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HOMEBREW Digest #5088
HOMEBREW Digest #5088 Wed 08 November 2006
FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
Digest Janitor: pbabcock at hbd.org
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Contents:
Amarillo hops (Fred L Johnson)
fruits and vegetables ("Peter A. Ensminger")
Time and Temp ("Rob Moline")
Brewing Tools for the Palm Pilot ("Dirk Bridgedale")
Flavour intensity transformations of c6-c10 ethyl esters ("Fredrik")
Sorry Bernd (MICHAEL MECKEL)
Steve's Mystery Illness ("Graham L Sanders")
home roasted special b (Raj B Apte)
Attenuation, etc Part I ("A.J deLange")
Attenuation, etc Part II ("A.J deLange")
Bacteria and Methanol alcohol ("Michael Kolaghassi")
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Date: Tue, 7 Nov 2006 23:02:07 -0500
From: Fred L Johnson <FLJohnson52 at nc.rr.com>
Subject: Amarillo hops
I've finally gotten my first opportunity to brew with Amarillo hops and
I'm looking for a nicely balanced recipe that features this variety. I
know many of you would recommend a highly hopped IPA to show off these
hops, but I have been too often disappointed with my highly hopped
brews, so I'm really looking for something a little more tame.
Any suggestions for an American Pale Ale? What if I just substituted
these hops in my Sierra Nevada clone recipe (which is usually quite
good)?
Fred L Johnson
Apex, North Carolina, USA
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 08 Nov 2006 01:28:09 -0500
From: "Peter A. Ensminger" <ensmingr at twcny.rr.com>
Subject: fruits and vegetables
Hey now!
I have always appreciated that botanists and cooks/chefs have different
opinions about fruits and vegetables.
For a botanist (I am one! BS & PhD), a fruit is the product of a ripened
ovary *and associated parts* [see Gleason & Cronquist, 1991, "Manual of
Vascular Plants" and a gazillion other sources]. Thus, the pumpkin,
strawberry, watermelon, gourd, banana, fig, lingonberry, pepper, and
tomato are all fruits to a botanist. In the kitchen, I treat the
pumpkin, gourd, pepper, and tomato as vegetables.
Now that we're past pumpkin season and Thanksgiving season beckons, how
about some ideas for making a "cock ale"!?!
Cheers!
Peter A. Ensminger
Syracuse, NY
Apparent Rennerian: [394, 79.9]
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 8 Nov 2006 03:26:38 -0600
From: "Rob Moline" <jethrogump at mchsi.com>
Subject: Time and Temp
Time and Temp
Steve asks about time and temp in an improved high grav brew First
barley wine attempt and a lovely lushly dense sweetness of 24 P wort,
converted by Nottingham, to a tangled trap of razor blades in barbed wire!
Thankfully we kept at it, encouraged by visiting brewers who knew more than
we did.
The beer was brewed 12.31.05, took the silver for B-wine at the 96 WBC
in June, then the Gold at the GABF @ the end of September. Ferm as @68 F, and
secondary was at 35 F, in spin-side Grundies, unpressurized, only a bit of
aluminium foil sealing the CIP inlet. Finings were AB Vickers Dry-Fine, and
the batch was force carbed to what I guess was 1.9 vols CO2...I didn't know
how to use, much less own a Zahm and Nagel!
The beer continued to mellow for several years, though one could detect
a sherry like note attributed to yeast lysis...mot unpleasant, but notable.
I think Siebel called it at 10.54 ABW when they analyzed it in 98. The only
known bottle, perhaps is still in Bosco's in Nashville...maybe it's gone
now, but that would be interesting to try. Cheers!
Gump
Rob Moline
"The More I Know About Beer, The More I Realize I Need To Know More About
Beer!"
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------------------------------
Date: Wed, 8 Nov 2006 11:01:02 -0800
From: "Dirk Bridgedale" <dirk at bridgedale.net>
Subject: Brewing Tools for the Palm Pilot
This is just to get the word out. I have submitted a new application
at www.palmgear.com. Tools by BrewPartner. If you try it out, I
would like some feedback.
Thank you!!!!
Dirk
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 8 Nov 2006 21:38:43 +0100
From: "Fredrik" <carlsbergerensis at hotmail.com>
Subject: Flavour intensity transformations of c6-c10 ethyl esters
On the possible candidate role of the ethyl esters of the 6-10 carbon
fatty acids, Steve points out that these acids are nasty as well.
