HOMEBREW Digest #1838 Fri 22 September 1995

Digest #1837 Digest #1839


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


Contents:
  1995 CABA All About Ales (Michael Ligas)
  Vitamin C in Beer (John DeCarlo              )
  yeast starters summary (Alex Sessions)
  Oak Chips / Bottle Transfer ("David Wright")
  Aged beer & Mace (Jay Reeves)
  Brewing & water chemistry question (Michael Genito)
  RE: Gott conversion with Bung (Tim_Fields_at_Relay__Tech__Vienna)
  Canadian suppliers of hop rhizomes (Derrick Pohl)
  Review of BrewTek Mill ("Palmer.John")
  fresh hops ("Wallinger, W. A.")
  More pubs/yeasts (Jim Busch)
  Open Fermentation: Risk & Fermenter Materials ("Fleming, Kirk R., Capt")
  Gearmotor Mill Confession ("Manning Martin MP")
  SELECTHomebrew Digest #1837 (September 21, 1995) (SWEENERB)
  Cooling Beer Line (Ronald J. La Borde)
  CO2 regulator zero adjustment... (Brian Pickerill)
  Buckled kegs... ("Bessette, Bob")
  Beer drinking in Denmark ("Antonio S. Reher")
  Steam heat, cooling beer line (Neal Christensen)
  RE: Extract Efficiency (Chris Barnhart)
  Extract/Grain (krkoupa)
  Re:Long distance dispensing (djt2)
  REPITCH! (dflagg)
  Oak chips (Philip Gravel)
  Knave Brew World. (Russell Mast)
  The HomeBrew Flea Market ("Pat Babcock")
  PUMPS, PUMPS, PUMPS! (blacksab)

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---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 21 Sep 1995 08:31:22 -0400 (EDT) From: Michael Ligas <g8006142 at mcmail.CIS.McMaster.CA> Subject: 1995 CABA All About Ales CABA's 1995 ALL ABOUT ALES COMPETITION The Canadian Amateur Brewers Association presents the 1995 All About Ales (AAA) Competition. Entries must be received before 4:00pm, Saturday, October 21, 1995. First, second and Best of Show (BOS) rounds of judging will be done by recognized beer judges between October 28th and November 11, 1995. The decisions of the judges will be final. All entrants will receive the judging sheets used to evaluate their entries. H. BREWED AT HOME (BAH) BEER CLASSES Class 1: WHEAT BEER 1a: Weizenbier 1b: Dunkelweizen 1c: Witbier Class 2: CANADIAN ALE Class 3: PALE ALE 3a: Classic Pale Ale 3b: India Pale Ale (IPA) 3c: North American Pale Ale Class 4: ENGLISH BITTER Class 5: BROWN ALE 5a: English Brown 5b: English Mild Class 6: PORTER Class 7: STOUT 7a: Dry Stout 7b: Sweet Stout Class 8: U.K. STRONG ALES 8a: Barley Wine 8b: Imperial Stout 8c: Scotch Ale Class 9: CONTINENTAL STRONG BEER 9a: Weizenbock 9b: Belgian Strong Ale Class 10: BELGIAN SPECIALTY BEER 10a: Trappist 10b: Saison BREW ON PREMISE (BOP) BEER CLASS Class 11: ENGLISH BITTER For further information concerning entry forms/rules/regulations, fees, dropoff location and judging, contact Craig Pinhey at (905) 529-4388 or cpinhey at dhc.dofasco.ca Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 95 08:35:25 EST From: John DeCarlo <jdecarlo at mitre.org> Subject: Vitamin C in Beer I have been hearing Archer-Daniels-Midland (ADM) ads and stories in the news recently. One of their Public Radio "ads" says something like, "ADM, major suppliers of Vitamin C, a primary by-product of the corn-based fermentation process." So, is this unique to corn? If I use some corn adjuncts in my beer, will the resulting beer have more Vitamin C in it? Enquiring minds want to know. John DeCarlo, MITRE Corporation, McLean, VA--My views are my own Fidonet: 1:109/131 Internet: jdecarlo at mitre.org Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 1995 09:36:14 -0500 From: Alex Sessions <ALEXS at RIZZO.COM> Subject: yeast starters summary Greetings to the HBD: I'm afraid I must take some of the blame for starting the most recent bout of yeast-starter-threaditis when I asked "why doesn't making a yeast starter culture the bad microbes as well as the good yeast?". I've seen many responses in private and on the HBD (thanks to all!). To summarize the major points (at least that I've seen) for everyone: 1. yes, sterility is more important in making starters than in the final beer; OTOH, you probably have a better chance at maintaining sterile conditions when working with 1 liter of wort in a jar or flask, than when working with 5 or more gallons. 2. microbes tend to grow exponentially. so, if you start with more yeast than bad bugs, let them both grow for a while, the actual yeast:bad bug ratio will increase because of the exponential growth (I would point out that there are an awful lot of assumptions here - sorry Chris) 3. yeast produce different metabolic byproducts when they are reproducing (oxygen-rich conditions) versus when they are fermenting (oxygen-poor conditions); the growth byproducts seem to be generally undesirable in beer; by making a starter and pitching right after the yeast has settled (which someone pointed out is the ideal time to pitch yeast), you can decant the fermented starter, thus keeping many of the growth products out of your beer 4. (this seemed to be the most popular reason) the activity of yeast will create conditions which inhibit the growth of many/most bad bugs (low pH, low dissolved O2, high alcohol); the important factor is the length of time it takes to reach those conditions; by stepping up yeast sizes through a series of ever-larger starters, you can insure that the bacteria-inhibiting conditions are reached as quickly as possible in each successive starter, and in the final beer ___________________________________________ all this leads me to a new question: if you are repitching