FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
		Rob Gardner, Digest Janitor


Contents:
  Guinness Replica (Nick Hiams)
  Plzen (A. J. deLange)
  Agar/O2/Extraction (A. J. deLange)
  Schreier Malt source in Seattle/Portland? (LEE_BOLLARD)
  Baltimore homebrew suppliers.. (Scott Christian Gruber)
  sugar content question (Sergio Escorza)
  ROARING YEAST! (Phil Brushaber)
  TOO MUCH CARBONATION (Phil Brushaber)
  corny key measurement ("Colgan, Brian P.")
  Lautering/Agar (Tim Laatsch)
  bottle conditioning lagers (Barry Browne)
  Whitbred in Cincinnati, OH (U-E68316-Scott Wisler)
  Yeast farming (Pierre Jelenc)
  Re: Ginger wit recipe (Carl Etnier)
  PET bottles and bottling (Carl Etnier)
  Malting/ Extract->Grain/ PET bottles/ Yeast faq (Aaron Shaw)
  Born again fermentation (kpnadai)
  Decoction and wits (Jim Busch)
  Re: Stop Sparging, cooling samples ("Spencer W. Thomas")
  SANKE pickup tube stirring paddle (John Glaser)
  Questionnaire (Brent Irvine)
  Re: Brewing & the Environment (Jack Stafford)



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----------------------------------------------------------------------


Date: Sun, 23 Jul 1995 19:58:14 +0000
From: Nick Hiams <oleum at spuddy.mew.co.uk>
Subject: Guinness Replica

Walter K. Vogel posted:

> Subject: Guinness Irish Draught clone: Hops? Water treatment?

> I shall be brewing a Guinness clone, or rather I will attempt a Guinness clone
> The variation will be the Irish Draught as served in Ireland (not England).
> Grain:
> 4.6 lb Crisp English Maris Otter pale malt
> 0.75 lb Crisp Roasted Barley
> 1.75 lb Flaked Barley
> [ I have been thinking of adding some Belgian Special B -- Yes/NO?]
> I expect that this will yield an OG 1047 in 5 Gal and I will dilute this
> OG 1039 to ferment after 2-3h boil. I will be using Wyeast Irish Ale yeast.
> Fermentation temperature will be on the warm side 24C/75F maybe less.

Dave Line's book "Brewing Beers Like Those You Buy" has a recipe for
Guinness. It is based on the bottled version which has a higher og than the
"draught" version. for a 5 gall batch he recommends:

Crushed pale malt       7lb
Flaked barley           2lb
Crushed roast barley    11b

> **Hops ?** According to Michael Jackson "Americal and English hops are used"
> and that "Goldings predominate"
> According to the _Just Hops_ catalouge Irish Northdown is used extensively
> by Guinness but it doesn't say in which beer they use it in or if they use
> it at the brewery in England in Ireland or both. I am also considering the
> use of Willamette hops for the American hop (an easy choice as I live in the
> Willamette valley). Another possibility is English Challenger hops.
> My question is that while I will be using English Goldings I am not sure what
> else to use, or IF I need to use anything else--I could go with 100% Goldings

Bullion hops            1oz
Northern Brewer hops    3oz

> **Water Treatment** According to Randy Mosher's book the water analysis of
> Dublin 5.0 ppm SO4 which is lowest listed even Pilsen has more SO4 in there
> water. He also has an "Ideal Stout" with 46ppm SO4. So does any one know
> if Guinness treats their water in any way and if so what that treatment might
> be. Also does anyone know the pH of the water and what it might be adjusted
> to.

Water treatment is limited to the addition of a teaspoonful [5ml] of
calcium carbonate if you are in a soft water area.


It is suggested that a yeast starter is made from a bottle of Guinness. As
you probably know Guinness is bottle conditioned still [in the stuff
available in pubs at least]. This is supposed to be a very good strain for
all top fermenting English beers too.

This recipe is supposed to give between og 1045 to og 1053 depending upon
efficiency. [1045 at least]

The Guinness available on draught in pubs in England is a "keg" beer which
has an og of around 1036 [Dilute the above to 6 galls]. It is unusual and
different to the bottled version in that it is injected with Nitrogen
instead of Carbon Dioxide. This has been tried with
"a remarkable degree of success" by the author of the book.
Personally I prefer the bottled stuff.

I tried the recipe about five years ago and remember it as being a very
good imitation. I served it from a barrel as a cask conditioned ale [is
this what the Irish version is like?]. All of the beers in the book that I
have tried or friends have are very true to the originals and I can
thoroughly recommend it.

Hope this is of some help to you. The HBD has inspired me to get out of
homebrewing retirement after the three years since my first son was born
and the ingredients for 5 galls of Fullers ESB are waiting next to me.

Thanks all...

PS does anyone know what to to with between 5 and 10 lb of dark very ripe
cherries. I can't eat any more [I must've eaten about 10 lb already in the
last week...and my wife ...and my kids...and everyone at work]. I thought
of steeping them in brandy to make cherry brandy something like sloes and
gin but I'd rather make a cherry beer. Anyone have a recipe for Liefmanns
Kriek? This is gorgeous.

