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HOMEBREW Digest #4980
HOMEBREW Digest #4980 Thu 23 March 2006
FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
Digest Janitor: pbabcock at hbd.org
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Contents:
Subject: Re: Did I re-invent Real Ale? ("Mike Racette")
Re: Oxygen scavenging caps ("Wine, Barley & Hops Homebrew Supply")
Thermometers ("Dave Burley")
RE: Thermometers (Steven Parfitt)
Dry Ice ("Doug Renfrew")
Growth: culture vs individual ("Fredrik")
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Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 09:18:16 -0700
From: "Mike Racette" <mike.racette at hydro-gardens.com>
Subject: Subject: Re: Did I re-invent Real Ale?
In a word, No. Most Real Ale people (CAMRA, etc) will say that real ale
has no forced carbonation.
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Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 12:29:10 -0500
From: "Wine, Barley & Hops Homebrew Supply" <winebarleyandhops at worldlynx.net>
Subject: Re: Oxygen scavenging caps
We don't post often but we do lurk a lot on HBD and seeing all the posts
about Oxygen Barrier and Scavenging crown caps, we decided to contact one of
our suppliers, LD Carlson and get their take on the subject. They faxed us
some literature about the Oxygen Barrier Caps. Here is the info:
These caps, to the naked eye, look just like the plain gold crown caps
except their color is silver. However, the lining of the oxygen barrier
crowns is coated with a special oxygen-scavenging agent. Activated by
moisture, this agent begins seeking all freely floating O2 molecules and
adheres to them.
One question that has arisen with this information in mind..... If the caps
are moisture activated, how do you sanitize them without using up all of the
oxygen scavenging agent on the sanitizing solution? In reserching this
question, here are a few answers:
1. The singel best way to sanitize thes caps is the use of Ultra Violet
(UV) lamp. Now we understand that the vast majority users are not going to
go out and buy a UV lamp just for your caps. But that is the only way to
avoid sanitizing with moisture.
2. Use a mixture of Sodium Metabisulphite Solution (2 oz. per gal of
water). This is a non-oxygen based cleanser that will sanitize safely.
However...the trick is to have the solution made up and quickly dip the cap
in immediately before capping. It is not necessary and certainly not
recommended to soak the caps as this solution works on contact. The less
exposure to this solution, the more oxygen scavenging agent left of the
beer.
3. Use an iodine based solution (such as BTF Iodophor). It is not
recommended to use a cleaner/sanitizer that has an extremely high ratio of
water to additive because water contains a high amount of oxygen and can be
detrimental to the effectiveness of the caps once on the bottle. Again, dip
quickly and then cap immediately. Do not soak.
Although very effective for zillions of applications, we do not recommend
using One-Step No-Rinse Cleanser on the oxygen barrier crowns. One-Step is
a hydrogen peroxide based cleanser. The oxygen in this chemical is easliy
separated from its molecules and will result in lots of freely floating O2.
If the caps are exposed to this, the scavenging agent will spend all of it's
energies adhering to the O2 in the One-Step and have little left for the
head space in your bottles. Therefore, we feel the best and most reasonable
method is the Sodium Metabisulphite solution, which has also been
recommended by the manufacturer of the oxygen barrier crowns.
The oxy crowns we get from LD Carlson are manufactured in the USA by Crwon
Cork & Seal.
We hope that gives everyone a little more info on these caps. We use them
on our homemade Belgiums and Barley Wines and have been very happy with the
results.
Paul & Liz
Wine, Barley & Hops Homebrew Supply
248 Bustleton Pike
Feasterville, PA 19053-7820
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 09:37:07 -0500
From: "Dave Burley" <Dave_Burley at charter.net>
Subject: Thermometers
Brewsters:
Dave Houseman and others are pondering how to know if his thermometer is
accurate.
The solution is to calibrate the thermometer using known temperatures. How
to do this? Ice water - crushed ice in contact with the water is by
definition 32F or 0 C. Boiling water is 212F or 100C at sea level and most
places in the US close enouigh. In the mountains or death valley?, there
are corrections for the boiling point. How about the temperatures in
between? Since the heat capacity of <water> is essentially constant across
this temperature range mixtures of ice water (without the ice) and boiling
water are proportional to the final temperature of the mixture, so you can
have as many in-betweens as you wish. Use a thermos jug which has been
conditioned with water close to the desired temperature and then put in new
water blends. A plot of the temperature read from the thermometer vs the
actual calculated temperature will allow you to use any thermometer at any
temperature.
Keep on Brewin'
Dave Burley
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 06:01:39 -0800 (PST)
From: Steven Parfitt <thegimp98 at yahoo.com>
Subject: RE: Thermometers
Tim is having thermometer problems
Tue, 21 Mar 2006 16:24:20 -0800 (PST)
I've used exactly the same thermometer for five years
without problems. The only two issues I have are (1)
the SS braid must never be immersed in liquid, (2) The
piont where the wires enter the SS probe are a stress
poing.
Mine finally got flakey (Im'm sending it back for a
free replacement as they have a lifetime warranty).