yeast from a previous batch, you presumably already have enough active yeast cells to ferment the new batch; this would seem to imply that you could pitch the yeast with zero aeration of the new wort, and hence would get zero of the yeast growth byproducts in your beer. Comments? Experimental results? -Alex Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 1995 09:39:07 EST5EDT From: "David Wright" <LSMAIL at osp.emory.edu> Subject: Oak Chips / Bottle Transfer Ray Ownby asked about oak chips in an IPA. I am in the process of drinking a batch of oaked IPA now. (Not right this minute) And I think it is great. The oak flavor was pretty strong at first but mellowed with a couple of more weeks of aging. I can't see myself doing an IPA w/o oak chips again. Now for my problem/question. I recently entered my first competition and thought that I might do fairly well. Before I filled out my paper work I went to the brew store and had 3 of the people there guide me as to which specific categories that I should put my brews into.( ie. I gave them samples) 2 of the 3 are judges and when I asked how beers were actually judges they brought out score sheets and judged them for me right there. One beer scored 42 and 43, and the other scored 43 and 46. To enter the contest thought I had to transfer the beer into regular bottles(they were in Grolsch bottles). To do this I brought the temp near freezing and slow poured the beer from one bottle to the other and recapped. When I got the results back from the contest the beers scored 23 and 29. There two good possiblilties that I have come up with. The first is that the bottles that I used were contaminated. These bottles were sterilized and then when dry I put aluminum foil over the tops for storage. These particular bottles were probably in storage for 3-5 months. The second things that I can think of that went wrong is that the bottles got mixed up with someone elses beer. I think that this may be a possiblity because the only thing that I got were the scoring sheets and a sheet with the entry numbers of my beers. Any thoughts? I am leaning towards the contaminated bottle theory because the coments on the scoring sheets were consistant in stating that head retention was bad(I know that this is not the case with the beer that I still have) and that phenolics (sp?) were plentiful. Thanks for any advice. David Wright Return to table of contents
Date: 21 Sep 95 09:55:51 EDT From: Jay Reeves <73362.600 at compuserve.com> Subject: Aged beer & Mace With all this talk about forgotten or aged beer, I thought I'd relate my experience this past weekend. I saved a 6 pack of every batch I've made since I started brewing about a year and a half ago - 32 batches (it was really tough - beleive me! My wife kept the key to the closet - many fights.). Anyway, I had a Beer Tasting party this last weekend where we all got to try a 3 oz serving of each beer. The pale ales did not keep well at all at 18, 17, 16, 12, 10 & 9 months, the IPA's were better after 10, 8 & 7 months, the brown & mild ales were ok at 8, 7 & 6 months, the fruit weizen beers finally came thru with the fruit flavor after 6 & 7 months (realized after brewing that you shouldn't try a fruit weizen with the Wheinstephan yeast), the american fruit wheats were ok at 4 months, the altbier sucked at 4 months, the witbiers were great at 6 and 3 months, the porters were better than before (12 & 11 months), the stouts were great at 9 & 10 months, CP's Goat Scrotum Ale was a lot better at 12 months (had spruce essence & licorice in it - whew!). Some of the beers that didn't keep to good were oxidized (I think - what the hell does wet carboard taste like anyway?). Most of the "bad" beers were my first attempts so there's no telling what kinda stupid stuff I was doing then. The altbier just didn't have the flavor it did at first - is that due to oxidation? All the beers were kept at room temp which is 70-75F year round - not the best but I don't have a beer fridge - or a garage for the beer fridge...yet. Now, can someone please help me find something? I'm looking for blades of mace. This is nothing more than whole mace before it is ground. Does anyone know where I can mail-order some? -Jay Reeves Huntsville, Alabama, USA Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 1995 10:20:21 -0400 From: genitom at nyslgti.gen.ny.us (Michael Genito) Subject: Brewing & water chemistry question In a recent HBD, Jeff Semroc stated that he has moved to a new home where the water supply is a well and wondered if he should be concerned about the water content. BTW, I tried sending this msg back to Jeff (jsemroc at hpatc2.desk.hp.com) but it returned undeliverable. Ive brewed extract with well water, city water and filtered city water (Brita filter). With the exception of an Ironmaster American Light head retention problem (previously posted to HBD), Ive never had a problem in the final product. I thought the Ironmaster may have had a problem due to filtered water but Ive as much ruled that out - the extract itself may not lend to good head. If the well water is safe to drink by Dept of Health standards (it should be tested once a yr by the owner) and does not have a foul odor or color (which it may even though it is safe to drink) then I dont see a problem with any extract brew. However, when brewing all grain (and I am no expert at this) you may want the water analyzed as to ph, mineral content, etc. Papazian's Joy of Home Brewing has a section on water in which he talks of the above, and it appears that the main concern with well water would come up when doing all grain. As he explains, the extracts typically contain all the necessary minerals to make a good batch of beer. Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 95 12:20:06 EST From: Tim_Fields_at_Relay__Tech__Vienna at relay.com Subject: RE: Gott conversion with Bung In #1837, LT Alan D Czeszynski <czesz at nadn.navy.mil> writes re his impressive GOTT conversion technique, >I was reminded by fellow HBD reader Joe Passante that the >flexible tube I was originally >going to run from the elbow to the bung gets very pliable >when hot, and chances are it would collapse under the weight >of the mash. I use a phalse bottom in a plastic bucket WITH the flex tube. this never occurred to me, and I've experienced some sparge problems that just might be related. Thanks to both Alan and Joe! I'll have to look into this one some more... -Tim Tim Fields ... Vienna, VA, USA ... timf at relay.com "reeb!" "beers me" ... me "Go beer yourself" ... Kurt Crake -Tim Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 1995 10:08:19 -0700 From: pohl at unixg.ubc.ca (Derrick Pohl) Subject: Canadian suppliers of hop rhizomes In HBD #1837, SIMJONES at upei.ca asked: >Does anyone out there know of a Canadian supplier of hop rhizomes. I would >like to have a go at some varietal hopping, as well as the no-name-but-OK >stuff I'm doing now. Here's a couple sources posted to HBD by Eric Urquhart a couple years ago. Hopefully the contact info has not changed: mail: Hop Stop, 1661 Montreal Road, Ottawa, Ontario K1J 9B7 FAX: 613-748-3052 Tel: 613-748-1374 Hop Stop offer the rhizomes only at a certain time of year, I think - you put your order in and they ship all the orders out at once. I ordered from them and the rhizomes arrived just fine. Only one (out of two) survived the first year, though. It's doing quite well now (its third summer). mail: Richters, Goodwood, Ontario, L0C 1A0 Canada FAX: 1-416-640-6641 Phone: 1-416-640-6677 Richters is amazing - they sell a huge selection of herbs and plants, including obscure herbs from Indian and Chinese medical traditions, and many legal psychoactive plants. Their fascinating and informative catalogue is well worth whatever they charge to ship it (it might be free - can't remember). Anyway, they also sell a few varietals of hop rhizomes. - ----- Derrick Pohl <pohl at unixg.ubc.ca> Vancouver, B.C., Canada Return to table of contents
Date: 21 Sep 1995 10:19:19 U From: "Palmer.John" <palmer at ssdgwy.mdc.com> Subject: Review of BrewTek Mill Hi Group, At the last meeting of the Crown of the Valley Brewing Club, Jeff M. (CEO) of Brewer's Resource visited our club with a demonstration of yeast culturing and their new Grain Mill. Yeast Ranching looks a lot easier than I had imagined, I really need to give it a try soon. The BrewTek Mill (BTM) was compared to my fixed spacing Schmidling MaltMill (MM) and to the ol standby, the Corona. The current version of the Brewtek Mill has 2 inch diameter nickel plated rollers that are 1.5 inches long set in an aluminum housing with stainless steel bearing mounted to a particle board base. The BTM comes factory set at .045 gap but the gap is adjustable by loosening two set screws. For the record the MM has 1.25 dia rollers, 8? inches long and is similarly constructed with the exception of bronze bushings in place of the stainless steel bearings. (Speaking as an engineer, I see no difference in performance between the two bearing systems. -JP) The MM is designed to fit over a bucket to catch the grist and has a masonite hopper that holds about 2 lbs of malt. The BTM has a threaded fitting that accepts a common Clorox bottle with the bottom cut out as the hopper and is designed to be clamped to a table. Very similar to the Philmill scheme. The mills were compared for Grist and Thru-put. 1 lb of base malt was cranked thru each mill, counting the number of rotations it took to process. The Corona took 75 rotations to process one pound. The MM took 43 to process the pound and the BTM took 62 rotations. The cranking force of the BTM with an 8 inch handle was easier than the MM with the 5 inch handle, but swapping handles showed the difference to be mainly a function of handle length. It was noted though that in spite of the higher cranking force, the shorter handle resulted in less cranking distance for the operators arm which was cited as a significant factor in reducing overall cranking fatique. So, its a tradeoff. The grists between the three mills were compared. As expected the Corona showed some shredded husks and a wide range of particle sizes. The grists of the BTM and the MM looked to be identical. Husks were crushed but intact and the grain particle sizes range looked to be approximently the same. Jeff has recently acquired the Sizing Screens for measuring particle size distribution from Siebel and plans to evaluate the grist distribution to the industry standard 6 roller mill used at the large commmercial brewerys. Brewers Resource will be marketing a new version of the mill sometime this winter with longer rollers (2 inches) and a deeper knurl that will increase its thruput to 1 lb per 42 turns of the handle. The cost of the new mill is still TBD, but was estimated at $96 compared to the current price of $89. A roller upgrade will be available to past customers at a nominal fee (TBD). IN MY OPINION: The Brewers Resource Mill is a high quality mill at a very good price. The performance of the mill is very similar to the Glatt Malt Mill which I reviewed in the HBD last spring. The BTM delivers a good crush and has a one year parts and labor warrenty. John J. Palmer - Metallurgist for MDA-SSD M&P johnj at primenet.com Huntington Beach, California Palmer House Brewery and Smithy - www.primenet.com/~johnj/ Return to table of contents