Nick Hiams

 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
| E-mail > oleum at spuddy.mew.co.uk !!!!!  Oleum: Fuming sulphuric acid. |
| This is a FREE e-mail service  <\O-O/>    Burns you without flames   |
| provided by Sweh....Thanx Sweh! \_-_/ oleum:flames you without burns.|
 ----------------------------------------------------------------------



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Date: Sun, 23 Jul 1995 17:00:34 -0500
From: ajdel at interramp.com (A. J. deLange)
Subject: Plzen

Plzen

This is the sixteenth in a series of posts on the formulation
of waters similar to those of famous brewing cities of the world. They
are based on ion concentration profiles given by Dave Draper in
his post in #1704 (10 April 95). See my  post "Water Series" (#1763) for
explanatory material (correction: in the Line 3 explanation read 1.8 ml of
1 N sulfuric acid, not 18 ml). Quick reminders: all ion concentrations and
salt quantities are in ppm which is the same as mg/l. The water to
which the salts are added is assumed to be ION FREE (i.e. it is
DISTILLED WATER or REVERSE OSMOSIS WATER).

The Plzen 1 profile given here is from Noonan's "Brewing Lager Beer" and it
is very similar to other published Plzen profiles such as Plzen 2 i.e.
the water contains fewer salts than than of any city we have considered.
This profile is reasonably well balanced in anion/cation ratio but is
difficult to synthesize accurately because the ratios of the ions in
the spec are not consistent with the ratios of the ions in the simple
salt set.

To come up with a formulation we assume that we want some calcium (necessary
for the yeast, etc), don't want too much sulfate (causes harsh bitterness)
and don't care if chloride gets a bit high as it contributes mellowness
and mouthfeel at these low levels. Carbonate we don't particularly care
about. Thus we double the weight of the calcium error and halve the weight
on chloride and carbonate to get:

Formulation I

n:   1020000   Temp:    0.000930   Energy (rms %):   17.354674

Plzen1          Desired Cations:  0.601   Anions:  0.433 mEq/L Ratio: 0.721
ION       WT    DESIRED    REALIZED    ERR, %     SALTS            AMOUNT
Ca       2.00     7.000       6.003    -14.24     NaCl              0.000
Mg       1.00     2.000       1.471    -26.44     Na2CO3.10H2O      0.000
Na       1.00     2.000       1.953     -2.33     CaCL2             0.000
K        1.00     0.000       0.000      0.00     CaSO4.2H2O        0.000
CO3      0.50    14.000      14.092      0.66     CaCO3            14.992
SO4      1.00     5.000       5.813     16.25     MgCL2             0.000
Cl       0.50     5.000       6.916     38.32     MgCO3             0.000
H        1.00     0.195       0.195      0.00     KCl               0.000
                                                  Na2SO4            0.000
                                                  MgSO4.7H2O       14.913
                                                  H2SO4             0.000
                                                  NaHCO3            7.138
                                                  HCl               7.115

Carbonic:  0.0454   Bicarbonate:  0.1893   Carbonate:  0.000091 mM
Total Required Hydronium:  0.1951   Sulfuric Hydronium:  0.0000 mEq
Hydrochloric Hydronium:  0.1951 mEq
H2SO4 perturbed. HCl adjusted to maintain pH  7.00
Solubility Products - CaCO3: 8.70E-09   MgCO3: 2.60E-05
Ion Products        - CaCO3: 1.36E-11   MgCO3: 5.48E-12
Alkalinity:     0.19 mEq;       9.35 ppm as CaCO3.
No permanent hardness. Temporary hardness:      0.42 mEq;     21.03 ppm as CaCO3

In Formulation I the percentage errors may be large but the absolute errors
are small. We wind up, for example, with 7 mg/L of chloride instead of 5 but
we still have a very soft water with a bit of calcium and that is the goal
with Pilnser beer. Manesium is required by the kinases and is thus important
for glycolysis but as malt itself supplies plenty for that purpose the extra
1.5 ppm we are adding is more than sufficient. The extra 0.8 mg/L sulfate is
not enough to cause problems even with the high hop levels used in Pilsner
beer and the extra chloride (2 mg) only contributes to its fullness.

We note that Formulation I is the only formulation with which we
have actually made beer. Even though the beer is still in lagering it is
already plain that it is superior to previous efforts which used plain
tap (softened well) water.

