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HOMEBREW Digest #4940
HOMEBREW Digest #4940 Mon 30 January 2006
FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
Digest Janitor: pbabcock at hbd.org
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Contents:
RE: keeping fermenter warm ("Ronald La Borde")
Keeping fermenters warm ("Stephen Johnson")
RE: Peter A. Ensminger (Rick Weber)
Homebrew supplies in Portland Oregon ("GRANT STOTT")
re:keeping fermenter warm (Nathaniel Lansing)
Dogs don't eat fresh hops (Thomas Rohner)
RE: keeping the fermenter warm ("Mike Sharp")
Pubs in the cotswolds... ("Cave, Jim")
Denver (Matt)
Re: Fermenting temps ("Michael O'Donnell")
Re: Suggestions for England trip? (Jeff Renner)
warming fermenter ("eric")
hops, dogs, atuomobiles (Glyn Crossno)
Pubs in County Kent (Bob Hall)
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Date: Sun, 29 Jan 2006 22:32:45 -0600
From: "Ronald La Borde" <pivoron at cox.net>
Subject: RE: keeping fermenter warm
>From: "Peter A. Ensminger" <ensmingr at twcny.rr.com>
>I am trying to save on my utility bills this winter by keeping my house
>at 50-55 deg F. Not a problem for me, as I simply need to wear a sweater
>and wool socks.
Bbbrrrrr shiver, really, I need heat when the indoor thermostat is at 65 deg
F.
You must be superman - just a sweater and wool socks, wow! I just can't
imagine what it feels like when you sit on the leather couch.
Oh well, I saw on TV the other night some people in Russia at -4 C diving
into water. I can't figure how they kept the water from freezing.
You might try for your fermenter to place it into a water bath with an
aquarium heater set for the desired temperature. I think the heaters are
relatively cheap, and they come with a thermostat, but I would double check
the setting with another thermometer to be sure. An insulated picnic cooler
to hold the fermenter would be ideal, don't worry about the cover, or cover
it with a blanket.
Ronald J. La Borde -- Metairie, LA
New Orleans is the suburb of Metairie, LA
New Orleans is the New Atlantis
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 29 Jan 2006 23:46:39 -0600
From: "Stephen Johnson" <sjohnson3 at comcast.net>
Subject: Keeping fermenters warm
Peter,
Depending on your living space, there are several options that you might
find helpful. I have a small bathroom in the efficiency apartment attached
to my main dwelling that I heat in the winter with an electric oil-filled
portable upright radiator. This has a thermostat controlled switch that
cycles on and off depending on the ambient temperature in the room. The room
is small enough that it doesn't take much to keep that space a nice, even
68F with the door closed, even when the rest of the efficiency space is
closer to 45-50, or sometimes even colder. Or, in the event of a warm spell
like we had this weekend in Nashville, it hardly comes on at all. I've heard
of others who place their carboys in a large tub of water and use a
water-bed heater to keep their carboys an even temp. These tubs can be
picked up at most home improvement mega stores or rural co-ops. Just be sure
it holds water first outside before trying it indoors. Mine leaked the first
time I used it, and I had to seal it with some silicone sealant before using
it in my brewery. Look for something big enough like you might see at a
Halloween party for apple bobbing to have enough water to keep a good
thermal mass and avoid big temperature swings. I've also used a
seed-starting grow mat to set under my carboys in earlier days of my winter
time brewing, but those are tricky to regulate and don't give as even a heat
distribution. I found that I would need to place a towel between the mat and
the carboy most of the time to keep the bottom from getting too warm. I now
use the mat when making my starters in the winter, and place my air-locked
growler in a rectangular cooler and put the mat in the general vicinity of
the growler and it does a great job of keeping the starter a nice, warm
propagation temperature.
I'll be curious to hear what others have tried.
Steve Johnson,
Music City Brewers
Nashville, TN
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2006 00:12:48 -0600
From: Rick Weber <rick.weber05 at gmail.com>
Subject: RE: Peter A. Ensminger
Peter Ensminger is going to set his thermostat to 50-55. I'd suggest
taking advantage and learning how to make lagers. Other than that, you
could put it in a seperate insulated box/room and give it a space
heater set on a thermostat.
Cheers!
Rick
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2006 20:47:23 +1100
From: "GRANT STOTT" <gstott at iprimus.com.au>
Subject: Homebrew supplies in Portland Oregon
A big thanks to those who emailed with suggestions on beers for my
friend to bring back to Australia from his trip to Portland.