Date: 21 Sep 1995 10:16:10 PDT From: "Wallinger, W. A." <WAWA at chevron.com> Subject: fresh hops From: Wallinger, W. A. (Wade) To: OPEN ADDRESSING SERVI-OPENADDR Subject: fresh hops Date: 1995-09-21 12:03 Priority: - ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ it has been my practice with several batches to simply throw the freshly picked hops into the batch so i don't have to mess with drying. these are cascade hops. i compensate for the weight by using twice the amount of pellets or dried hops. since the alpha of homegrown hops are unknown it's a crapshoot anyway. this has been sufficient to meet my hoppiness expectations. and i do not taste any vegginess at all. correct me if i'm wrong, but dry hops are still green - i don't see what drying does to affect the chlorophyll content of the hops. i thought that the drying was intended to prevent spoilage if the hops were to be stored unfrozen. Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 1995 13:32:50 -0400 (EDT) From: Jim Busch <busch at eosdev2.gsfc.nasa.gov> Subject: More pubs/yeasts My friend Steve writes some good points: <While I agree with you that a wider variety of <beers should be presented and yes there is a dearth of lager styles <represented in the brewpub industry, it is not without reason. It is a <simple matter of economics. If I can take my investment (in inventory <and raw materials) and in one week have a product that will be <generating revenue, that would be preferable to having to keep all this <money sitting on the shelf for a month or longer. Certainly true, I but I have to think that the public is starting to demand and look deeper than the same old ales. Ill point out that some of the most successful brewpubs/micros are very well capitalized and do make lagers. Operations like: Alleghaney, Stoudts, Baltimore Brewing, Old Dominion, Sudwerks and Gordon Biersch, all make predominantly lagers and all are very well financed and extremely successful. YMMV. Dion gets radical: <In fact, a RIMS system is < *the* most reliable way to produce consistently excellent beer. I find this statement very hard to stomach. In my mind, there is nothing about a RIMS that allows it to make more reliable beer than a traditional fired and well designed system. In fact, I venture to suggest that in my 1 BBl pilot system, it is more reliable and consistent than any RIMS one BBL system could ever be. The key to any system is good even heating, good mixing of the goods and good brewers practices, non of which is exclusive to a RIMS system. In fact, I get the additional benefit of some hard sweat and excercise using my old fashioned one ;^) Plus, with the DC weather, a little sweat gets those salt concentrations up in the mash tun! Thomas writes about mega marketing: <This study clearly proved that people buy what they are <told to buy, only the names and market segments change. The beer doesn't <matter. I wouldnt want to make any investment decisions based on this market study! The fact of the matter in the micro/craft segment is that beer *does* matter. And its going to matter even more as the inevitable shakedown in the industry hits. Consumers are going to get more educated and have more choices and this will be good news to the best craft brewers and the not so good will fall by the wayside. Sierra Nevada is enormously successful for many reasons, but consistent high quality beers are the first reason. <but it is simply naive to think that the best quality beer will <really sell more than the best marketed beer. It depends on what you are trying to accomplish. For example: Old Dominion began in 1989. In 1995 they make ~22,000 BBls per year and are still expanding quite fast. They have saturated a small geogreaphic market, Northern Va and DC and are only present in a few counties of Md. They have *never* advertised or marketed in the traditional sense. They do tours, and have a little info sheet in the six pack, thats it. Now, they dont want to be Bud, so the key is to grow into your size and distribution area. The idea is that in this market segment you dont need to be a Sam Adams marketer, he needs to be cause hes truly national and competing at the national level. Al writes about multiple yeast strains in one brewery: <So, I personally think that all those cross-contamination stories are bull. I agree 100%. Good breweries who use multiple strains are everywhere. German style breweries who use weizen yeasts, alt yeasts and lager yeasts. Sierra who used to use a lager yeast and the ale yeasts. Anchor who uses a steam yeast and an ale yeast.....Etc, etc.... Good brewing, Jim Busch Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 95 11:54:00 MST From: "Fleming, Kirk R., Capt" <FLEMINGKR at afmcfafb.fafb.af.mil> Subject: Open Fermentation: Risk & Fermenter Materials Richard (#1837) cited a comment D Kerfoot made ("if you're willing to risk open fermentation why spend money on stainless?") and said ss doesn't have to be expensive. First, the 'risk' issue, then a newfound fermenter... First, I've only