They have been described as fatty, soapy, goaty. So one may
suspect that when their esters are hydrolysed, the result may not be
very nice either, so it is valid to ask, how there can be overall
"improvement" if we just trade in one bad thing for another one?
That's a great general point, but lets take a look at the flavor
thresholds...
As is often thresholds tend to vary between papers, but the paper
from Vanderhaegen(1) and company I referred to in the other post the
thresholds of these esters are
(Ester) (FT)
ethyl-hexanoate 0.2 ppm
ethyl-octanoate 0.9 ppm
ethyl-decanoate 0.5 ppm
About the acids we see(2) for water(They are presumably higher in beer)
(Acid) (FT)
hexanoic acid 3-5 ppm
octanoic acid 3-5 ppm
decanoic acid 3-10 ppm
To get a better picture what these ppm numbers means in terms of
real flavor, the better unit for analysis is the flavour treshold
unit (FU), I assume introduced by Meilgaard, which is the
concentration relative to the flavour treshold of respective compound.
FU = 1, means the compound is at the threshold and FU > 1 is obviously
more significant than FU < 1.
Since during hydrolysis we trade in one acid molecule for each ester
molecule we split, we get the following relation for the differential
shift of flavour intensities.
d[Acid].FU/d[Ester].FU = - M.acid/M.ester * FT.ester/FT.acid
(M.x is the molarmass; FT.x is the flavour threshold)
We now get [I make pessimistic esimates and take the threshold
to be only 3 ppm on all acids! the numbers are probably higher
due to masking, since the above acid values are for water,
not beer, but this would further strengten the following conclusion]
d[hexanoate].FU/d[ethylhexanoate].FU ~ -0.05
d[octanoate].FU/d[ethyloctanoate].FU ~ -0.25
d[decanoate].FU/d[ethyldecanoate].FU ~ -0.14
So what does this mean? This means the stochiometry of hydrolysis
combined with the flavor tresholds implies that if the flavour
intensity of
..ethylhexanoate decreases 2 FU, the hexanoate
intensity will increase 2 * 0.05 ~ 0.1 FU.
..ethytoctanoate decreases 2 FU, the octanoate
intesity will increase 2 * 0.25 ~ 0.5 FU.
..ethyldecanoate decreases 2 FU, the decanoate
intesity will increase 2 * 0.14 ~ 0.3 FU.
So it seems that when you look at the numbers in these cases... the
relative increase in goaty,sweaty (undoubtedly following the ester
hydrolysis as pointed out) is probably small on the relative scale,
and this is the exploit to trade a significant reduction in ester
flavour, against at least a less significant, or possibly even
insignificant in some cases, increase in fatty, goaty flavours,
so it seems to me it's less of an issue that one might have
intuitively suspected.
So I would still want to keep these esters on the list of possibilities.
But that said there are of course other candidates.
(1) http://class.fst.ohio-state.edu/fst611/Papers/Vanderhaegen%202003.pdf
(2) http://www.leffingwell.com/odorthre.htm
/Fredrik
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 8 Nov 2006 13:07:00 -0800 (PST)
From: MICHAEL MECKEL <michael_m21234 at yahoo.com>
Subject: Sorry Bernd
Steve, I may agree with you concerning pumpkin beers,
but I have to strongly disagree with your contention
that pumpkin makes a second rate pie! If you have an
opportunity, stop by my bakery (Fenwick Bakery) and
you will have the chance to try a pie which is much
better than merely second rate <G>.
>Steve Alexander writes:
> They make dandy jack-o-lanterns, second rate pies
> and marginal cattle
> fodder.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 9 Nov 2006 08:15:10 +1000
From: "Graham L Sanders" <grahamsanders at rawnet.com.au>
Subject: Steve's Mystery Illness
G'Day All
Alexandre wisely noted
>>>>>Now, I'm sure he'll chime in (it's been a while, though, so he might
be buried under some mangoes)<<<<<
Yes I still lurk, and like some mysterious creature I have come into the
light
to grace this board. Actually it was more of a case that with all these
Australian legends dropping off the perch faster than Russian vodka
drinkers, I thought I was in the firing line, So I have been keeping myself
under the radar.
