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HOMEBREW Digest #5057
HOMEBREW Digest #5057 Wed 13 September 2006
FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
Digest Janitor: pbabcock at hbd.org
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Contents:
SRM Measurement with your Camera ("A.J deLange")
mead (in a few weeks?) (leavitdg)
Re: Mead for dummies? (Laura Conrad)
Beer's Law ("Peter A. Ensminger")
Re: Mead for Dummies? ("Eric Wescott")
Yeast role or non-role in lagering ("Ken Anderson")
SRM: Another Beer ("A.J deLange")
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Date: Wed, 13 Sep 2006 03:08:15 +0000
From: "A.J deLange" <ajdel at cox.net>
Subject: SRM Measurement with your Camera
Tonight I thought I'd put the Beer's law thing to the test to see if I
could estimate the SRM of a Pils using an Oktoberfest of 17.6 SRM which
I had earlier verified satisfies Beer's law as the reference. I made
dilutions of the O'fest of 1:1 (beer:water) with SRM adjusted by
dilution factor to 8.8; 2:3 (SRM 7.04); 3:7 (SRM 5.28) and 1:4 (SRM
3.52). I put these dilutions in volumetric flasks and placed the flasks
in front of a light table turned on it's side. I've no idea what the
color temperature of the light table is but it should be a D50
illuminant if it's used by real graphics folks. I took a photograph
which is at http://www.pbase.com/agamid/image/66773803. The "unknown" is
in the center (it still shows some foam although both beers were shaken
extensively on a mechanical shaker to degass them).
If you followed the 3 previous posts on color I had indicated in the
third that SRM comparison would be improved if one observed through a
blue filter since the SRM measurement is taken at the blue end of the
spectrum. It occured to me that I, and most of you, have such a blue
filter handy and it is in your digital camera. So I took the blue
channel only of the photo and boosted the gamma for that channel (but
kept it linear) in Photoshop so that the differences in darkness stand
out. The result is at http://www.pbase.com/agamid/image/66773816. This
photo plainly shows that the beers are arranged in order of increasing
darkness (and you can use the numerical measuring tool in Photoshop to
verify this if you aren't confident in your visual asessment). The
"unknown" in the middle is slightly darker than the dilution to the left
(5.28) and appreciably lighter than the dilution to its right (7.04). So
we might guess the SRM of the unknown to be about 5.5. It is, in fact 5.8.
But it gets better. If I set the Photoshop cursor to 5x5 pixels and read
the intensities in the centers of the four dilution containing flasks in
the blue image I get the four values plotted against the calculated
diluton SRM values as shown in http://www.pbase.com/image/66776139. If I
do a linear fit to these measurements I get the slope and intercept as
shown on the graph and if I solve for SRM based on the Photoshop reading
of the "unknown" I get 5.71. This is within a tenth of an SRM unit!!
There must be some beginner's luck here but this is pretty exciting
("This," you are saying to yourself, "is what gets this guy excited?").
We may be on the way to being able to measure SRM without anything more
sophisticated than some liquid measurement means, a uniform light
source, some clear containers a digital camera and a reference beer.
For now I'll give you Guiness at SRM 51 as a reference beer but as I
suspect that part of the reason I had such good luck was that the beers
I experimented with were similar I think that something in the high
teens would be better as a reference for most of the beers we brew. If
anyone is interested in trying this suggest a beer you'd like to use as
a reference and I'll get the SRM of it for you. I think the Fixs used a
beer which is no longer made.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 13 Sep 2006 06:43:14 -0400
From: leavitdg at plattsburgh.edu
Subject: mead (in a few weeks?)
I have several meads going, and can suggest that mead in a few weeks is really
not possible,or you have some real young,and not real good mead. I use what I
can the "Bechard" method, from Tom Bechard (yes, older brother of Bryan, and son
of Claude, of the NorthCountry Malt Supply) who taught me the "no boil" method.