The wires are fraying at the stress point (1). I went
ahead and bought a new one at Bed Bath and Beyond
($18) yesterday.
If you did get water in the probe, put it in an oven
set at 2350F for a couple of hours to dry it out. You
want to dry it slowly so as not to dammage the
thermocouple by heating it too hot. Don't put the
plastic phono plug end in the oven though.
Steven
>Hello all,
>I've recently started doing partial mashes and I need
>a dependable thermometer. I unfortunately bought a
>crappy thermometer and I'd like to hear if anyone has
>recommendations for non-crappy thermometers. The one
>I bought is digital, which I figure is what I'm
>looking for, but after using it twice it is telling
>me my tap water is 175 F and there's no way to
>recalibrate it. It's a 'probe' variety thermometer
>which is supposed to be able to stand up to 400 F in
\
>the oven, which made me think it would be ok for
>brewing. Apparently not. Any suggestions would be
>greatly appreciated!
>The model I bought is made by Pyrex... a picture can
>be found at
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/
B00004RC4R/103-5279994-0654200?v=glance&n=284507.
>(URL on two lines because it was making HBD reject my
>post)
>I wouldn't recommend it, if anyone else is looking
>for a thermometer.
>Thanks,
>Tim McMahon
Steven, -75 XLCH- Ironhead Nano-Brewery http://thegimp.8k.com
Johnson City, TN [422.7, 169.2] Rennerian
"There is no such thing as gravity, the earth sucks." Wings Whiplash - 1968
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 14:06:14 -0500
From: "Doug Renfrew" <renfrew at email.unc.edu>
Subject: Dry Ice
I one of my labmates received some samples today from another lab that
were shipped on dry ice. Got me thinking, has anyone here ever force
carbonated with dry ice? I am thinking that with the right amount of
dry ice, you could both cool and carbonate your beer simultaneously.
For those who don't know dry ice is solid carbon dioxide. It is very
cold (-109.3 degrees Fahrenheit) and at room temperature it sublimes
(sublimation is when a solid transitions directly into gas).
Doug
- --
- ---------------------------------------------
P. Douglas Renfrew
Graduate Student
Molecular and Cellular Biophysics Program
Dept. Biochemistry and Biophysics
Unv. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
- ---------------------------------------------
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 21:54:12 +0100
From: "Fredrik" <carlsbergerensis at hotmail.com>
Subject: Growth: culture vs individual
Hello, some ideas on Nathaniels comments on
Tue, 21 Mar 2006 08:44:34 -0500:
> >>barrels) is a ~3X. A yeast cell in ideal condition hits the fermenter
> with 1%
> >>sterols, each division reduces this by half.
>
> Does the sterol share differently than other cell components?
I don't know for sure, but at least not as far as I know?
I'm not sure what the point would be either.
Maybe someone else can confirm or dismiss.
>
> Just trying to resolve the dissonance. NPL
Still, if you look at it from the culture perspective the things make sense
in the sense of the sterol level per population unit no matter what.
Perhaps a more avoiding language would be to say that on
each population doubling in the culture, the sterol density per
population unit reduces by half.
But the collecton of "population units" is not homogenous.
In any real normal population I think individuals are bound to
typically be a little different anyway. Different sizes, different
ages and so on.
If the population in a culture increases by a factor 8, this does
not imply that every single cell contributes equally, or
that each branch in the division tree live *exactly* 3 generatons.
The *population* OTOH doubles exactly 3 times.
While the overall culture dynamics is fairly well defined, as far as I
understnad it is a completely different story to try to predict the
the dynamics of the distributions of various properties within a
population.
I made a simple simulation of the division tree of a 1:5 assymmetric
division, and ingore differences in cycle times between mother
and daugther. I evaluated the dilution treshold to corresponding
some ~5 generations and then the tree becomes assymmetric as
it stalls, due to the assymmetric divison. Some cells on the right side
reached only 3 generations [because (1/5)^3 < 1/(2^5)] while the
left hand side reached about 13 divisions. Still, this doesn't
change the overall population averages.
http://hem.bredband.net/frerad/beer/modelling/pictures
/div.tree.sim_1to5ass_6.jpg
(had to cut the link due to the 80chl)
I think when you put on top of this then real conditions of
stress factors vs cell age etc, and things can get even more complex.
I have lately had some considerations about the population dynamics
in response to changes vs the internal distributions. It seems to me
that knowledge of the internal distributions may help find the culture
dynamics, such as the characteristics of stalled growth
during nutrution population. The variaton withing the population seem to
make the culture dynamics smoother even from a pure mathematical
point of view, and there has to be a kind of relation between internal
variation and the "smoothness factor". This can be hinted above. In the
simple simulation the degree of assymmetric budding seem to clearly
impact the power of the population growth deacceleration
(due to sterol depletion)
In a beer fermentation the dynamics of the culture dynamics is most
interesting. My only worries is that we can loose the information
particularly when it comes to the dynamic of transitions if we completely
ignore the internal variations?
/Fredrik
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End of HOMEBREW Digest #4980, 03/23/06
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