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HOMEBREW Digest #5042
HOMEBREW Digest #5042 Mon 07 August 2006
FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
Digest Janitor: pbabcock at hbd.org
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Contents:
re: eisbier ("steve.alexander")
a tasty ale (leavitdg)
Tri Clamp pipe/2.5 gallon Corny kegs ("NS Teddy Winstead, MD, MS")
pretzels and lye (Jeff Renner)
What to do with a beer that has lots of fusels? ("Peter A. Ensminger")
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Date: Mon, 07 Aug 2006 02:00:01 -0400
From: "steve.alexander" <-s at adelphia.net>
Subject: re: eisbier
Steve Dale-Johnson says ...,
> ... few pointers:
>1) it will not make a bad beer into a good beer.
I completely agree. I once eisbock'ed a too-phenolic rye beer
and the result was a really concentrated too-phenolic rye,
not good.
*IF* done properly it will concentrate the ethanol and the malty
flavors, but also concentrates the fusels and any off flavor. The
fact is that beer has a rather high fraction of dextrins, and these
concentrated dextrins will eventually overwhelm the body of any
eisbier/eisbock processes carried to excess. Of course we should
distinguish eisbier from eisbock. For eisbier the small (~5%) reduction
does not cause great concentration, but it does accomplish some of the
same goals as lagering - removal of residual yeast, oxidized polyphenolics
and and "polishing" of the flavors.
>[...]
>Easiest way to do it is to put a little less than a gallon in a clean
>plastic gallon milk jug. Freeze solid and invert over a quart mason jar.
>Leave the whole setup in the freezer. It will fill slowly and you can empty
>the mason jar as you go.
NO ! This is wrong and will not make an eisbier. Do NOT freeze solid - ever.
If you do, melt and start over.
The eisbier/eisbock process involves *slowly* freezing just a fraction of
the water in the beer. It is the *slow* partial freezing and separation
which allow you to remove mostly water and retain the rest. You want to
form almost pure ice crystals. Freezing too fast creates an amorphous
'slush' which traps "good stuff" in the freeze - that is exactly what we
don't want.
Here is a good test of your eisb' process. Melt the removed 'ice' fraction
into a glass and taste it. It should taste like water with a little yeast,
phenolic flavor and only the slightest hint of any ethanol. The re-melt
should be very pale to clear in color even if the beer is quite dark.
If your re-melt is colored or contains other flavors then you are
freezing too fast.
I've accomplished decent eisbock separation by wrapping a corny keg in
bubble wrap (for insulation -> slow cooling) and placing this in a not
too cold freezer until ~20% is ice ... then separate & repeat. For
eisbier 5% ice is closer to the mark. If you do this right, freeze
slowly enough, then the ethanol content of the liquid portion depresses
the freezing point enough to prevent freezing solid (or at least making it
very slow indeed) and then the process is self-limiting until you drop
the freezer temp.
>... and oxidation does not seem to be an issue even with the open drip
> method
NOT my experience !! After a couple clumsy eisbock separations the
oxidation aldehyde aroma is clear, concentrated, obnoxious. You should
take care to avoid oxidation during the eisb' separation. I would never
try the open drip separation as the amount of O2 uptake will be impressive.
-S
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Date: Mon, 07 Aug 2006 07:18:23 -0400
From: leavitdg at plattsburgh.edu
Subject: a tasty ale
I have fallen in love with the WLP007- English Dry Ale Yeast, and just recently
brewed a batch that has just been chilled and it is very good, so I thought I'd
share the recipe.
I called this "Bastille Ale" in that it was brewed on 7/14.
1 lb wheat
9.5 lb Golden Promise Pale
.25 Caramel 120 L
.25 Special Roast
2 stage infusion.
2 hour boil.
.75 oz Cascade at first wort
.25 oz Cascade at 60
.25 oz Amarillo at 30
.50 oz Amarillo at 15.
og was 1.055
fg was 1.010
%abv is 5.8%
Just thought I'd share as this tastes wonderful!
Happy Brewing!
Darrell
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Date: Mon, 07 Aug 2006 09:39:11 -0400
From: "NS Teddy Winstead, MD, MS" <ted at winstead.net>
Subject: Tri Clamp pipe/2.5 gallon Corny kegs
Tried to post this on Sat but it looks like it didn't go through. My
apologies if this shows up twice.
My first post since HBD #1733. Yikes! Glad the HBD is still going
strong, many thanks to our janitor and sponsors.
I am amazed at how inexpensive Tri Clamp fittings have become, both from
retail outlets (St. Pat's in particular) and Ebay. When I started in
this hobby they were sort of the unobtainable holy grail for pipe
fittings. Thank the Chinese, I guess.