For those who seek a higher degree of accuracy we give Formulation II
which requires the full salt set (because of the ion ratio situation)
and a modest amount of external acid:

Formulation II

n:    910000   Temp:    0.006529   Energy (rms %):    0.519364

Plzen1          Desired Cations:  0.601   Anions:  0.433 mEq/L Ratio: 0.721
ION       WT    DESIRED    REALIZED    ERR, %     SALTS            AMOUNT
Ca       1.00     7.000       6.937     -0.90     NaCl              0.000
Mg       1.00     2.000       2.010      0.48     Na2CO3.10H2O      5.254
Na       1.00     2.000       2.015      0.75     CaCL2             0.075
K        1.00     0.000       0.482      0.48     CaSO4.2H2O        0.000
CO3      1.00    14.000      14.022      0.16     CaCO3            17.256
SO4      1.00     5.000       5.009      0.17     MgCL2             3.839
Cl       1.00     5.000       4.998     -0.03     MgCO3             1.074
H        1.00     0.249       0.071    -71.47     KCl               0.920
                                                  Na2SO4            1.481
                                                  MgSO4.7H2O        7.290
                                                  H2SO4             1.190
                                                  NaHCO3            2.527
                                                  HCl               1.702

Carbonic:  0.0452   Bicarbonate:  0.1883   Carbonate:  0.000090 mM
Total Required Hydronium:  0.2486   Sulfuric Hydronium:  0.0243 mEq
Hydrochloric Hydronium:  0.0467 mEq
0.1777 mEq additional hydronium required to maintain pH  7.00
Solubility Products - CaCO3: 8.70E-09   MgCO3: 2.60E-05
Ion Products        - CaCO3: 1.56E-11   MgCO3: 7.45E-12
Alkalinity:     0.19 mEq;       9.30 ppm as CaCO3.
Temporary hardness:      0.47 mEq;     23.36 ppm as CaCO3
Permanent hardness:      0.04 mEq;      2.21 ppm as CaCO3

The required external acid is so minimal and the alkalintiy so small that
we feel sure that even Pilsner malts will have enough buffering capacity
to establish reasonable mash pH if the external acid is omitted.

We do not intend to post the Plzen 2 profile because it is similar in
the sense that it is a very soft water but has higher calcium and mag-
nesium contents than Plzen 1 to the point where it is very imbalanced in
the anion/cation ratio. When the algorithm tries to synthesize it it
comes up with a result like Formulation I which you have already.

A.J. deLange   Numquam in dubio, saepe in errore!
ajdel at interramp.com



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Date: Sun, 23 Jul 1995 17:08:01 -0500
From: ajdel at interramp.com (A. J. deLange)
Subject: Agar/O2/Extraction

BixMeister asked about Agar in #1787:
Some old notes of mine indicate that 20g per litre worked for Bitek Agar.
On the other hand the Difco Manual says to use 48g/L of their Bacto Wort
Agar and 62 g/L of their UBA (Universal Beer Agar). I guess the answer is
that one must either follow the directions for the particular medium being
used or experiment until a slant/plate of the desired firmness is obtained.

Bryan Dawe asked about bottled oxygen in #1788:
My personal experience has been that a 60 cu ft bottle is easy to handle
and lasts a little over a year in which time I do 12-14 batches of 15-17
gal each. I managed to save a fair amount of money by purchasing a used
medical regulator instead of a massive, brass welding regulator. Recently a
new product called "The Stone" has been advertised in several places like
"Brewing Techniques". These things are great for oxygenation (and
carbonation), are made of stainless, can be autoclaved or dipped in iodine,
and come with a 1/4" hose barb which matches the barb on the regulator so
that ordinary 1/4" CO2 line can be used.

Rick Gontarek reported problems with low mash extraction:
He reports moderately hard water with a pH of 7.8. In a "laboratory" mash
in which one pound of malt was used to prepare 1 gallon of wort the mash pH
was 5.5 and he got OG 1.024, i.e. about 6 P which is about half a pound per
gallon or a bit above 50% efficiency. With his regular grind he got about
half that level of extraction.
We hope for between 60 and 70% i.e. 0.6 - 0.8 pound/pound/gallon or 28 - 33
points/pound/gallon. 1.024 is a bit below this but not that far and  I
wouldn't be in too much of a hurry to blame the water. 109 mg/L alkalinity
is a bit high but a mash pH of 5.5 shows that the malt has enough buffering
capacity to overcome this. 5.5 is a good pH, especially if measured at room
temperature as it must be when using strips, as the pH at mash temperature
will be a couple tenths lower and thus right in the ideal range. To
eliminate water completely as the culprit I would repeat the fine grind
experiment using distilled water.

We ought to think about conversion. In the EBC hot water extract mash the
grain and water are mixed at 45C and held for 30 minutes. The temperature
is then raised 1C per minute until 70C is reached and then held at 70 for 1
hour. Perhaps in the posted experiments conversion was low because
insufficient time was given for solubilization (mash-in temp) and
gelatinization/liquefaction (69F). Was an iodine test done?

At this point I suspect the sparge, even in the fine grind experiment. The
further degradation to 1.012 with the normal grind suggests this. Was the
mash temperature raised to 170F before starting the sparge? Was the sparge
water hot (170F)? Did the sparge last an hour?

The only other thing I can think of at this point is that perhaps the
gravity readings are in error. Were the samples cooled to 60F prior to
measuring (the hydrometer itself was reported OK at 1.000 in water)?


A.J. deLange   Numquam in dubio, saepe in errore!
ajdel at interramp.com



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Date: Sun, 23 Jul 95 18:46:16 -0600
From: LEE_BOLLARD at HP-Spokane-om2.om.hp.com
Subject: Schreier Malt source in Seattle/Portland?

Item Subject: cc:Mail Text
     Anyone know where I can buy Schreier Pale Malt in Seattle or Portland?
     
