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HOMEBREW Digest #5687
HOMEBREW Digest #5687 Fri 28 May 2010
FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
Digest Janitor: pbabcock at hbd.org
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Contents:
Re: Agua (mossview5)
Re: HBD is struggling to meet its meager operating expenses of approximately $3500 per year. ("Michael P. Thompson")
FW: sodium removal and water softening ("Kai Troester")
Homebrew Digest Donation (Pat Humphrey)
Hops Utilization During Hot Whirlpool (Fred L Johnson)
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* Beer is our obsession and we're late for therapy! *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
NOTE: With the economy as it is, the HBD is struggling to
meet its meager operating expenses of approximately $3500
per year. If less than half of those currently directly
subscribed to the HBD sent in a mere $5.00, the HBD would
be able to easily meet its annual expenses, with room to
spare for next year. Please consider it.
Financial Projection As of 21 May 2010
Projected 2010 Budget $3505.65
Expended against projection $ 874.75
Projected Excess/(Shortfall) ($2080.54)
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Date: Thu, 27 May 2010 22:39:37 -0400
From: mossview5 <mossview5 at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Agua
Ah, an exceptional brewer speaks! I'm glad that Joe recognized that Charlie P's
old saying of RDWHAHB doesn't cut it. Brewing with salt softened water or
water that doesn't produce the proper residual alkalinity conditions
is probably
not going to produce exceptional beer. It will produce beer, but it may not be
that good. Brewers do need to understand and be able to adjust their water to
meet their beer's needs. Those brewers that can't understand and adjust their
water will probably be stuck in the days when you could only brew dark beers
in a place like Dublin and pale beers in a place like Pilsen.
Joe's water has mostly temporary hardness, which is much easier to handle.
As Joe pointed out, he observes a significant reduction in alkalinity
in his hot
liquor tank as that hot water is decarbonated. If he went ahead and boiled his
water and then let it sit and cool briefly, he could decant the clear
water off the
sediment that will precipitate out of the water. That would both soften and
reduce alkalinity. But, in a commercial brewery (especially production
breweries), using the brewery's kettle to boil water means that they can't get
as many batches through the brewery in a day. Not such a great alternative,
but it could help. The Excess Lime treatment is still a more efficient
alternative and it doesn't tie up the kettle like boiling does.
I'm not sure why Joe wants to reduce his alkalinity to under 50 ppm.
Alkalinity isn't the main concern...its residual alkalinity (RA) that
should be a
concern to every brewer. If he is brewing with a soft water, then having a
proportionally low alkalinity will be necessary for brewing pale beers.
As I pointed out in a previous post, bringing the residual alkalinity down to
less than 50 is needed. Pilsen water has a RA of about zero and Burton
water has a RA of about zero. Both waters produce exceptional pale
beers, but their alkalinity differ substantially.
Alkalinity is a very easy thing to adjust with acid. Although Joe's water
has moderately high alkalinity, a proper acid dosage will bring it into
proper range. To reach a RA of about zero, Joe is correct that he would
need to bring his raw tap water's alkalinity to about 50 ppm as CaCO3.
That means that he would be adding about 3/4 ml of 75% phosphoric
acid or 88% lactic acid to each gallon of brewing water. That amount
of lactic might impart a taste, so I would recommend using the
phosphoric acid which is tasteless in beer.
The problem with high strength acid is that quantities of 1 gallon or
more have to be shipped as hazardous cargo. That sends the shipping
costs through the roof. Buying 3 quarts at a time can solve that problem.
I recall that Five Star would sell high strength phosphoric at one time,
but I don't know if they still will.
This should help Joe and any brewer that wants to brew exceptional beer.
Martin Brungard
Indianapolis, IN
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Date: Thu, 27 May 2010 21:17:38 -0600
From: "Michael P. Thompson" <thompson at ecentral.com>
Subject: Re: HBD is struggling to meet its meager operating expenses of approximately $3500 per year.
I really hate to say this, but it's true. Perhaps part of the
difficulty is that HBD is cumbersome and difficult to use for
discussions, and has arcane restrictions which cost time and money,
but apparently do not filter out spam. I have run better mailing
lists for far less, and continue to do so.
There are definitely some high-quality posts on HBD which do not
appear on more user-friendly forums, but in general, one is forced to
wonder if the overall lack of participation shouldn't be sending a
message about changing the way the list is run.
I bear no rancor to the list administrators, and I have made
financial contributions to HBD, so this is not just bellyaching. But
I remember a discussion some time ago when all the restrictions and
procedures for sending out HBD were mentioned, and I wonder even more
now if those restrictions aren't stifling discussion and making the
list less useful for the general brewing public.
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Date: Fri, 28 May 2010 08:20:08 -0400
From: "Kai Troester" <kai at braukaiser.com>
Subject: FW: sodium removal and water softening
> Let me just point out that I am not trying to brew good beer here. I am
> at such a point in my brewing career, that I aim to brew exceptional,
> outstanding beer only.