done about 20 batches with open fermentation--but so far I've had no fermentation problems. I had 1 [possibly] infected batch, and think I know what happened--not a fermenter issue. Based on this limited experience, on the results of others who've written to me, and on the History of Brewing As I Know It, open fermentation doesn't have to be risky. Some household environments not too conducive to open fermenting, of course, requiring care/isolation not needed for airlocked fermenters. But on the whole, I think brewers have an unwarranted fear of open fermenting. I understand one big reason commercial brewerys went closed was to collect the CO2. In fact, deClerk describes a great fear among the brewgeeks of the time about going *closed*. Imagine! On to plastic vs stainless: I've found a food storage container with all the stickers ("FDA, USDA, NSF", etc., etc.) and which is taste and odor-free. With careful handling I see no reason to prefer stainless over this plastic, other than aesthetics and the longhaul durability Richard is concerned with. The trade name is Prolon, and if anyone knows anything about it please let me know. It does not stain even after long exposure to iodophor, indicating it's at the very least better than vinyl tubing (at the very least) as a brewing material. KRF Colorado Springs flemingk at usa.net Days since last snowfall: 0 (porter/stout season has officially begun!) Return to table of contents
Date: 21 Sep 1995 13:49:51 U From: "Manning Martin MP" <manning_martin_mp at mcst.ae.ge.com> Subject: Gearmotor Mill Confession I posted some time ago about my motorized Glatt mill, which is powered by a surplus gear motor whose output shaft turns at 156 RPM, with 30 in-lb of torque (that's about 1/14 hp). The motor cost $20, with another $20-or-so worth of stuff required to get it running and connected to the mill. I think I recall Schmidling saying that a 60 in-lb gearmotor would not start a MaltMill (TM) with the hopper loaded, but it's rollers are more than twice as long. I too wanted to avoid a belt and pulleys which would extend below the base of the mill, pose a hazzard, or require sheilding. Its bad enough having the rollers exposed! A simple solution is to use direct-drive through a split coupling (bought at a local HVAC supply store). The motor output shaft and mill drive shaft are positioned end-to-end, and the split coupling insures that slight miss-alignments are tolerated, and that there is no bending moment applied to either shaft. The driven side of the coupling is only clamped (not keyed) to the mill's drive shaft by means of a longitudinally split bushing. The driven half of the coupling was purchased with an oversized bore, which the split bushing reduces to the diameter of the mill's drive shaft. The setscrew in the coupling-half is used to clamp the bushing to the mill's shaft. If a foreign object enters the rollers, this arrangement will allow slippage and prevent damage to the mill or motor. This set-up has now been working flawlessly for more than a year, starting easily from full stop, loaded or not. Throughput is about 1 lb/min, depending upon the roller gap setting. Martin Manning Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 1995 13:28:22 -0500 (CDT) From: SWEENERB at MSUVX1.MEMPHIS.EDU Subject: SELECTHomebrew Digest #1837 (September 21, 1995) Well, I have decided to move the brewery outside and I was hoping to get some advice about setting up my stuff in order to make the process an easy one. My current mashing/boiling setup consists of: 8 gal. enamel pot with easymasher 5 gal. enamel pot 4 gal. stainless pot 5 gal. Gott cooler King Kooker - bought it last night at Sams, its still in the box I was thinking of heating my sparge water to around 180, then pouring it into the Gott, which drops the temp around 15 degress or so, and then storing it until needed. Then start the mash and after emptying the initial runnings, position the Gott above the 8 gal. kettle and begin the sparge by opening a hose connection between them. Both the initial runnings and the remaining sparge are drained into the 5 gal. enamel and then the 4 gal. stainless pot. [Is there a good way to get this wort back into the 8 gal. boiler other than dipping it out and pouring? This was a weak link in my process even before moving outside.] Then wort is then transferred back to the 8 gal. boiler and the boil commences. The only other issue I had was what to do with the hot water coming out of my immersion cooler-- will it kill the grass in the back yard if poured directly on it? I would really appreciate hearing from any or you who have done this in the past or just have some helpful advice. Anything directed at me through email which looks promising will of course be summarized and forwarded to the HBD. Thanks in advance. Bob Sweeney sweenerb at msuvx1.memst.edu The University of Memphis Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 95 14:06:26 -0500 From: rlabor at lsumc.edu (Ronald J. La Borde) Subject: Cooling Beer Line In HBD# 1837 P. Millner says: >I'd like to run a beer tube into my den and set up a bar with my tap there. >This distance is going to be about 30-40 feet.... Life is wonderfull with a keg setup! My keg freezer was in the utility room across the patio and my wife felt so sorry for me watching as I got the keys and walked into the outside heat that SHE nagged me to get the freezer moved into the house!!!!! Wow, what a dilemma. Finally I gave in. But