     Looking to buy about 100 lbs.  I'm in Spokane (Schreier not available 
     here), but am willing to travel to Seattle or Portland to save the 
     shipping charges, which are typically more than the malt itself!
     
     Thanks in advance for any pointers to sources in these areas.
     
     Cheers,
     
     Lee Bollard
     bollard at spk.hp.com

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Date: Sun, 23 Jul 1995 21:40:20 -0400 (EDT)
From: Scott Christian Gruber <gruber at gwis2.circ.gwu.edu>
Subject: Baltimore homebrew suppliers..


This is for anyone in the DC/VA/Baltimore area (sorry, everyone else) 
I've heard that there are some good homebrew supply stores in Baltimore, 
in the Inner Harbor, I think. Does anyone know about them and the easiest 
way (preferably cheapest way) to get there from DC (MARC train, etc...)? 
If anyone knows of anyplace closer (read: Metro accessible) I'd appreciate 
the suggestions.  Thanks!

Peace and Beer,
scg
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------+
							     Scott C. Gruber
	"We've plenty of ale and stout. I like the ring of those words.
       For ale is not to sicken, but revive the flagging spirit. A tricky
         word that. And stout? There's a nice ruddy sound to it. Stout!
						-Ray Bradbury, 1954
http://gwis2.circ.gwu.edu/~gruber   		   gruber at gwis2.circ.gwu.edu
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------+










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Date: Mon, 24 Jul 1995 02:17:36 -0700
From: sescorza at sdcc3.ucsd.edu (Sergio Escorza)
Subject: sugar content question

Some days ago I made a question about how homebrewers measure the sugar 
content in wort. It was kind of hidden at the end of my post, so I'll repeat 
it again. I'd like to know what system is used in different countries, 
specially those that used the decimal metric system. Do you still use SG? or 
is it Plato degrees? Private answers OK.
  ------------------------------------------------------------------------
  Sergio Escorza Trevi~o                   |     
  Scripps Institution of Oceanography      |    Dormir de dia es a
  University of California at San Diego    |    lo que mas aspira
  e-mail: sescorza at sdcc3.ucsd.edu          |    un tipo como yo
  www (bilingue): http://sdcc3.ucsd.edu/~sescorza
  ------------------------------------------------------------------------   


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Date: Sat, 22 Jul 95 15:58:00 -0600
From: phil.brushaber at u2u.com (Phil Brushaber)
Subject: ROARING YEAST!

Pitching and adequate amount of yeast and making sure that it has enough
oxygen will help the yeast get off quickly and strongly. I seldom make
the same kind of beer two weekends in a row, but I did this week. Made a
couple of batches of Steam Beer using Wyeast 2112.

>From the previous weeks' ten gallon batch I collected about 3 quarts of
slurry. I added half to each of this week's 2-Five gallon carboys.
Started areating one batch, went back and checked it 1 hour later. The
first carboy was fermenting away! Anybody heard of yeast starting in
only 1-2 hours?!! Zowie!

- ----
USER-TO-USER PCBoard (214)393-9317, 9 Nodes, Dallas, TX

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Date: Sat, 22 Jul 95 15:52:00 -0600
From: phil.brushaber at u2u.com (Phil Brushaber)
Subject: TOO MUCH CARBONATION

I've had a problem with a few batches being a little over-carbonated in
the bottle. After 14 days the little "dimple" that my capper presses
into the cap pops up a bit and I know that bottle is overcarbonated.

I think I've traced a couple of causes. One, too cold a secondary. The
yeast goes dormant and the FG has not been reached. I wind up adding
corn sugar to the residual sugar left in the beer. Two, as much as we'd
all like to come out with exactly 5 gallons, we sometime come out with
less. I think my "eyeballing" "Hmmmm. That's about 4 gallons." has
been incorrect and I've added too much sugar.

How about this as a solution. Do you think it would work? What if I
opened these over carbonated bottles, let some of the carbonation out,
and then immediately re-capped them? Has anyone successfully tried this?
(I want to point out that these batches are not TREMENDOUSLY over
carbonated, just too much carbonation for style and enjoyment. If you
pour them out and leave them for about 5 minutes they are OK.)

- ----
USER-TO-USER PCBoard (214)393-9317, 9 Nodes, Dallas, TX

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Date: Mon, 24 Jul 95 09:13:37 EST
From: "Colgan, Brian P." <bcolgan at sungard.com>
Subject: corny key measurement

Matt K writes
>A friend asked me the other day is there is a gadget which would tell
>him how much beer is left in his keg.  I usually tell either by weight
> or by the condensation that forms when you take the keg out of the
>fridge for a while but he still wants some kind of gizmo.  So,
>gadget-heads, anyone know of anything?
>
 A friend suggested I put a bathroom scale under my kegs. You see them at
flea markets and yard/garage sales for nothing. One could fill it with water
and weigh it, record the info, dispense a gallon - weigh it - record, etc.
You could be as accurate as you wanted to be. The scale wouldn't even have
to be very accurate as long as it's consistent. I haven't tried this but it
sounds like a good idea.

bpc 24jul:
simplifying this, just weigh an empty keg, then one filled with beer. The 
difference is the weight of the beer.  With a little subtraction and division, 
(welcome relief from all the complicated stuff in the HBD that always makes my 
eyes glaze over ;)) you can construct a table of weight to beer remaining.