Joe,
In this case I suggest that you experiment. You don't have to make an
investment into an R/O system just to try out brewing with R/O water.
Get some /O water and brew the same beer with different types of water
including your own. This way you can figure out if an R/O system is
worth the money.
I do have an R/O system myself and installed it when we moved into the
house. The main motivation for it was an elevated level of arsenic in
our well water. If that weren't the case I'd use my well water which
is very similar to Munich water. If I need softened water I would be
using lime treatment. I did the latter successfully for 2 batches of
Maibock that I brewed last year.
To guide other brewers I wrote an article on my web page on how to
treat water with slaked lime (note the line break):
http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php/
Alkalinity_reduction_with_slaked_lime
My approach was to calculate the amount of lime needed based on the
water composition. You may also experiment with 80%, 100% and 120%
of that amount to see what works best. This is one of the many
suggestions I picked up from A.J.'s work.
The amount of lime needed can be calculated with my water spread
sheet: http://braukaiser.com/documents/Kaiser_water_calculator.xls
and will be most accurate if you know the pH of the water. The pH
is used to estimate the amount of CO2 that is dissolved in the
water which also needs to be converted to carbonate for successful
alkalinity precipitation. In addition to that having a GH&KH
(aquarium supply stores have this) test kit really helps since it
allows you to test your post treatment water.
A.J. already chimed in on this, but sodium is difficult to
remove since its salts are very soluble. In Technologie der
Wuerzerbereitung Narziss and Back mention ion exchange resins than
can take Ca, Mg and Na out of the water. I'm not sure if those
resins are readily available to us home brewers. And they also
need to be replenished or regenerated using strong acid. The
following reaction was mentioned where A-H is the resin structure
holding one hydrogen ion:
A-H + Na+ HCO3- -> A-Na + CO2 + H20
> (To be honest, me being on a well, for my water it would be a case of
"from
> the earth you came, to the earth you shall return" even for waste water I
> dump out, so there's not much environmental effect other than energy usage
> to pump the stuff to the surface.)
Calvin,
I don't think it is as simple as this. Well water tends to come from
aquifers that are so far below the surface that it takes a very long
time for them to recharge. The water that you pull out of them does not
necessarily return to them since it may run-off into a stream or evaporate.
I remember that National Geographic had a nice article on that where they
showed by how much a large aquifer in the Midwest has declined over the
recent decades.
A.J.,
Great point about the use of a softener before an R/O filter. I never
thought about the effects calcium carbonate precipitation close to the
membrane. Luckily my well water pH (6.5) is low enough that I should
not have to worry.
Kai
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Date: Fri, 28 May 2010 10:18:38 -0500
From: Pat Humphrey <pat71987 at gmail.com>
Subject: Homebrew Digest Donation
Hi Everyone,
I am encouraging everyone to donate to the survival of the Digest. Even
though the traffic has been down considerably, I still feel that is a
valuable resource for the brewing community. Since the AHA has started
TechTalk it doesn't seem as if there has been too much traffic here.
However, I myself don't find it something that I normally read. It just
seems too commercialized and doesn't have the substance that the
Homebrew Digest has
or had. I certainly don't need to see recent information about Government
Affairs or Business as TechTalk has. I just want to see info related
to homebrewing in my digest. Sorry, a bit of a rant there...
Even a minimum 5 dollar donation will help. As Pat mentions, if half of the
recipients of the digest contribute this amount, it will cover the operating
costs for the year.
I will raise a pint to the digest operators, Pat, Jason and Spencer. Thanks
for all of your work to keep the digest alive.
Please join me in donating.
Cheers,
Pat H
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Date: Fri, 28 May 2010 18:41:57 -0400
From: Fred L Johnson <FLJohnson52 at nc.rr.com>
Subject: Hops Utilization During Hot Whirlpool
Has anyone ever seen estimates of the alpha acid utilization that brewer's
get (especially commercial brewers) during the hot whirlpool period before
the wort is cooled and transferred to the fermenter? This period of time is
significant in commercial breweries. For example, in a recent interview the
Brew Strong podcast the head brewer at Fuller's indicated that they got
about 20% of their IBUs from their late hop addition (2-3 minutes from the
end of the boil. He didn't give any amounts of hops added at the end of the
boil for us to calculate a utilization rate from this late hop addition, but
he said they allowed the trub to settle for 30 minutes during a whirlpooling
period. I'll bet the utilization is MUCH greater than the calculators would
give us from an addition 3 minutes from the end of the boil. Don't these
calculators simply assume that the wort is cooled immediately after the
boil? And of course this time spent in the whirlpool should be added to
earlier additions as well.
I'm trying to refine my calculator for estimating IBUs, and I've never seen
figures for utilization rates from such late additions in which the wort is
not boiling but is still hot and moving around in a whirlpool. Does anybody
(perhaps some of the commercial brewers who read the HBD) have any knowledge
on this?
Fred L Johnson
Apex, North Carolina, USA
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End of HOMEBREW Digest #5687, 05/28/10
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