I now have another question. Are there any decent homebrew
shops/suppliers in Portland? We are kind of thinking that if he can get
hold of say 4 cornies at a reasonable price it may be worth shipping
them back. Depending on the cost of shipping of course. Used cornies go
for around U.S.$55 here.
Thanks,
Grant Stott
Geelong, Victoria, Australia
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2006 09:14:02 -0500
From: Nathaniel Lansing <delbrew at compuserve.com>
Subject: re:keeping fermenter warm
Quick and easy method without a lot of added energy
consumption. Get one of those rubbermaid storage
boxes from Home depot, fill it part way with water, set
your carboy in there, insert 100W aquarium heater, dial up
desired temperature. You could easily devise a flask holder
to keep your yeast starters in there too, off to the side.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2006 15:44:49 +0100
From: Thomas Rohner <t.rohner at bluewin.ch>
Subject: Dogs don't eat fresh hops
Hi Bill
dogs won't eat your hops, Luna (a Appenzeller--Berner b@$t@rd) now
around 17 years old and surrounded with plenty of hops never showed a
strange behaviour around harvesting time. (at least not stranger than in
the other seasons, despite her age she's playing around all the time...
very funny dog)
One time my buddy let the gate open, so his sheep went into the hop
garden. They chewed away the lower leafs, but noting happened to them or
the hops.
A free hint: give 'em enough space especially between different sorts.
Otherwise it's hard to discern which sort you're looking at in spring
when they are small shoots.
If space is no problem, grow hops. It's worth just to see it's
impressive growth.
We use our homegrown for aroma only, or for decorating a Oktoberfest.
Picking hops, while having a couple of nice beers with some friends on a
late sunny warm day of the season is not as bad a work anyway.
Cheers Thomas
Homebrewing books: "Dave Millers Homebrewing Guide" is my favourite for
beginners as well as intermediate brewers. I still like to read it now
and then. I switched to all grain after 4 or 5 extract batches, that was
in 1999.
I think this is a all-you-ever-need book.
(except you are of the curious sort like i am, i bought/read almost
every availabe book on brewing in english and german, home and pro (i
don't understand every last biochemical detail, but i get the big picture))
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2006 06:50:19 -0800
From: "Mike Sharp" <rdcpro at hotmail.com>
Subject: RE: keeping the fermenter warm
Peter A. Ensminger wants to keep the fermenter warm
"Can anyone suggest a way to keep my fermenter at ~65-70 deg F? I make 5 gal
batches."
I have 6 gallons fermenting nicely in my garage, which is in the mid to low
50's right now. The secret is simple. I made a thermostat for my fridge a
long time ago, using a mechanical thermostat (not electronic). It has a
"form C" contact, meaning one normally open and one normally closed contact,
with a common. I wired this to a duplex receptacle which is mounted to the
T-stat, so that the bottom receptacle gets power to chill and the top gets
power to warm. IOW, as temperature falls past the setpoint, the normally
closed contact (which is wired to the bottom outlet) opens, and the normally
open contact (wired to the top outlet) closes. Anyway, I use the same
thermostat in summer or winter. In the winter, I use one of those portable
oil filled heaters (they look like a radiator), and turn it on so that it
uses the 600 watt element (they have a double switch with either 600, 900 or
1500 watts).
I put this in a big cabinet I use for my other brewing supplies, along with
my minibrew conical (or any other fermenter I'm using, like a bucket). This
keeps the inside of the cabinet at 68F, no matter what the garage temp is.
Before I had the cabinet, I used a large wardrobe box. This is a big super
heavy duty box you get from moving companies. It's triple-walled, and has a
top flap that's designed to allow you to get in and out of it easily. That
worked fine as well.
So whether I need heating or cooling, the same thermostat suffices. Let me
know if you can't picture this--I'll take a photo and post or email it.
Regards,
Mike Sharp
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2006 08:38:26 -0800
From: "Cave, Jim" <Cave at psc.org>
Subject: Pubs in the cotswolds...
Chris Hofmann asks about pubs in the Cotswolds. I've been to
Chipping Norton in the Cotswolds! The Cotswolds are lovely, famous for
the yellow sandstone (called Cotswold stone go figure) that all of the
older homes are made from. One of my ABSOLUTE favourite pubs is in
Great Tew (a tiny place actually) called the Falkland Arms.
http://www.falklandarms.org.uk/
A lovely place with a thatched roof. Ancient, of course! And an
excellent Plowmans lunch (huge piece of stilton, with a crusty bread and
cress salad and Branston pickle). Yum! Also, a fine selection of guest
beers on tap.
