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HOMEBREW Digest #5147
HOMEBREW Digest #5147 Mon 19 February 2007
FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
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Contents:
Re: Brewing in Austin, TX? (David Thompson)
Ascorbic acid ("Thomas Rohner")
re: Brewing in Austin, TX? (Wayne Clark)
re: Ascorbic Acid as anti-staling agent in beer ("steve.alexander")
Re: Stirbars (Scott Alfter)
2007 Coconut Cup Results (Scott Graham)
Infection and Wort Chillers (Matt)
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Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2007 22:40:53 -0600
From: David Thompson <david at dtphoto.com>
Subject: Re: Brewing in Austin, TX?
Alexandre asks about brewing in Austin.
Austin was the home to Celis Brewery because this is a great place to brew
beer, especially darker ales, given the water supply.
Heat is a problem, except now when it's our 3 weeks of winter. AC here in
Austin keeps temps tolerable in the 104 heat of August. It does not help
beer. I brew at night because of this, and have to keep the fermenting
brew in a cooler to maintain proper temps. Ugh! Unless it's a wheat ale,
then I am going for the esters...
The guys in Zealot will be a great help as well, and Austin Homebrew Supply
are the best!
Cheers!
Dave
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Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2007 15:36:41 +0100
From: "Thomas Rohner" <t.rohner at bluewin.ch>
Subject: Ascorbic acid
Hi Rich
i don't see the benefits of using ascorbic acid, as long as you bottle
condition your beers.
I never had staling issues with our beers, that's in the 10'000 gallons
range up until now.
We have made beers from 11 to 20 Plato and even our "light" beers keep well
over a
year. (If they last so long...) But from time to time you find a forgotten
bottle.
So i would stick to the Reinheitsgebot and keep unneeded stuff out of my
beers.
I'm not a Reinheitsgebot fanatic, i love belgian beers and raspberry wheat.
But then
my absolute favourite is munich helles.
Cheers Thomas
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Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2007 07:25:11 -0800 (PST)
From: Wayne Clark <driftwoodtex at yahoo.com>
Subject: re: Brewing in Austin, TX?
Austin is a pretty decent place for a homebrewer. We
have a few brewpubs (Draught House, Lovejoy's, North
By Northwest, plus a new one starting up on Barton
Springs Road (Billy's??)). We also have a few regional
brewers in the area (Live Oak, Independence, Real
Ale). We also have an excellent hombrew shop (Austin
Homebrew Supply).
The weather does get hot in the summer, and pretty
much all homes have AC. On the other hand, the cool
months (~November through April) are a real pleasure
when it comes to brewing.
Most of the serious homebrewers I know have some sort
of refrigeration for dealing with the hot weather.
Either an insulated box or a beer-fridge in the
garage. There are other ways to deal with the climate.
For a couple of years before I acquired an old fridge,
I would brew american and english style ales during
the cool months, then brew hefe- and belgian styles
during the warm months.
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Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2007 15:43:25 -0500
From: "steve.alexander" <-s at adelphia.net>
Subject: re: Ascorbic Acid as anti-staling agent in beer
Rich Lynch asks ....
<<
Does anyone know much about this? Is it good, bad, neither?
I bought an ounce or so from a local HBS back when I was still real
new at brewing. I've since read on Leeners, I think, that this is not
advisable for beer, but okay for wine. ...
>>
Ascorbic acid gets a "C" as an beer antioxidant. It's decent at
picking up free oxygen, but not strong enough to reduce most oxidation
reactions once they have occurred. Also in quantity it will add a
citrus-y acidic twang that doesn't belong in beer. It is speculated
that the oxidized ascorbic (dihydroascorbic) can actually enhance the
rate of certain oxidative processes - so it *may* be less than ideal for
longer storage times.
You certainly won't harm and may help a beer if you make a addition
modest ascorbic addition at bottling time in an attempt to capture
free O2.
A modest sulfite addition is a far better anti-oxidant overall and
less likely to interfere with beer flavor.
-S
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Date: Sun, 18 Feb 2007 18:29:35 -0800
From: Scott Alfter <scott at alfter.us>
Subject: Re: Stirbars
Glyn wrote:
> Okay, I only want one or two, not ten. Anyone want to split an order?
You might want to check eBay...you should be able to find several vendors
that'll sell one or two. I bought two stirbars and a "retrieval thingy" (a
magnet on the end of a stick, basically) for fishing them out. Shipping
shouldn't be much more than $3 or so.
> What is the optimal size for half gallon and gallon jars?
For a 1L Erlenmeyer flask, I use a stirbar about 2" in length. I've not used
anything larger yet.
_/_ Scott Alfter
/ v \ Visit the SNAFU website today!
(IIGS( http://www.nevadabrew.com/ Top-posting!
\_^_/ rm -rf /bin/laden >What's the most annoying thing on Usenet?
