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HOMEBREW Digest #4912
HOMEBREW Digest #4912 Fri 16 December 2005
FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
Digest Janitor: pbabcock at hbd.org
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Contents:
Re: Brew Pot as Fermenter (Bob Tower)
RE:Wort chillers: Shirron vs. Therminator? ("Sasha von_Rottweil")
Quantitative "Clinitest" ("A.J deLange")
Re: Brew Pot as Fermenter (Jeff Renner)
My apologies to Steve Alexander, Doug Moyer, and anyone else I offended (Bill Velek)
Mass flow meters ("Ken Anderson")
Brewpot as fermenter ("Ken Anderson")
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Date: Thu, 15 Dec 2005 22:24:51 -0800
From: Bob Tower <tower at cybermesa.com>
Subject: Re: Brew Pot as Fermenter
Stuart Lay of Royal, AR asked:
> A question for the crowd: Does anyone use a brew pot as their
primary
> fermenter? What would be the disadvantages compared to traditional
> fermenters?
Yes, I use two kettles as my primary and secondary fermenters. I
wanted stainless steel fermenters but couldn't part with the money
for a conical. They work great! They only downside is sealing the
lid. I've heard of people just leaving the lid on and calling it good
(or even doing an open fermentation) but I was concerned about fruit
flies getting in and general contamination. What I did to get a good
seal was to take some siphon tubing and cut down the length of it.
Then I pushed this onto the lip of the pot and put the lid on top.
Then I took two plywood discs, drilled 8 holes around the perimeter
of both discs, put one underneath the pot and the other on top. I
placed threaded rods through the holes and with wing nuts and washers
on the rods I can apply enough pressure for the tubing to form a
perfect seal. I move the beer from one pot to the other with CO2
pressure and the seal will hold up to 10 PSI of pressure (I haven't
gone beyond 10 PSI for fear of bulging out the pot). I installed
stainless steel ball valves on both pots, placing the pickup on the
primary a little off the bottom so as to leave the sediment behind
and the pickup on the secondary just slightly off of the bottom to
leave the paper thin layer of sediment behind without wasting too
much beer. This is definitely a case of measure twice cut once! I
also drilled holes in the lids for stoppers and airlocks. The beer is
pumped in and out of the fermenters via the ball valves. Another
advantage to the pots is that it's a snap to sanitize them. I simply
fill them with enough water to submerge the hardware on the back end
of the ball valves ( a coupler and a 90 degree elbow, both stainless
steel of course), and boil for 15 minutes on my kitchen stove after
which the excess water is drained out. Easy!
Bob Tower / Los Angeles, CA
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Date: Fri, 16 Dec 2005 10:10:11 +0000
From: "Sasha von_Rottweil" <sasharina at hotmail.com>
Subject: RE:Wort chillers: Shirron vs. Therminator?
>Subject: Wort chillers: Shirron vs. Therminator?
Hi Mark,
Look at Blichmann's website on the page where he compares the therminator
and Shirron:
http://www.blichmannengineering.com/Therminator/Comanother pointer, the
petition.htm
>The Shirron probably has about the same surface
>area, though less efficiently-arranged than the Therminator.
According the the above site the therminator has 6.5sq ft total surface area
vs Shirron's 2.4 sq ft.
I love my Therminator (no affiliation, satisfied customer, yaddi, yaddi...)
however:
Check out other sources as well. My method of comparing plate chillers is
the plate surface area since I am not sure how manufacturers calculate their
kW rating which is common here in Europe. Maybe somebody else can chime in
with a better and more rigourous baseline method.
I am currently in Germany so my observations may be off in the US but check
out people that make solar water heaters or the industry that allows you to
convert your diesel vehicle to run vegetable oil. They may have even cheaper
plate heat exchangers. And nothing says that you can't hook two really cheap
plate chillers in series if you get the same capabilities for less money.
The company Alfa Laval may be another pointer, German ebay is full of plate
heat exchangers from this company.
While I couldn't compare the two plate chillers you mentioned I hope this
helps.
Cheers,
Marty
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 16 Dec 2005 12:42:56 +0000
From: "A.J deLange" <ajdel at cox.net>
Subject: Quantitative "Clinitest"
Clinitest is a quick and dirty way of determining that the reducing
sugar level in beer isn't dropping anymore and that, therefore,
fermentation is finished. It is a modification (and a clever one) of the
Lane-Eynon (or similar gravimetric Munson-Walker) reducing sugar test
which is quantitative and which can be done with simple laboratory
equipment (flask, buret, burner) and reagents (Soxhelet's modification
to Fehlings solution - copper sulfate, Rochelle salt, sodium hydroxide).
In the test, beer from the buret is admitted to a flask containing
boiling Fehlings solution until the blue (copper ion) color disappears
then a couple of drops of methylene blue are added as a redox state
indicator and additional beer added until the methylene blue is
decolorized. The process is standardized against an inverted sucrose
solution (glucose and fructose are reducing sugars). The test is a PITA
to carry out but it does give a quantitative result. I don't think
anyone uses it to measure fermentation progress but rather how complete
fermentation is. The industry still uses specific gravity to measure
progress and will probably continue to do so though they do have methods
for measuring alcohol content in line (combination of IR absorbtion and
velocity of sound measurement).