in your case PM, I don't know if you even have a wife so you can go ahead with plan A. I suggest that you may use a wort chiller clone. I mean get something just like the copper tube within a hose setup. Get or make one long enough to reach from inside the fridge to the beer outlet. Now fill a container with glycol and put a pump into it and connect the glycol output to the hose inlet. On the other end, connect a regular hose for glycol return back to the container. Insulate both hoses. I can't think of any reason why you can't put the glycol container in the fridge along with the kegs. You will need to pass pump power and the hoses into the fridge somehow - but hey, if you are willing to string the lines inside your house then I guess you would be willing to run them into the fridge also. Oh yes, pass the beer through the copper line to the beer outlet in your den. I hope this would meet the inexpensive requirement. I am not sure if it can be called simple. Anyhow, good luck. Ron ************************************************************** Ronald J. La Borde | Work (504)568-4842 | "If the only tool you have is a hammer, Home (504)837-0672 | you tend to see every problem as a nail." Metairie, LA | ************************************************************** Return to table of contents
Date-Warning: Date header was inserted by BSUVC.bsu.edu From: 00bkpickeril at bsuvc.bsu.edu (Brian Pickerill) Subject: CO2 regulator zero adjustment... Hi, I have a nagging question (problem) my regulator. It always reads 10lbs higher than it should. That's right, zero pressure is 10lbs on the scale. A friend told me that there is a zero adjustment on the back of the regulator, but wasn't sure, and I have not checked it. (The way it's mounted, it takes awhile to get it loose and check it out.) Anyway, I thought I would ask you brew gurus about this, see if it rang any bells. The regulator is still under warranty, but I don't want to send it back if I don't have to. I didn't see anything about it in the papers that shipped with it. BTW, it's a Tap Rite (tm) regulator from Rapids. Now that I am completely OUT of homebrew (cold turkey) it would be a good time to send it back if necessary. Thanks, - --Brian Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 95 13:42:00 PDT From: "Bessette, Bob" <bob.bessette at lamrc.com> Subject: Buckled kegs... Fellow Brewers, I have for the first time experienced buckled kegs due to expanding pressure. This is my 16th batch and it is the first time I have noticed this. I use the small (12-pack) stainless steel drum kegs that you use the CO2 cartridges with. Anyway, I noticed this abnormality about 1 week after I kegged and I know I used the same amount of priming sugar as I usually do. It was about 5/8 cup of priming sugar. Could this batch be infected? The beer tastes great, is very clear, but the FOAM is unbelievable. I immediately put the kegs in the frig when I noticed this problem. Anyone out there happen to know how this could've happened so I can avoid it in the future? Please email me at bob.bessette at lamrc.com. TIA.. Bob Bessette Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 95 23:01:12 HOE From: "Antonio S. Reher" <CUANTICA at vm1.sdi.uam.es> Subject: Beer drinking in Denmark Hi, I will be spending all of next year in Copenhagen and I was wondering if anyone would help a beer lover find his way around the country. Any informa- tion about good pubs in Denmark (specilly in the Copenhagen area) -homebrew or other? Any good brands to taste? Anto. cuantica at vm1.sdi.uam.es Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 1995 15:17:40 -0600 From: nealc at selway.umt.edu (Neal Christensen) Subject: Steam heat, cooling beer line Howdy! I've been working on my 1/2 barrel brewery design and wanted to get some feedback on steam. Since I am combining the mash/lauter tun, I think there is a greater chance of scorching the mash using open flame, so I want to go to an alternative heat source. I was thinking of having a low pressure boiler built for heating my mash/lauter tun. The thought came up that it may be possible to heat with steam using a copper heat exchange coil (similar to an immersion chiller) rather than steam injection. I don't think this has been discussed on the HBD yet. There would seem to be a few advantages to this approach. First, no dilution of the mash. Second, heating throughout the mash column, rather than at the point of injection - hopefully eliminating the need to stir the mash. Third, no possibility of blowing built up scale and other crud from the boiler into the mash. I know that some commercial breweries use steam jacket heat - a similar idea to this immersion coil setup. If it works I may eventually heat the sweet wort this way too. I am not sure yet what would be required for this setup. I do know a craftsman who is very familiar with building boilers and old fashioned steam engines - but he doesn't know much about brewing. It would seem that I would need to be able to generate a lot more steam than with an injection system (I have read the steam injection article in Brewing Techniques). It also may be that some of the benefits described recently about steam injection (sorry, I don't remember the author) such as simulating decoction of the thickest mash would be lost with this system. What do you folks think? What are the important considerations? I understand safety is a concern and I'll consult knowledgeable people on that as I