HTH
brian


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Date: Mon, 24 Jul 1995 09:43:37 -0400 (EDT)
From: Tim Laatsch <LAATSCH at kbs.msu.edu>
Subject: Lautering/Agar

Hello HBDers,

This may sound like a ridiculous question, but when you all-grainers stop 
sparging, do you also stop collecting wort or do you drain the grainbed?  I 
have always assumed that stopping the sparge meant stopping wort collection 
also.  However, Saturday I brewed a cherry wheat and used the hints from the 
collective on when to stop the sparge---specifically, I relied on taste.  
The runoff tasted fine (sweet) until I ran out of sparge water, so I decided 
to stop sparging and drain the rest of the wort from the grainbed 
until I noticed cloudiness.  It worked fine.  Lo and behold, I got a 2-point 
increase in yield!  Methinks this technique may be adopted into practice. ;)  
BTW, talk about egg drop soupish hotbreak---wheat'll do it for ya'.  Yuck.
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Regarding agar rates, the standard in many media recipes is 15.0 grams per 
liter, which roughly equates to 3.75 grams per 8 oz.   Also, you should have 
good results making agar plates at home, if you follow the simple rules of 
aseptic technique.  Sanitize/sterilize everything in site, work in an area 
with no drafts or air currents, work in front of an open flame source, flame 
the neck of your media bottle between each plate, open the plates only 
enough to pour the media and quickly close them again, don't breathe on the 
stuff, once you've started don't stop, etc.  Also, I would not recommend 
autoclaving media already in the plates---you would find a huge mess when you 
open the door.  The plates are chemically sterilized and aseptically sealed 
before shipping----they don't need to be autoclaved.  Autoclave or 
pressure-cook sterilize your media in a bottle, allow to cool enough to 
handle, and pour to plates as above.  While pouring plates in a laminar-flow 
hood is ideal, doing so on a benchtop can also yield good results if proper 
precautions are taken.  Good luck.

Tim

*=============================================================================*
| Timothy P. Laatsch             | email: laatsch at kbs.msu.edu   | Aspiring    |
| Graduate Student-Microbiology  | biz phone: 616-671-2329      | All-Grain   |
| Michigan State University/KBS  | fax:       616-671-2104      | Homebrewer  |
| Kalamazoo, MI (Home of Bell's) | obsession: American Pale Ale | & Scientist |
*=============================================================================*

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Date: Sun, 23 Jul 1995 20:27:06 -0700
From: bbrowne at golder.com (Barry Browne)
Subject: bottle conditioning lagers

     Morning all.
     I've been brewing and bottle-conditioning ales with great success for 
     about 10 years; yes, I am keg-challenged.  Whatever possessed me to 
     brew a lager I don't remember but I now have to determine exactly how 
     to prime a Vienna that has been lagering for 8 weeks.  The answer 
     eludes me and my references on this uncharted ground (Noonan's & Fix's 
     books) are seemingly contradictory.  So I come to the all-knowing HBD 
     for advice, and yup it's my first time.
     Fix suggests that since the brew has been sitting around at near 
     freezing for 8 weeks, the existing yeast can't be trusted to 
     consistently carbonate a lager.  This makes sense.  No problem, I'll 
     just culture up some new yeast and pitch into the bottling bucket with 
     the beer when krausen is observed.
     Ok, so I want medium to medium-high carbonation which corresponds to 
     about 7-8 grams/L of dextrose (using Dave Draper's info from a while 
     back, thanks Dave).  This equates to about 0.3 pounds for a 5 gallon 
     batch.  My problem, and therefore the question in all of this, is how 
     much yeast to pitch?  Do I make the 0.3 lbs priming sugar up to 
     SG=1.040 (i.e. make up to about 0.3 gallons solution) and let the 
     yeast population increase until krausen or what?  I would greatly 
     appreciate anyone commenting on this topic as I certainly can't be the 
     only keg-challenged person to make lager beer, or maybe I am?????  
     Thanks for the help, oh mighty collective!
     BTW, whatever anyone else says, decoction mashing is a royal pain in 
     the butt.  I really hope this beer is worth the hassle!
     
     Cheers,
     Barry
     bbrowne at golder.com

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Date: Mon, 24 Jul 1995 09:54:33 -0400
From: U-E68316-Scott Wisler <scott.wisler at ae.ge.com>
Subject: Whitbred in Cincinnati, OH


Have a bit of good hearsay.  A colleague from Cambridge flew over last 
Thursday. He sat next to a brewer from Whitbred on the plane and learned 
that Whitbred will soon be bottled in Cincinnati.  It will "arrive here via
tanker truck, and be bottled at one of the city's breweries".  Don't know 
which one.  