Still I have been managing to cheat death lately, kicking the second worlds
deadliest land snake recently, (in bare feet), and doing home made impeller
repairs to my beer pump. But it was wisely written>>>>> but Gram
Senders from the oh-zee craftbrewers podcast had a series of things to
say about gluten-free beer.<<<<<
And yes I did quite in depth report over a number of program for those
unfortunates who cant drink "normal beer" for what ever reason.
We over here lead the world in Gluten Free Brewing, even have German
brewers coming over to learn, as well as an increasing wealth of gluten
free malts.
I myself have made a Budgeree Lager out of 50% raw millet that was a
real hit at a local folk festival. Mind you, those hippies would have drunk
anything I recon. So it certainly can be done.
Try http://radio.craftbrewer.org and look thru past programs.
Also >>>>I for one would love to hear about an actual rice beer. How
does a RicePA sound? :-)<<<< Thats ok but I have made rice beer,
but thats another story.
Shout
Graham L Sanders
oh
The salties up here are getting bad. They are breeding up to such an extent
they are now swimming in the open ocean and cruising off the local
beaches here. Could you imagine a Florida or California beach with a
type of shark alert, but its 3 metre crocs instead.
Still, they will help keep the stingray numbers down.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 8 Nov 2006 14:15:39 -0800 (PST)
From: Raj B Apte <raj_apte at yahoo.com>
Subject: home roasted special b
Hi All,
I've been reading about and practicing home grain roasting.
I start with pale and can produce passable malts up to
chocolate. Now I'm interested in crystal. Graham Sanders
claims:
http://oz.craftbrewer.org/Library/Methods/Sanders/roasting.shtml
that Special B is just dark roasted crystal malt (with the
starting crystal malt dampened). Has anyone done this? How
close does it get (Graham was doing it because of low
availability; I'm interested for economy and freshness).
Is there any decent reference on producing different malts?
I've looked through the usual and only come up with general
comments, not specific techniques.
thanks,
raj
What is it we're not forgetting?
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 09 Nov 2006 00:43:24 +0000
From: "A.J deLange" <ajdel at cox.net>
Subject: Attenuation, etc Part I
After the postings on attenuation last week Fred and I agreed off line
that I'd post something on the subject and here it is. The best format
seemed to be a bunch of definitions followed by a brief discussion of
how some them are used to estimate alcohol. The definitions follow, not
in alphabetical but in what I hope is logical order. I believe the
basics are here. Some may find the Plato units unfamiliar. As they are a
measure of mass brewing scientists use them a lot. It is not that they
prefer them. It is that their use is required in many calculations.
Brewing scientists also use specific gravity where appropriate. Home
brewers, OTOH, greatly prefer specific gravity points and try to use
them to replace Plato units directly which works approximately. Formulas
for calculating Plato from specific gravity and conversely are given
here and using them all the Plato based formulas can be expressed in
terms of specific gravity or even just points. If I put all those in
here this thing would be three times as long.
Density:
The mass of something divided by its volume. As volume depends on
temperature the temperature must be specified. For example, the density
of water at 20 C is 0.998203 grams per cc. The density of ethanol at
that same temperature is 0.78924 grams per cc.
Specific gravity:
The ratio of the density of something (at a particular temperature) to
the density of pure water
(at the same or another temperature). The specific gravity of water at
20C relative to water at 20C is 0.998203/0.998203 = 1.000000 20/20 with
the "20/20" indicating that both densities were measured at 20C. The
specific gravity of ethanol is 0.78924/0.998203 = 0.790661 20/20 but
0.78924/0.997769 = 0.791005 20/4 as the density of water at 4C is used
in this latter case as the reference. A subtlety with respect to
specific gravity is that if one fills a bottle with the substance to be
tested, weighs it, refills the same bottle with the reference substance
and weighs that the ratio of the weights is same as the ratio of the
densities because the volume is the same in both cases - almost. The two
weights are slightly off because of the air displaced by the bottle. The
result is called the "apparent specific gravity". If adjusted for the
air displacement the ratio becomes the "true specific gravity" or
"specific gravity in vacuuo". This is not something home brewers worry
about but analysis laboratories do.