go. If any of you have any comments it would be greatly appreciated! >Date: Wed, 20 Sep 1995 19:38:48 -0400 >From: Millnerp at aol.com >Subject: Cooling Beer Line > >I have a keg set up in my garage in which I usually keep one commercial and >one homebrew keg. I'd like to run a beer tube into my den and set up a bar >with my tap there. This distance is going to be about 30-40 feet and snip.... >anyone have an inexpensive, simple solution? > >PM In general, bars run their beer lines inside of the cooler up to the faucet. At home, when I extend my lines out-of-doors for parties, I run the lines through water line foam insulation (used indoors to cut down on condensation that forms on the outside of cold water lines). This insulation helps keep the beer cool while it travels from keg to tap, but would not help much for storage. One solution would be to build a jockey box at the tap end. This consists of a coil of tubing (copper is more effective, but plastic works) inside of a bucket or cooler that holds ice. As the beer passes through the ice bucket it is chilled. Foaming will be a problem on a long beer line because the beer warms up - even in an insulated line - so use tubing with a small inside diameter, use plenty of line pressure and you may still need that tap-end jockey box cooler to keep the CO2 in solution. Neal Christensen Missoula - A Place Sort Of Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 95 15:49:44 CDT From: Chris Barnhart <cbarnhar at ria-emh2.army.mil> Subject: RE: Extract Efficiency Hi All, Brian Yankee asked: >Does anyone have data/info on the effect of mash temperature on >extract efficiency? My own experience seems to indicate that >lower mash temps produce higher extract efficiency, but I can't >find anything in the standard brewing literature to confirm or >refute this. Thanks for your help. This got me to thinking (Good thing :')). Isn't extract efficiency a measure of how completely you convert the mash from starchs to sugars (both complex and simple)? Within limits the temperature is irrelevant to EE. Wouldn't temperature's primary effect be the speed at which the converson takes place (as long as you don't denature the amylases stopping conversion completely). I would assume that temperature primarily influences the fermentability of the wort. Thoughts? Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 95 15:57:26 PST From: krkoupa at ccmail2.srv.PacBell.COM Subject: Extract/Grain Does anyone have a handy dandy per-pound conversion table between typical extracts and the all-grain equivalencies? I want to convert extract recipes to all-grain (and vice versa). For every pound of XYZ extract, I instead use A.B pounds of pale malt, C.D pounds of munich malt, and E.F pounds of chocolate malt. You get the idea. I'm just looking for a rough guide. Or can someone suggest an existing software tool? Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 1995 19:15:55 -0500 From: djt2 at po.cwru.edu Subject: Re:Long distance dispensing From: Millnerp at aol.com writes> Subject: Cooling Beer Line >I have a keg set up in my garage in which I usually keep one commercial and >one homebrew keg. I'd like to run a beer tube into my den and set up a bar >with my tap there. This distance is going to be about 30-40 feet and >according to my caluculations at any time several ounces of beer will be in >the line (Clearly to much to waste) so I'm wondering how to keep the beer in >the line cool. I assume bars either pour beer fast enough that it does not >get warm or have some type of devise to keep the beer in the line cool. Does >anyone have an inexpensive, simple solution? My solution to this is to keep a cold plate in a fridge at the dispensing point, and keep the pressurized kegs in the basement. You have to keep the pressure up pretty high (ca 25 to 30 pounds) to get good flow; the pressure of course drops through the line (mine is about 30 feet of 1/4 in i.d.). Keeping the pressure high on the kegs at room temp allows for pretty close to normal levels of carbonation of the chilled beer at the dispensing end. Of course, you need a fridge at your bar... but it can be small, and the cold plate takes up less space than three bottles. Dennis Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 1995 21:56:23 -0400 From: dflagg at agate.net Subject: REPITCH! Recently I wrote... >Doug Flagg replies: >Very good advise, BUT...... >I'm finishing up on a Pale Ale and I want to brew a Pilsner next. >What do I do?? Use my Ale yeast dregs to brew the Pilsner. Not! Looking back, I realize this sounds like a flame, but it was not intended as one. What I was trying to point out was that various people, over time, have preached the doctrine of recycling yeast. I agree...this sounds like a very good idea. But when I went to put it into practice, I found it didn't work well for me. I don't brew every week. The time between brews ranges from 2 weeks to a month and a half. Maybe my capture and storage procedures were a little sloppy, but I could never keep a large amount of dregs that long without them going bad. I might try it again, so I can perfect my technique, but I don't think yeast recycling will be big with me. For those who recommend brewing the same or similar beers back to back, I say: Good for You! If it works, do it. For me, the yeast is a big part of the flavor profile I am looking for, and I usually look for a different flavor with each brew. ************************************************************ Doug Flagg | "A Homebrew a day... dflagg at orono.sdi.agate.net | Keeps the Worries away!" ************************************************************ Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 95 21:38 CDT From: pgravel at mcs.com (Philip Gravel) Subject: Oak chips ===> Ray Ownby asks about using oak chips: >What's the consensus on using oak chips in an IPA? My last one turned out >great, but just curious what the opinions of people who've made more than >one IPA are. TIA, Use chips of white oak not red oak. Red oak is too strong. I recommend steaming the chips for a short period of time to kill any bacteria. - -- Phil _____________________________________________________________ Philip Gravel Lisle, Illinois pgravel at mcs.com Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 1995 16:51:28 -0500 From: Russell Mast <rmast at fnbc.com> Subject: Knave Brew World. > From: "Penn, Thomas" <penn#m#_thomas at msgw.vf.mmc.com> > Subject: Beer Marketing > What does this say for Homebrewing? The same thing that Top 40 music says for > experimental jazz. That's beautiful. It's lines like that which make me look forward to HBD. > I guess my message is to make > really good beer AND market it well so maybe some bit of the appreciation for > quality will infect the consumer. Maybe. I don't know, the emphasis of style over substance so deeply pervades every aspect of American life, and is probably a problem in other countries, too. Look at Top 40, at Prime Time sitcoms, at the Bestseller list. Perhaps beer is the way to break this viscious cycle of selling people their tastes in life. Maybe. Until then, all we can do is hope the craft beer trend lasts a bit longer, and hope that our favorite beers also have formidable marketing, and we can do our part, as beer geeks, to make beer-geekism popular and look desirable. Of course, we risk blowing it by being too big and too faddish. (Look what happened to Dungeons and Dragons. Remember that? You used to play, I can tell.) > Thanks for reading, and can someone dredge up the original study to which I > make (loose) reference??? A high school teacher of mine made a refernce to this study also, but I don't know if I could get in touch with her. I've got some friends who might be able to scrape up the ref. -R Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 1995 23:24:46 +0500 From: "Pat Babcock" <pbabcock at oeonline.com> Subject: The HomeBrew Flea Market Had a little time on my hands yesterday (9/21), so I spent it on my homepage (much to my SO's chagrin). The page can now be hit simply with the URL http://oeonline.com/~pbabcock Of particular interest are http://oeonline.com/~pbabcock/brew.html http://oeonline.com/~pbabcock/800list.html (reformatted for ease of viewing and use!) and http://oeonline.com/~pbabcock/4sale.html All links are available from the homebrewer pick on my main page (http://oeonline.com/~pbabcock/howdy.html) Have at it! And be sure to leave comments, suggestions, and critiques as you go. This is NOT a test! See ya! Pat Babcock | "Beer is my obsession, and I'm late for President, Brew-Master | therapy..." -PGB and Chief Taste-Tester | "Let a good beer be the exclamation point Drinkur Purdee pico Brewery | at the end of your day as every sentence pbabcock at oeonline.com | requires proper punctuation." -PGB SYSOP on The HomeBrew University - Motor City Campus BBS (313)397-9758 Check out my home page! http://oeonline.com/~pbabcock/howdy.html Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 1995 23:32:13 -0500 From: blacksab at siu.edu Subject: PUMPS, PUMPS, PUMPS! Well, I got rather a lot of requests from people looking for pumps, so I thought I should post the results thus far. I'd also like to ask those of you with first hand experience using any of these pumps to pick up this thread since there is very little data out there on this subject and a goodly amount of interest. That said, may it be known that I have no financial interest with any of these companies... United States Plastics Corp. 1-800-537-9724 1995/1 CAT#5 p. 156: Little Giant(tm) Magnetic Drive (MD) Pumps MD-series are non-submersible, NSA approved and rated at 150F-deg. Motors range from 1/70-HP to 1/8-HP; Max. Flow(GPM):3.0-21.4; COST:$80-$320 MD-HC-series are similar to above but can handle more corrosive chemicals,and are rated at 200F-deg. Motors range from 1/30-HP to 1/8-HP; max. flow(GPM): 7.0-21.4; COST:$138-$361. MARCH(tm) Pumps Similar to pumps above, "designed for mildly corrosive applications such as mildly acidic, alkaline...and sanitary liquid food applications". Housing cover is attached with wing-nuts for easy cleaning. No MAX. TEMP. rating cited--anyone got a data point here? 2 basic models: 1/50 & 1/25-HP; max. flow(GPM):5.5 & 6.7; COST: $93 & $98. W.W. Grainger 1-800-722-3291 1995 General Catalog no.386 pp. 2460-1 TEEL(tm) Magnetic-Drive Chemical Solutions Pumps Similar to MARCH pumps above. Max Temp. is 180F-deg. Also easily dismantled. 1/50 & 1/25-HP; max.flow: 5.5 & 7.6GPM; COST $80 & $85. Little Giant(tm) Pumps Some of the same pumps as above and then some--two shine out: Little Giant Model #3-MD-MT-HC (Grainger #2P039) & #TE-3-MD-HC (2P040) Same pump, different bodies, the second has a Totally Enclosed Fan Cooled motor, the first is open. 1/25-HP; 8.3 GPM; $125 & $177. Hope this is of some help. --Harlan Bauer --Harlan Bauer <blacksab at siu.edu> Return to table of contents
End of HOMEBREW Digest #1838, 09/22/95