This at first seemed strange, but is starting to make sense.  We're farther 
from a waterway than say Cleveland or a costal state.  To get the product 
inland, it must be less expensive to drive it in 5,000 gal at a time and 
then bottle it, than to drive the bottled product inland.  Hopefully we
will be able to get very fresh Whitbred in the near future.

scott

Scott Wisler
swisler at c0431.ae.ge.com
GE Aircraft Engines
Cincinnati, OH

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Date: Mon, 24 Jul 95 10:18:48 EDT
From: Pierre Jelenc <pcj1 at columbia.edu>
Subject: Yeast farming

In HBD 1789 

Tim Laatsch <LAATSCH at kbs.msu.edu> says:

> After racking to the secondary, I flame-sterilize the mouth of my
> primary carboy by wiping it down with ethanol and setting it on fire.
> It's not really dangerous and it can be quite thrilling.

Note that this is not likely to do much sanitizing unless the contact time
is quite long. In a microbiology lab there are two different flaming
techniques: dry flaming, routinely done on such things as pipets, bottle
mouths, inoculating loops, etc, relies on the _heat_ of the gas flame to
sanitize or sterilize the heated area. Alcohol flaming is altogether
different; it is designed to burn off the alcohol in which an object, such
as a spreader, has been soaking. The flame itself cannot be counted upon
to heat-sterilize the object; indeed very often the object stays quite
cool since the alcohol evaporates and burns away from the surface. 

> One unusual observation was that the yeast seemed to be gradually
> becoming more flocculent and exhibited attached growth on the ribs of
> the fermenter.  This phenomenon seemed to increase with successive
> generations.  What else could account for this?

By not selecting for non-flocculating yeast, you've been selecting for
flocculating ones. This is as expected.


Then "Harney,Alan" <harney at mail.labmed.washington.edu> says:

> The formulation for "Yeast Morphology Agar", taken from the Difco
> Manual, calls for 18 grams of Bacto agar per 100 grams of dehydrated
> medium. 100 grams rehydrates to make 2.8 liters of medium suitable for
> plating. Since we are assuming that the wort is taking the place of the
> 26 other salts, amino acids, vitamins, carbohydrates and nitrogen
> sources the formaulation specifies, I would go with 6.5 grams of agar
> per liter of wort.

The chart was misread. The 18 grams of agar are calculated per liter, as
indicated at the top of the Difco table. A 6.5% agar gel is about as
soft as custard or creme brulee. A typical concentration of agar for a
gel firm enough for streaking is 15-16% of purified agar per liter. 18%
will make a rather stiff gel.

Pierre






















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Date: Mon, 24 Jul 1995 16:40:57 +0200 (MET DST)
From: Carl Etnier <Carl.Etnier at abc.se>
Subject: Re: Ginger wit recipe

What a good idea, Jeff! Sounds good, just hearing the name. I'll save
the recipe for when I make the investment for all-grain or borrow a
friend's equipment sometime.

But what is "grain of paradise," pray tell? Sounds like an epithet
for our beloved barley, but you've got it listed under spices. My
dictionary says it means either the medicinal African plant
_Aframomum melegueta_, or cardamom. And cardamom (also spelled
cardamum) can either be the Asiatic _Elettaria cardamomum_ or the
inferior _Amomum cardamomum_ from the East Indies, according to my
deep American Heritage Dictionary research in spice botany. What did
you use?

Carl Etnier
A transplanted Yank in Trosa, Sweden
Number of days since last snowfall: 70

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Date: Mon, 24 Jul 1995 16:40:37 +0200 (MET DST)
From: Carl Etnier <Carl.Etnier at abc.se>
Subject: PET bottles and bottling

Rolland Everitt writes:
>I am considering using 1.5 liter plastic soda bottles.  They seem
>to be made to take high pressure and shipping, and I think that
>the way the bottom is shaped might help keep the dregs from
>mobilizing (the way the steal does in the bottom of a champagne
>bottle).
>
>Has anyone tried this?  Any comments or suggestions?

The conventional wisdom will tell you that these bottles are made out
of PET plastic, PET plastic is one of the most oxygen-permeable
substances we can choose from for storing our beer, and oxygen does
nasty stuff to beer.

However, I was very surprised at the Swedish Homebrewing Championship
this year to see someone dispensing his beer from PET bottles. He
said that he had been using them for a while, without detecting any
ill effects, and has had beer in them for many months at a time.

Since then, I've used them now and again, to take an early sample of
the beer when racking to a too-small secondary or when I know I'll be
carrying beer somewhere and don't want the weight of glass. I haven't
kept it in the PET bottle for more than a month. Works fine so far.
Don't brew something that requires much aging and invite friends over
to help you drink the stuff up quickly; it'll probably be fine.

BTW, if your comments on the bottom are about the bottles with the
up-and-down ridges, you're right about the shape keeping the dregs
from mobilizing. And yes, the bottles tolerate pressure very well.

If you have better luck with homebrewing this time around and want to
bottle for real, I'd say skip the stage of the crown bottle capper
with the two handles. I recently upgraded to table-top, one-lever
model that allows you to adjust for different size bottles with one
hand. Wish I'd had it years ago! It makes the normal bottling routine
easier, allows me to use beautiful bottles that my old one couldn't
handle (33 cl Fischer), and even has an attachment so I can use the
big (29 mm) bottle caps for European champagne bottles.