I've been brewing with a RIMS setup for quite some time now (since about
1994). Mine is currently some 1.5 inch NPT nipples with a T at one end
and an elbow at the other. I got this idea from Dion Hollenbeck, I
think. The problem with this setup is that the heating element goes in
the T then into the pipe nipple. I also have the wort inflow into the
top of the T. This is a fairly common setup if you look at online
brewery pics. The problem with this setup is that little bits of grain
and some occassional scorched wort get stuck in the end of the T near
the base of the element. Over time this will build up and give off
flavors and maybe occasionally dump sour bits into your new beer. In
fact, the problem with RIMS in general is that the heating element
chamber is tough to clean out and dry out even if you recirc cleaning
solution after your brew session and attempt to purge it with air or gas.
I've been thinking about rebuilding the chamber out of
tri-clamp/tri-clover fittings to make cleaning and disassembly less of a
chore, but I cannot locate a straight piece of tri-clamp pipe. IE the T
and elbow are easy to get, but I cannot find a 12" or so long piece of
straight pipe with tri-clamp fittings on either end. I know I could buy
two ferrules and a straight pipe section and have something welded up,
but I'd have to find a welder in my area, etc., etc. Time is a premium
for me, so I'd rather get one pre-made. Does anyone have a source for
such a thing?
While I'm posting, does anyone have a source for a used 2.5 gallon (or 2
gal or 3 gal) corny keg? I know there are new ones available, but the
best price I can find is just shy of a hundred bucks which seems steep.
Teddy
Former fanatical homebrewer, now merely a zealot.
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Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2006 11:05:14 -0400
From: Jeff Renner <jsrenner at umich.edu>
Subject: pretzels and lye
Brewers
I am reposting this as while I was on vacation, I had access only to
webmail (and that for only three days of the two weeks), and it
insisted on exceeding the 80 character line length required by HBD.
It took me all of this past week to wade through the 400+ emails I
had upon my return. Of course, the fact that we had house guests
this past week and that my elderly mother fell and broke her elbow,
necessitating several doctor visits, didn't help.
So here is the reposting. The last paragraph was the reason I posted.
Now to catch up on the other discussion groups I try to read.
Jeff
"Grant Stott" <gstott at iprimus.com.au> writes from Victoria Australia
> Jeff Renner if you are reading this thanks again for
> posting your Pretzel recipe way back.
>
Cheers from the Berkshire Mts of western Massachusetts, where we are
visiting friends before heading to the North Shore (north of Boston,
that is, in Rockport) for a week+. Wish we were there now, as the
official temperature is 97.5F/36.4C, and there is no A/C in their
delightful old house. And to think that before global warming,
people used to come up to the Berkshires to escape
city heat!
(Did you all feel a kind of lurching in the homebrew coordinates as
[0,0] moved about 600 miles east?)
You are most welcome for the recipe, Grant. Glad you can make it a
family project. I have a CAP lagering back home that should be ready
when I get back, and I think I will make pretzels as they go so well
with that beer.
BTW, if anyone read the recipe in Zymurgy back then, don't worry
about finding food grade lye. That was a precaution taken by the
editor. I just use pure lye (NaOH) in the form of Red Devil drain
cleaner. A chemistry prof friend assures me that the method used to
prepare NaOH (hydrolysis of NaCl) results in a pure and safe form.
Cheers
Jeff
- ---
Jeff Renner in Ann Arbor, Michigan USA, jsrenner at umich.edu
"One never knows, do one?" Fats Waller, American Musician, 1904-1943
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 07 Aug 2006 14:13:18 -0400
From: "Peter A. Ensminger" <ensmingr at twcny.rr.com>
Subject: What to do with a beer that has lots of fusels?
Greetings,
I recently made a braggot (11 lbs of malt, 7 lbs of honey; OG ~ 1.107).
Unfortunately, I ended up with a 5-gal keg of brew that seems to have
lots of higher alcohols, possibly because of a recent heat wave. (BTW,
my taste buds are BJCP-trained.) What should I do with this brew? I've
got three ideas below, but would also be interested in your opinions.
1) Add a bunch of herbs and/or spices to cover up the bad taste of the
higher alcohols.
2) Add charred wood staves to the keg to "soak up" the higher alcohols.
The logic is that higher alcohols (which are more non-polar than
ethanol) will be preferentially absorbed to the charcoal.
3) Restart the fermentation by adding more honey and yeast. The logic is
that this will esterify existing fusels. See the discussion in:
http://hbd.org/hbd/archive/4459.html#4459-9 and #4459-10
Cheers!
Peter A. Ensminger
Syracuse, NY
Apparent Rennerian: [394, 79.9]
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End of HOMEBREW Digest #5042, 08/07/06
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