A.J.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 16 Dec 2005 08:24:48 -0500
From: Jeff Renner <jsrenner at umich.edu>
Subject: Re: Brew Pot as Fermenter
Stuart Lay <zzlay at yahoo.com> wrote from Royal, AR:
> A question for the crowd: Does anyone use a brew pot as their primary
> fermenter? What would be the disadvantages compared to traditional
> fermenters?
I have usually fermented ales in a ten gallon stock pot that I also
use to heat my sparge water. Only trouble is, I ferment eight gallon
batches, and vigorous fermentations tend to rise over the top. In
the past I have made aluminum foil sideboards, but more recently I
have been using an old style 15.5 gallon half barrel with the top cut
off and the bung hole plugged.
It's easy to sanitize either - I just boil a half gallon of water in
them with a lid on.
I have never worried about an air lock, so a loose lid isn't a
problem for me.
Jeff
- ---
Jeff Renner in Ann Arbor, Michigan USA, jsrennerATumichDOTedu
"One never knows, do one?" Fats Waller, American Musician, 1904-1943
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 16 Dec 2005 11:39:01 -0600
From: Bill Velek <billvelek at alltel.net>
Subject: My apologies to Steve Alexander, Doug Moyer, and anyone else I offended
In HBD#4910, Doug Moyer took me down a peg when he said:
"Bill Velek takes it upon himself to limit other brewer's interests:
...
Bill, if Steve Alexander feels that collecting data enhances his
enjoyment of the hobby, then good for him. Why should he care if you, or
others, are interested? It's not like his posts are preventing you from
focusing on the parts of the hobby that interest you. Even if his data
is completely useless, it is interesting to him (and probably at least
one other). As such, it is just as valid as a frothy discussion of
Clinitest....
There's plenty of room in this hobby for all sorts. Live and let live."
Doug, I wasn't the only one who questioned Steve about taking hydrometer
readings during fermentation, but because my questionning has apparently
been interpreted by you as being somewhat arrogant, or somehow offense
in some way, then I apologize to everyone who took it that way. I
certainly didn't mean to be nasty. Actually, given that I readily
concede that Steve knows a _WHOLE_ lot more about brewing and science
than I'll probably _ever_ know, I was hoping that he would respond with
something that _I_ could use on the _practical_ end for something other
than perhaps just satisfying idle curiosity or his own somewhat unique
interests. I think I've said before ... "whatever floats your boat". I
don't try to impose my will or anyone, and I sure regret that I must
have come across like that. I'm sorry.
Cheers.
http://tinyurl.com/7zpob is my 'Brewing Glossary' with photos and links!
http://tinyurl.com/99s2l compares HomeBrewers Team stats w/ other teams.
http://tinyurl.com/axuol moderated group (now 304 member) EXCLUSIVELY re
equipment for craftbrewers and small breweries. Please visit. Bill Velek
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 16 Dec 2005 15:02:48 -0500
From: "Ken Anderson" <kapna at adelphia.net>
Subject: Mass flow meters
Jeff Byers and Alan Meeker, I measure the CO2 flow rate periodically.
Excel takes the present flow rate measurement, and the previous flow
rate measurement, and calculates an average. That value then gets
multiplied by the time interval between the present flow rate
measurement and the previous flow rate measurement. So in effect, the
area under the graph gets turned into a bunch of upright rectangles,
which when added together give the total amount of CO2 produced. CO2
produced correlates to specific gravity, and these values are monitored
throughout the fermentation. I think it could be called a sort of
clumsy integration. Pretty cool though!
The mass flow meter output is electrical. It contains a small heating
element, over which the CO2 flows. A fraction of an inch downstream is
a temperature sensor. What the temperature sensor reads hinges on how
much heat the gas has picked up. If the flow rate is slow, it picks up
more heat than if the flow rate is fast. The temperature sensor is able
to measure this and convert it into a flow rate. Also pretty cool!
It might be a bit late, but there was a guy on eBay with the best deals
I'd ever seen on DOZENS of these meters. I don't know what he has left,
but do an advanced search for the seller "auction-partner", then search
for "mass flow" at his eBay store.
One thing for sure. Corny as this sounds, once you monitor your brewing
with a meter, you won't go back to an airlock. I'd feel blind if I did
that now! ; )
Ken Anderson
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 16 Dec 2005 15:40:18 -0500
From: "Ken Anderson" <kapna at adelphia.net>
Subject: Brewpot as fermenter
Stuart, I use my 15.5 gallon Sankes as boil kettles/fermenters. I boil,
cool, pitch, aerate, cover, and ferment, all in the boil kettle, gunk on
the bottom included! I do not transfer my beer (almost exclusively
lagers) until the fermentation is completely finished. I use pellet
hops, and am in no hurry to get the beer off the trub. Then it's to a
conditioning vessel of some sort until it's ready to be kegged. My
tasters (read that, buddies and family) and I are VERY pleased with the
results. And I'm pleased with the ease of this method!
Ken Anderson
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End of HOMEBREW Digest #4912, 12/16/05
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