Carl Etnier
A transplanted Yank in Trosa, Sweden
Number of days since last snowfall: 70

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Date: Mon, 24 Jul 1995 11:04:07 -0400
From: ar568 at freenet.carleton.ca (Aaron Shaw)
Subject: Malting/ Extract->Grain/ PET bottles/ Yeast faq

>From: trl at richmond.infi.net
>Subject: Malting Grains

>I am interested in attempting to malt my own Barley and was trying to locate
>the person requesting the information before to get a summary of the info he
>recieved.  I would appreciate his E-Mail address if anyone has it OR any
>info on malting OR the name of a good source of info.

     Try the Grain Research Laboratory at the Canadian Grain Commision. I
asked them for some grain information and they sent me tons of good stuff
(Quality of Western Canadain Malting Barley; barley classification, types 
and varieties; malting grades; notes from Canada Malting's International
Malting Course; specialty malts (Hugh Baird, Munich, Wheat, Cartasan,etc..)
For each of the malts there is info about ASBC colour ranges, protein,
% moisture, flavour profiles, etc...

          Grain Research Laboratory
          Canadian Grain Commision
          1404-303 Main Street
          Winnipeg, Manitoba
          R3C 3G8

**********
>From: af509 at osfn.rhilinet.gov (Rolland Everitt)
>Subject: Plastic bottles OK?

     PET bottles are OK for short periods of time, but after a few months
oxygen will permeate through the bottle and into the beer. They are great
for traveling, but I wouldn't recommend aging beer in them.
**********
>From: "Robert Marshall" <robertjm at hooked.net>
>Subject:       How much grain to make up for extract?

>Usually I put in 5 pounds of light malt extract (liquid), however, I
>was thinking about doing a 100% all grain batch instead. If I do
>that, how much Klages 2-row malt do I need to make up for each pound
>of malt extract?  

     1 lb. of light malt extract syrup can be substituted for 1.11 lbs.
of pale malt grain.
**********

     Now I am going to ask a favour of my own. I do not have ftp access,
could someone kindly E-mail me a copy of the yeast faq from the archives.
     Thanks in advance.


- --
      "Come my lad, and drink some beer!"
                                           Aaron Shaw
                                           Ottawa, Canada

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Date: Mon, 24 Jul 95 10:16:10 PDT
From: kpnadai at adsnet.com
Subject: Born again fermentation

>From: dmercer at path.org (David Mercer)
>Subject: Born again fermentation
>
<snip>
>Four weeks ago I brewed an ale: 7# DME,
>1# crystal, 2oz Northern brewer (boil), 1 oz cascade (finish), one packet of
>Coopers dry ale yeast.  Full wort boil with a quick chill.  I pitched the
>yeast at about 75 degrees, and active, but not violent, fermentation had
>started by 12 hours.  It continued for about two days before dying down, and
>after a week I racked to a secondary and took a reading (1.038).
<snip>
>activity in the airlock, except now I was getting a bubble every 40 seconds
>(whereas before I added the hops I was getting nothing).  The next day it
>was every 30 seconds, the day after that every 25... you get the picture.
>Now, after four weeks, the damn thing is chugging along almost at the rate
>of an active fermentation - a thick head has formed on the top - and the
>airlock is glugging every 5 seconds. 
<snip>

I too had what perhaps was a similar fermentation.  I accidently bought
a Cooper's Real Ale kit when at a homebrew store in Detroit.  Rather than
take it back (3 hours away), I decided to take a halfhearted stab at it.
I substituted an appropriate amount of DME for the sugar the kit required
and added flavor and aroma hops during the boil.  (The kit was already
bitter hopped)

Here's the key:  I used the supplied packet of dry ale yeast as you did.
I parallel propogate (forgive if incorrect term) liquid yeast and only
had one left of my precious #1098.

Fermentation started fine and stalled at 1.035.  Dead.  My first stuck
ferment.  I racked to secondary as you did and noticed more bubbles every
day.  But more like from one per five minutes to one per minute.

The amylase thread was raging on the HBD, but my heart wasn't in this beer
from the start so I dumped it, only the second abandoned batch of my career.
Perhaps if I had been patient, it would have restarted as yours did.

Brew Bayou,

Kevin  





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Date: Mon, 24 Jul 1995 11:27:42 -0400 (EDT)
From: Jim Busch <busch at eosdev2.gsfc.nasa.gov>
Subject: Decoction and wits

A.J. wrote:

<I
<do a double decoction mash per Eric Warner's recommendations for wheat beer
<(if you think decoction mashing is going too far read up on the way
<authentic wit beers are made). The sparge usually presents some problem
<requiring cutting down but the end result is one of my favorites.