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2007 09:43:14 -0500 (EST)
From: Scott Graham <grahams at cs.fiu.edu>
Subject: 2007 Coconut Cup Results
The Miami Area Society of Homebrewers (MASH) held the 9th Annual Coconut
Cup competition on February 17th, 2007. The competition included 131
entries from 8 states and many different clubs.
Many thanks to everyone who helped judge and steward the competition. Our
judging panel included three National BJCP judges, quite a few certified
and recognized judges, and several judges who are awaiting their BJCP test
results. Clubs represented as judges included the Crescent City
Homebrewers (all the way from New Orleans!), the Fort Lauderdale Area
Brewers, the Palm Beach Draughtsmen, and MASH.
Fifteen beers and two meads advanced to the Best of Show round. The Best
of Show award went to Nick Marshall of the Palm Beach Draughtsmen for his
Coconut Wheat beer. The full results are posted at
http://hbd.org/mash/coco-cup/coco_results_2007.html .
Out heartfelt gratitude goes to Kevin Rusk, Steve Copeland, and the staff
of the Titanic Brewery and Restaurant for hosting the Coconut Cup again
this year. They were gracious and patient, as always, and their generosity
made the event possible. We would also like to thank our other sponsors:
Gordon Biersch, Brew Your Own magazine, Hopunion, WYeast Laboratories,
Olde Auburn Ale House, Briess, Flying Dog Brewing, White Labs, SABCO,
Puterbaugh Farms/Hops Direct, Cargill, New Belgium Brewery, Dogfish Head
Brewery, and Northern Brewer.
Thanks to everyone who submitted entries and helped with the competition.
Score sheets and medals will be in the mail this week. We look forward to
experiencing your brews at next year's Coconut Cup.
Cheers,
Scott Graham
Miami, FL [1159.9, 169.3] Apparent Rennerian (statute miles)
Coconut Cup Judge Coordinator
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2007 08:42:16 -0800 (PST)
From: Matt <baumssl27 at yahoo.com>
Subject: Infection and Wort Chillers
Perhaps my recent experiences with infection and counterflow wort
chillers will be of use to someone.
Over the past few months my fiance and I have suffered an infuriating
rash of batch infections, with several going down the drain. Our
frustration has been increased by the fact that the uninfected (or more
likely "less infected") batches were really very good. The problem has
not improved despite many attempts to "be more careful about
sanitation."
We have been pretty careful. The copper manifold used to siphon hot
wort from the kettle is the same as we use in our (bacteria ridden)
mash--but is fully submerged in the wort for the entire 60 minute boil.
The hose that attaches to this manifold is a heat-resistant type,
cleaned with a strong bleach solution after each batch, and then on
brewday boiled for 20 minutes before being submerged in Star San until
needed. The hot wort passes through a counterflow chiller, then
through a short length of similar hose into a bleach-cleaned glass
carboy that only 5 seconds earlier has been emptied of a full load of
Star San. Both the hot kettle and the carboy neck are draped in
sanitized foil during the transfer, to protect against "stuff falling
in the air," which is really not a common issue in Colorado anyway. We
don't transfer to a secondary fermenter, and we bottle directly out of
the primary.
But what about that chiller? When we made it, we knew that the inner
copper tube would require hose barbs to be soldered to the ends (the
thermoplastic tubing does not fit tightly enough without them).
Because we were concerned that this solder joint would be uncleanable,
we made the chiller entirely from copper--the idea being that even if
we could not clean it well, it could dry-heat sterilized in the oven.
(350F for 1 hour, as directed in John Palmer's table of dry heat
sterilization times). And there, I think, was our mistake.
Since we have really had enough with these infections, we put brewing
on hold to figure them out. The first thing we did then was boil a
couple gallons of extract-based wort, and sanitized our entire wort
cooling and transfer setup as normal. We collected samples at every
point in that setup in sterile disposable test tubes--essentially a
wort stability test at each junction.
For decent wort stability, samples should show no sign of infection
until at least 3 days. By the second day, one of the samples out of
the chiller showed obvious infectionand by day three, all samples that
had gone through the chiller (and no others) were showing signs of
growth.
As amazing as it is to me that something can survive 350F for 1 hour,
it appears that such is the case (and it's worth noting that we have
also had infected batches when we "sanitized" the chiller by submerging
in boiling water for 20'). I suppose it is possible that parts of the
chiller are not hitting 350F in my oven, or that the solder joint
harbors a hunk of dried "infection goo" deep enough that the principles
of heat-sterilization are applying as they would to a clean surface.
In any case, I'm modifying the chiller so that there is nothing but
smooth, uninterrupted copper tube from inlet to outlet. And I have a
question: how does one finish the cut end of copper tubing in a
sanitary way? I was going to cut it with a dremel tool, and then
finish with 600 grit sandpaper. I know this is way smoother than
accepted dairy standards for stainless steel, but will things be
different with copper?
Matt
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End of HOMEBREW Digest #5147, 02/19/07
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