Plato Degrees (P):
Plato degrees express the weight of sucrose in a solution as a
percentage of the total weight of the solution. For example, if 10 grams
of sucrose are placed in a flask and water added until the weight of
water plus sucrose equaled 100 grams the solution would be 10% sucrose
w/w or 10 degrees Plato. This unit was named after the head of the
German government commission which precisely measured the specific
gravity of sucrose solutions of specified strength in w/w or Plato
units. These tables are the basis for the EBC and ASBC tables currently
used to tie specific gravity to degrees Plato i.e. sucrose
concentration. Sucrose was used because it is easy to work with and has
specific gravity vs. concentration profiles very similar to the sugars
actually found in wort. It is important to understand that Plato degrees
are not just another specific gravity scale though there is, through the
tables, a one for one correspondence between specific gravity and Plato.
This fact makes it possible to make hydrometers which are marked in
Plato rather than specific gravity. These are popular with advanced home
and professional brewers. The formula P = (((135.997*S -630.272)*S +
1111.14)*S -616.868) gives the degrees Plato for the specific gravity
(20/20) S and replaces the ASBC tables. This formula has the blessing of
the ASBC and is, thus "official". It is valid for S up to 1.083. The
simpler "Lincoln Equation": P = (463-205*S)*(S-1) is plenty good for
most applications (maximum error 0.005P) and can be inverted
(approximately) easily by S = 1 + P/(258.6 - 0.8796*P). Exact inversion
of the Lincoln equation is possible by multiplying it out and solving
the resulting quadratic for S. The same can be done for the ASBC formula
but, as it's a cubic, it's a bit messy. It's easier to calculate a few
values around the answer and interpolate (or use Excel's Solver or a
root finder).
Specific Gravity "Points"
Points are defined by 1000*(S -1) where S is the specific gravity. For
example, a wort with S = 1.0492 would be said to be of strength 49.2
points. Home brewers prefer points to Plato degrees often using them as
if they, like Plato degrees, are indicative of the amount of extract in
solution. This can be done because they are, approximately, indicative
of the amount of extract. Each degree Plato corresponds to about 4
points in the region around 1.040 SG (10 P). Thus, if an approximate
answer is sufficient, points can be used in place of degrees P where a ratio is
involved (such as an attenuation calculation) because the 4 factor
cancels out. In other cases, convert specific gravity to degrees P using the
ASBC formula or Lincoln equation given above.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 09 Nov 2006 00:48:38 +0000
From: "A.J deLange" <ajdel at cox.net>
Subject: Attenuation, etc Part II
Balling/Brix degrees:
Ostensibly the same as Plato degrees in that they express the strength
of sugar solutions as % w/w. The Plato tables represent corrections to
these earlier scales.
Extract:
All the things dissolved in wort including the sugars, the minerals and
the soluble hops constituents. In using the Plato/EBC/ASBC tables
brewers are modeling extract as if it were all sucrose.
Original Extract (OE, P):
The amount of extract in a wort at the time of pitching of the yeast.
Determined by measuring the specific gravity of the wort at 20/20 (or
converting the specific gravity measurement to 20/20) and using the ASBC
tables to determine the equivalent Plato degrees or by using a density
measuring device (hydrometer, density meter) calibrated directly in
degrees Plato.
True Extract (TE):
The amount of extract remaining at the end of fermentation. Determined
by removing the alcohol from a known volume of the beer (by evaporation
or, more usually, during the distillation in which case the alcohol is
recovered and used to determine the beer's alcoholic strength),
restoration to the original volume and measurement of the specific
gravity of the resulting solution. This is then entered into the tables
to obtain the Plato degrees i.e. the percentage of extract in the
solution. The volume of the solution is then multiplied by the specific
gravity of the solution to obtain the weight of the solution and this is
multiplied by the Plato degrees divided by 100 to obtain the weight of
extract in the solution. This is the amount of extract which was in the
beer before evaporation so the specific gravity of the beer is
multiplied by the volume to obtain the beer's weight and this is divided
into the weight of extract to obtain the fraction of extract in the
beer. Multiplying by 100 gives the True Extract in Plato degrees.
Because the volume is the same before and after evaporation it is only
necessary to multiply the Plato value of the solution by the specific
gravity of the solution and divide by the specific gravity of the beer.
Apparent Extract (AE):
If the specific gravity of beer is measured the relationship between
specific gravity and extract is thrown off by the alcohol produced by
the fermentation. One can still, however, enter the ASBC tables or use
the formula to come up with an extract number. This is the apparent
extract.