Real easy, and I'd be glad to share, but I think that if I wanted something in 6
or 7 weeks, I'd make a honey wheat or something of that sort.
I am not at home, so cannot check the dates, but several meads that are cookin'
in the brewery are over 3 or 4 months and are still cloudy and in primary.
Most meads go at least 1 year before ready.
I'd love to hear if others have found ways to rush the process.
Happy Brewing!
Darrell
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 13 Sep 2006 09:50:44 -0400
From: Laura Conrad <lconrad at laymusic.org>
Subject: Re: Mead for dummies?
>>>>> "drscholtz" == drscholtz <drscholtz at comcast.net> writes:
drscholtz> Can anyone out there help me out with a no-fail recipe
drscholtz> that can be served 6-7 weeks from now?
Buy some non-pasteurized apple cider and just let it sit. I'm no sure
that's no-fail, so you might want to taste it from time to time, but
it always works for me.
- --
Laura (mailto:lconrad at laymusic.org , http://www.laymusic.org/ )
(617) 661-8097 fax: (501) 641-5011
233 Broadway, Cambridge, MA 02139
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 13 Sep 2006 10:39:11 -0400
From: "Peter A. Ensminger" <ensmingr at twcny.rr.com>
Subject: Beer's Law
Matt B (Northern VA) recently posted on Beer's Law.
1) Matt says that many of us (mea culpa!) have been sloppy in calling
this "Beer's Law" when it should more appropriately be called
"Beer-Lambert Law" or maybe (chronologically) "Bourguer-Lambert-Beer
Law", or ...? My understanding is that Bourguer, Lambert, and Beer
independently "discovered" this relationship and just used different
mathematics to express it. Surely, another HBD'er can tell us more about
the history.
2) Matt reminds us that color is not the same as absorbance at 430nm.
Good reminder. Beer's Law is about measurements with a
spectrophotometer (according to ASBC, A-430), not what we see.
3) My comment about getting a cuvette that is several feet thick to
measure Bud Light
was "tongue in cheek" (or should I say "beer in mouth"). However, I
disagree with Matt's appraisal of the *sensitivity* of the
"Klett-Summerson photoelectric colorimeter". The Klett meter uses an
"end-on" photocell so cannot match the sensitivity of a
spectrophotometer that has a photomultiplier. This instrument, while a
useful tool for teaching (at least back in my 'salad days'; do teachers
still use this thing?), has very poor sensitivity and range. Moreover,
you are measuring "Klett Units", not A-430.
Cheers!
Peter A. Ensminger
Syracuse, NY
Apparent Rennerian: [394, 79.9]
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 13 Sep 2006 13:30:52 -0400
From: "Eric Wescott" <eric.wescott at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Mead for Dummies?
Reply to Brendon/Drscholtz about mead in 6-7 weeks.
Mead in 6-7 weeks is like asking for wine in 3 weeks, or beer in 3
days. Mead typically takes more like 6-12 months to ferment, settle,
and age to smooth. Smooth "enough" can typically be achieved after 3
months.
But - do not despare! I see two options for how to get a honey-based
brew ready in this short time.
1) Go Sweet: make something that's going to end up sweet - in fact,
very sweet. The sweetness, much like the use of mixers with cheap
liquor, hides the rough alcohols. For a 5-gallon batch, try 15lbs of
honey, water to 5G, yeast nutrient, and a normal beer yeast (I've made
decent mead with Muntons). Let it get mostly fermented, feeding with
small adds of nutrients and energizer to keep it going. When it's
most of the way there (11-12% ABV), hit it with some sulfites and cool
it to drop as much yeast as you can. Bottle or keg as needed (bubbly
sweet mead is awesome, by the way!)
2) Go Braggot: make your favorite 5G beer recipe, then add 5 to 8 lb
of honey at flame-out. Use extra hops for more bitter to stand up to
the extra alcohol you're going to get from this. The malt and hops
from the beer will cover the roughness of the younger mead, and you'll
get some varietal/floral flavor from the honey based on the type you
use. Treat like beer through brewing.