A.J. does make a great wit, as well as everything else of his I have had!
This comment did catch my interest, though.  One of the factors in the
old traditional wit production was the use of wind malt.  I gather that
wind malt (green malt??) was not very modified.  It is quite true that
old wit production techniques were bizarre and time consuming.  And the
use of a cloth sieve as a kind of lauter device as well as bizarre
buckets made for some very long brew days.   I believe that with modern
malts and equipment, one would be very hard pressed to find a Belgian
wit brewer doing anything similar to the traditional methods or decoction
for that matter.  I could be quite wrong and if any Belgian beer hunters
hear of decocted wits, Id love to know.  I do know that Hoegaarden is 
not decocted, it is a upward step mash, but this is only one data point.

Jim Busch, whos latest "lacto" weizen has been transformed into a wit!
Colesville, Maryland

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Date: Mon, 24 Jul 1995 11:48:29 -0400
From: "Spencer W. Thomas" <spencer at mendel.hgp.med.umich.edu>
Subject: Re: Stop Sparging, cooling samples 

For convenience, I also note that until the *hot* SG falls below
1.000, there is no need to chill the sample.  With a typical (150F
outflow) sparge, you can keep going until about 0.990 *hot* SG.

=Spencer Thomas in Ann Arbor, MI        (spencer at umich.edu)

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Date: Mon, 24 Jul 95 09:17:12 -0700
From: John Glaser <glaser at widlar.ece.arizona.edu>
Subject: SANKE pickup tube stirring paddle

While working on my brewery, I have come across a couple of ideas regarding
what to do with the leftover pickup tubes from the cut-off kegs.

Stirring paddle:
Take a piece of hardwood board (no plywood or particle board, please),
about 4" by 8" and about 7/8" thick, or so. Trim one end of the board so
that you end up with a 4 by 5 inch board with a 3" post sticking out from
the center of one end (sorry, no ASCII graphics). Round the post with 
whatever means that you have, so that it fits into the keg pickup tube very
tightly (you should have to pound it in). Drill a couple of holes in the tube
so you can put in a couple of screws to hold the board in. Ta-da, you now have
a cheap stirring paddle for your mash.

Keg pot handles:

I haven't tried this one, since I didn't need to, but it may be useful. When
cutting my Coors kegs with a borrowed Sawzall, it could not make the radius
when I tried to cut inside the top ring, so I just cut off the whole top ring.
The primary disadvantage of this is the lack of handles, and someone mentioned
that you can't have a tight-fitting lid (although I don't see the need).

However, you can use the pickup tube or tubes as stock for handles. Just cut
the
length you need, flatten and bend the ends to make handles that you can 
attach to the keg using your favorite method.

I'd like to point out an advantage to cutting off the whole top ring of the
keg: you get to knock off about 4" of keg height with minimal loss
of capacity. In a 3-tier system, this amounts to a foot, a substantial space 
savings.



Of course, its a moot point for me, now, since I just got 2 free 10 gallon
SS pots that I will use for sparge tank and mash/lauter tun. I got them because
I saw them lying in a pile and asked if I could have them. They were glad to
be rid of them, if you can believe it.

John Glaser (glaser at widlar.ece.arizona.edu)

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Date: Mon, 24 Jul 95 14:01:20 EDT
From: Brent Irvine <brenirvi at village.ca>
Subject: Questionnaire

I was a little perplexed when I read James Gaspar's 'architecture'
questionnaire. As was Tim Fields in HBD 1789, I fail to see the connection
between his questions and architecture. Perhaps his goal is to build a brew
pub, or a mail order house (for beer supplies, of course). I am unsure whether
the collective would be unhappy about this quest for this marketing survey, or
whether this would not be a problem. I am relatively new to the HBD and the
net in general, and only 2.5 years into brewing.

Perhaps if the student would enlighten us as to what he is seeking.

Brent Irvine
Lake Commando B & B
Cochrane, ON
*Home of the Polar Bear Express*

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Date: Mon, 24 Jul 95 11:18:11 PDT
From: stafford at alcor.hac.com (Jack Stafford)
Subject: Re: Brewing & the Environment

On  Sun, 23 Jul 95,  Brent Irvine <brenirvi at village.ca> wrote:
> Subject: Brewing & the Environment

> 3. When I prepare my brews, I tend to pour out the sediment from my primary
> and secondary either into the lawn, garden, or compost pile. Other than making
> the yeard smell like a brewery for a few hours, this seems to be nothing less
> than a good idea. Particularly when even up here in northern Ontario, we have
> had some pretty hot weather and dry spells - a good use for rinsing water (of
> course, not with chlorine added!) I do the same thing with unpalatable
> batches. Any other uses?
> 

  My neighbor has poured trub and fermenter bottom sludge on his lawn.
It turned brown and died in those spots.  Maybe this was because of the
acidity. ?  I heard that homebrew will keep snails from eating your ivy.


  Bottling can be tedious and time consuming.  I'm transitioning to 5 gal.
cornelius kegs for the lower alcohol brews.  For some of the more potent
double bocks and the like, I use 22 oz. swing top bottles.  They're from
drinking Fisher d'Alsace beer from France.  The swing tops make for easy
capping and the 22 oz. seems like a good "unit dose" for those stronger brews.

Jack    stafford at alcor.hac.com
Yeast of Eden Homebrew Club
Costa Mesa, CA

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End of HOMEBREW Digest #1790, 07/25/95