
alkalinity, and general hardness to total hardness to Ca + Mg, even close to
accurate?
Q3: If so, why are my aquarium test kit results so different from the city
analysis? Are they that inaccurate, or does the calcium, magnesium, and
alkalinity typically vary that much over time in a given municipality? Or am
I missing something?
Q4: Palmer has a spiffy chart for relating alkalinity and hardness to
appropriate beer styles at
http://www.howtobrew.com/section3/chapter15-3.html . This seems way easier
to understand than anything else I've seen on the topic. Have folks here
had success with this?
Q5: If I ignore the aquarium test kits and just go with the city analysis,
any recommendations for adjusting it for various beer styles? (I only do
ales, but brew everything from koelsch to stout). I've been diluting my tap
water with varying amounts of RO (the lighter the style, the more dilution),
but based on Palmer's text, it doesn't look like this alone will cut it.
Thanks for help
ras
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2005 12:30:16 -0400
From: Randy Ricchi <rricchi at houghton.k12.mi.us>
Subject: Brewtek CL920 yeast
Stencil resuscitated some old weizen yeast.
I'd be interested to hear your comments on how the beer tastes after the
first real tasting on August 1.
CL920 was a favorite of mine and I think I might have some old stuff
laying around, too. Never figured it would be any good though. Thanks
for the heads up.
That yeast always was a massive clove producer. I always pitched and
fermented in the mid-70's, that way I did get vanilla and banana which
melded beautifully with the clove.
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2005 10:42:14 -0700
From: "Mike Westcott" <mwesty at cableone.net>
Subject: How much DME to prime?
I've kegged nearly all of my recent batches, but in the past when using DME to
batch prime I used 1.25 cups with most beers. I recently brewed a hefeweizen
which I wanted to bottle and I did not reserve unfermented speise to batch
prime at bottling time, which has been my usual procedure and has led to
perfect carb levels. So, I thought I'd use DME to batch prime but I want carb
levels at about 3.5 volumes. To get a somewhat precise measure of DME, I
sought out a couple of sources, the "primer on priming" which can be found
online suggests weight of DME 30% more than dextrose when priming, but Promash
indicates almost double the weight of DME versus dextrose, in fact upwards of
11 oz. of DME. I realize there are additional variables that affect final
carb levels, such as level of CO2 saturation at bottling time, etc., but why
such a discrepancy in recommended proportions of DME:dextrose? Opinions?
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End of HOMEBREW Digest #4810, 07/26/05
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