If you check the link, you'll see it is critically acclaimed. I haven't
been there since 1992, but it remains a very, very pleasant memory!
Jim Cave
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2006 08:41:22 -0800 (PST)
From: Matt <baumssl27 at yahoo.com>
Subject: Denver
Chad asks about don't-miss places to drink beer in Denver. I'll take a
stab at it.
- ---
Breweries: If you're in town on weekdays I'd definitely make an effort
to visit Great Divide (downtown) and/or Avery (Boulder), both of which
have friendly people who are generally happy to show you around and let
you sample all kinds of great stuff. You may have to wait a few
minutes if they're busy--but they'll usually pour you a beer to make
the wait more enjoyable. If you can get to Fort Collins (maybe on
weekends too--not sure), New Belgium is an extremely impressive and
tasty tour, especially for those who know them only as the producers of
Fat Tire. There are many other tours but these 3 are the best I've
been to.
- ---
Brewpubs: Which ones are "don't miss" probably depends on what you are
looking for.
Pints Pub (just south of downtown) is a tiny and very British place
that brews and serves good real ale, with maris otter malt (I believe)
and a very fruity yeast and all that good stuff. A lesser-known and
nice little place if you like that sort of thing.
The Bull and Bush makes some nice British-style ales, and they use a
lot of hops. I haven't been there as often so I can't say much else.
I am not as excited about Wynkoop's beers (maybe the yeast is too clean
for my taste) but they do have good food, excellent atmosphere, decent
beer, and are deservedly a landmark.
The Mountain Sun in Boulder is at least as good as all these places
with a huge variety of well-made beers and good food. Hippy
atmosphere, and lots of people know it's great so it can get crowded.
There is a larger location in south Boulder called the Southern Sun,
which I think takes credit cards (Mtn Sun does not).
There are others of course. Pints and the Mountain Sun are my
favorites.
- ---
Bars: I can't imagine a much better beer bar than the Falling Rock Tap
House. 19th and Blake downtown. Very worthwhile.
- ---
To me the 3 brewery visits above are the most "don't miss" of the
bunch. Just so you know, you will almost certainly be quite impaired
after visiting Avery or Great Divide, which aren't much to look at but
pour a lot of beers. Great Divide is easy to reach by bus. Avery can
be reached by one obscure bus route--email me for details if you want.
You likely won't be impaired after a New Belgium tour.
- ---
Homebrewing content: I think I have noticed that some fusels have aged
out of a beer I made. I didn't think this was possible--is it?
Matt
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2006 10:18:02 -0800
From: "Michael O'Donnell" <mooseo at stanford.edu>
Subject: Re: Fermenting temps
Peter wants to keep his ales a little warmer. I've had good luck with an
insulated box and a very small heater. I built a box out of Celotex
insulation foam (available at construction supply places... they might even
give you damaged pieces for free when they hear it is for beer)... a little
duct tape and you've got a box. The heater I used was a "De-humidifying"
stick heater... I got mine from West Marine, I think. These are really low
wattage (18W, IIRC), but it doesn't take much to keep a foam box full of
water 10 F above ambient... it probably can't raise it up very fast, but it
can hold. With a temp controller, it will be slightly less crude than the
brew belt.
Another random idea I just had is to use an aquarium heater and put your
carboy in a garbage can filled with water to about 1/2 way up. For about
$40, you can get a thermostat-controlled heater that will keep the jacket
at the right temp... again, using some insulation around the whole thing
would help and allow you to use a smaller heater.
cheers,
mike
Santa Barbara, CA
At 07:51 PM 1/29/2006, you wrote:
>I am trying to save on my utility bills this winter by keeping my house
>at 50-55 deg F. Not a problem for me, as I simply need to wear a sweater
>and wool socks. But, this is too cool for fermenting my ales. Can anyone
>suggest a way to keep my fermenter at ~65-70 deg F? I make 5 gal batches.
>
>I'm not too eager to build a glycol-based jacket (with heater, pump, and
>thermostat) that fits around my fermenter. OTOH, the "Brew Belt" (see:
>http://www.ebrew.com/miscellaneous_equipment/brew_belt.htm ) seems like
>a very crude and unreliable solution.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2006 15:19:30 -0500
From: Jeff Renner <jsrenner at umich.edu>
Subject: Re: Suggestions for England trip?