True Attenuation, Real Degree of Fermentation (RDF):
The reduction in the amount of extract over the course of the
fermentation of the beer. If a beer has an original extract of 12 Plato
and finishing (True) extract of 3 Plato then 9/12 of the extract have
been consumed and the True Attenuation is 75%. RDF = 100*(OE - TE)/OE.
Apparent Attenuation, Apparent Degree of Fermentation (ADF)
The reduction in the apparent extract over the course of the
fermentation of the beer. ADF = 100*(OE - AE)/OE. Note that this can be
more than 100% if a beer (or more likely a mead) finishes with a
specific gravity below 1.
Alcohol by Volume (ABV):
The number of cc of alcohol in 100 cc of beer. This is often indicated
as %v/v. To convert to alcohol by weight (ABW) multiply by the density
of alcohol at 20C and divide by the density of the beer at 20C. This
gives the same result as multiplying by the specific gravity of alcohol
at 20/20 C (0.791 ) and dividing by the specific gravity of the beer
(20/20) because the density of water cancels.
Alcohol by Weight (ABW):
The number of grams of alcohol in 100 grams of beer, often indicated as
% w/w/. To convert to alcohol by volume multiply by the specific gravity
of the beer (20/20) and divide by the specific gravity of alcohol at
20/20 C (0.791).
Calculation of Alcohol concentration:
When we brew beer we do it with the conviction that 2.0665 grams of
"extract" (sugar) will produce 1 gram of alcohol, 0.9565 grams of CO2
and 0.11 grams of yeast mass. Thus if we have a volume of beer weighing
100 grams and containing A grams of alcohol (it is A% ABW) there must
have been (2.0665*A + n) grams of extract in that volume initially with
n being the number of grams of extract in that volume which did not
convert to alcohol. n is the TE. This volume of beer originally thus
weighed 100 grams (the weight of the water, alcohol and unconverted
extract) plus A*0.9565 + A*0.11 (the weights of the CO2 which escaped
plus the weight of the yeast which fell to the bottom of the tank) i.e.
100 + 1.0665*A. Thus the wort originally contained (2.0665*A + n) grams
of extract per (100 + 1.0665*A) grams of wort and the "strength" of the
wort, in % weight per unit weight (OE), is P = 100*(2.0665*A + n)/(100 +
1.0665*A). The utility of this formula is seen if it is solved for A
giving A = (P-n)/(2.0665 - 0.010665*P). Thus if we know the true extract
and the original gravity we can calculate the amount of alcohol produced
based on simple conservation of mass. This formula is appealing in that
it is based on nothing more complicated than conservation of mass but it
is of little practical utility because one must know the True Extract, n
to use it. A lesser annoyance derives from the fact that we usually
speak in terms of ABV and the formula gives ABW. Methods for conversion
were given in the definitions.
Note that the form of the formula is A = g(P)*(P-n) i.e. the change in
extract level multiplied by a function of the OE, g(P) = 1/(2.0665 -
0.010665*P). There is a similar formula, A = f(P)*(P-m) where f(P) =
((P*1.0788E-5 +0.0017091)*P + 0.39661) and m is the Apparent Extract
which also gives the ABW but which requires nothing more than a finished
beer hydrometer reading converted to Plato. This formula is not based on
conservation of mass alone but also on Ballings experimental
observations. As such its results are approximate. My last effort, a
barley wine, was predicted to have, by this formula, an alcohol content
of 9.0% ABV and measured 9.6%. The TE based formula predicted 9.9%. Why?
Though conservation of mass is inviolable there is no guarantee that
exactly 0.11 grams of yeast will be produced by 2.0665 grams of extract.
Judging from the amount of yeast thrown by this fermentation (I've never
seen so much) more than 0.11 grams extract went to yeast production and,
therefore, not to alcohol.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 09 Nov 2006 02:43:25 +0000
From: "Michael Kolaghassi" <kolaghassi89 at hotmail.com>
Subject: Bacteria and Methanol alcohol
Hey guys,
I was just wondering if its a big problem or chance that some bacteria could
be in my batch of mead metabolizing some of the sugars and making poisonous
methanol alcohol along with the yeast producing ethanol alcohol. I also
wanted to know if letting the mead sit at room temperature for a long time
without disturbing it could maybe let mold grow in it or something.
Just wanted to know if it was a big health risk and stuff with different
bacteria metabolizing the sugars into methanol and the mold issue.
Thanks,
Michael K.
------------------------------
End of HOMEBREW Digest #5088, 11/08/06
*************************************
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