Some tips:
* Don't boil the honey. Use hot water to melt it, but don't boil the
honey. Honey loses aroma and flavor when boiled. Don't worry about
infection from the "non-boiled" honey, either - it's so high in sugar
almost no bacteria survives - a naturally sterile food.
* Use a normal yeast. Beer yeasts tend to ferment quick and drop
fast, and most cap at 12% alcohol. You'll rely on that cap for
attenuation in order to retain residual sweetness. If you use
champagne yeast, you're looking at needing a lot more honey to turn
into ethanol to override the 16-18% ABV cuto-off.
Good luck!
- --Eric Wescott, Stratford CT
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 13 Sep 2006 13:35:19 -0400
From: "Ken Anderson" <kapna at adelphia.net>
Subject: Yeast role or non-role in lagering
I have a suspicion that one of the myths associated with home brewing is
that the reason a lager's flavor and aroma change over time is due to the
small amount of yeast present.
Now I'm no expert, but I'm wondering if lagering actually has nothing to do
with yeast physiology. Liquids can change over time, that change having
zero to do with biology. Wine, I believe is an example, because it changes
with aging, and I don't believe yeast are regarded as being responsible for
that. The change in coffee over a period of hours would be another example.
The thing is, how could this be proven or disproven? Any process used to
remove or disable the yeast could be said to affect the flavor/aroma. For
example, if you split a batch, filtered one, then lagered, the filtering
most likely will have affected the final flavor. Chemically disable the
yeast (sorbate?) and you have affected the final flavor. Irradiate, and
possibly the same result.
So how do we really know that yeast are responsible for the results of the
process we call lagering?
Ken Anderson
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 14 Sep 2006 01:14:06 +0000
From: "A.J deLange" <ajdel at cox.net>
Subject: SRM: Another Beer
Tonight I ran the new method against an ESB. As this beer is darker I
used 1/2 inch square bottles instead of 50 mL volumetric flasks
(dilutions were still done in the flasks) fearing that the thicker path
through the flasks would absorb too much. The plunger in the pipetter
hung up a little on a couple of the transfers so I knew the dilutions
were not exact but I kept going anway as the robustness of this method
is very important if it's to be useful to homebrewers unskilled in the
laboratory arts. Scaled dilutions were to 15.84, 14.08, 12.32 and10.56
SRM. I took the photo and manipulated it the same way (turned red and
green gamma's to 0, zeroed saturation, boosted gamma on the B&W image to
enhance the tone differences and measured the intensities using the
PhotoShop cursor. Because of the sloppiness in dilution the resulting
linear fit gave me r = 0.977 (as opposed to 0.999 from last night's
data). Nevertheless when I plugged in the PhotoShop reading for the
unknown I got 13.582 as the estsimated SRM. The beer measures SRM 13.8
on the spec. It's still a bit early to claim victory here but if this
keeps up we may have something. The reason this works and seems to be
robust is because the blue filter readings must be correlating well with
the 430 nm readings (the similarity among beer spectra suggest that this
should happen), the dilutions are numerous enough and close enough in
SRM that errors in preparing them average out to some extent and finally
that the luminance value calculated by PhotoShop is close to the true
luminance. This tells me that PS diddles the readings to account for the
gamma of the display which is to appear downstream. All very fortuitous.
I went back and checked the Fixs' method which I remembered correctly
clearly stated that the dilutions are not linear. This is probably not
so much because they thought Beer's law (which they never mention) was
not observed but because they chose to use the Lovibond scale which is
not linear with respect to anything I can think of. It was going out of
use in the days they wrote and is definitely archaic today, though one
still finds Lovibond comparators for scale in scientific instrument
catalogues and dark malts are usually sold with a Lovibond rating.
Final note: I found a sticker on the light table confirming that it is
indeed 5000 K as anticipated.
A.J.
------------------------------
End of HOMEBREW Digest #5057, 09/13/06
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