"chris hofmann" <chrisrhofmann at hotmail.com> wrote:
> I will be in England next week for a wedding - specifically London
> for a
> couple of days ...
> Any other "must visit" pubs and brewery suggests would be greatly
> appreciated.
Chris
You're going to get lots of replies on this, I'll bet. I have to
recommend Ye Olde Mitre for purely atmospheric reasons. It's a tiny,
Elizabethan pub (but 1930's interior) that managed to avoid the Great
London Fire and the German blitz. It's almost impossible to find as
it is off of a little, narrow alley (so narrow that you can touch
both sides of it) between Ely place and Hatton Garden.
http://www.beerintheevening.com/pubs/s/15/1564/Ye_Old_Mitre/Holborn
I met UK friends there in September, 2004, on a 12 hour layover
between the US and Johannesburg, where I went to give the first BJCP
exam outside of North America. I got there around 9 am but couldn't
find it because the UK Streetmaps map wasn't that accurate, and I
tried to find it off of Ely Place, as its address is "1 Ely Court,
off Ely Place."
I walked all around the area (which was fun because I had two hours
to kill) until I found someone who told me to look for a little
doorway off Ely Place. It looks almost like a door of a house. It's
much, much easier to find off Hatton Garden, especially if you see
the sign opposite the alley (see photo 1 on the web site) between
number 8 & 9 Hatton Garden.
Be sure use the better Google map (gmap link), which, while it
doesn't show the lane, is at least higher resolution. It's easy to
reach by tube.
I sat down with my first pint (Adnam's bitter) at 11:00 am (opening),
which was 6 AM Ann Arbor time. We had a light lunch and three pints,
then went off to sight see in the area.
See other websites for it
http://www.pub-explorer.com/gtlondon/pub/yeoldemitrelondonec1n.htm
(great photos)
http://www.viewlondon.co.uk/review_1126.html
I see that they now have Deuchars IPA on tap, too, a great pale
bitter that has been Champion Beer of Britain. It is in the newer
style of bitters that are nearly all pale malt. I guess that's so
you don't look old-fashioned around all the lager drinkers.
Wish I were going!
Jeff
- ---
Jeff Renner in Ann Arbor, Michigan USA, jsrennerATumichDOTedu
"One never knows, do one?" Fats Waller, American Musician, 1904-1943
***Please note new address***
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2006 13:45:15 -0700
From: "eric" <zeee1 at nebonet.com>
Subject: warming fermenter
Hello
Putting a light bulb in a small wooden cabinet would probly put out
enough heat, being careful of course to not start a fire. Plugged into a
GFCI outlet in case of liquid overflow. I would put the carboy in a plastic
container, inside a wood or even styrofoam enclosure. You could then either
use a thermostat, or control heat with the lightbulb wattage. A low wattage
bulb could be enclosed in a metal housing, so light wouldnt be a problem
with hops. Also ceramic heating elements are available at pet supply stores,
that put out only heat, no light. Either of these could be controlled by a
dimmer to control heat output, using a thermometer to check temps. After the
carboy reached your preferred temp, slight adjustments in the dimmer
settings should acheive stable temps. Might take some experimenting the
first time, but once you know what setting is stable, the next batches are
no more bothersome than putting the carboy in and turning on the heater.
This is if the house temp stays somewhat constant, of course.
Eric
Deweyville, UT
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2006 14:16:42 -0800 (PST)
From: Glyn Crossno <graininfuser at yahoo.com>
Subject: hops, dogs, atuomobiles
My dogs never bothered the hops, other than running
through them. Had several dogs that would help
themselves to produce from the garden.
I just had my hops on poles in the yard that got mowed
around, they try to spread but not a nuisance in the
yard. Some people cut the bottom off a 5 gallon
bucket, stick that in the gound then plant in that.
Glyn
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2006 20:08:48 -0500
From: Bob Hall <rallenhall at henry-net.com>
Subject: Pubs in County Kent
We've just received an invitation to a May wedding in Gillingham, County
Kent, England. We'll probably spend some time in London, and there are
plenty of references to good pubs and tours there. However, I'd like any
recommendations for pubs/tours out in the County Kent, Surrey, Sussex area.
Also, I'd like to get a copy of the 2006 CAMRA Good Beer Guide, but all of
my online searches list sources in the UK. Can anyone point me to a US
distributor?
Many thanks,
Bob Hall
Napoleon, OH
65.3, 189.7 Apparent Rennarian
------------------------------
End of HOMEBREW Digest #4940, 01/30/06
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