HOMEBREW Digest #1924 Mon 01 January 1996

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


Contents:
  All grain supplies in Ireland (Ulick Stafford)
  personal attacks (Rolland Everitt)
  glyceol question (CHOLLIAN-USER)
  YEAST QUALITIES ("Ben Wyche")
  Sterilize/Sanitize (J. Todd Hoopes)
  Left-handed Sand Wedge (J. Thomas Foelber)
  how long for bottle fermentation? (Tackett Austin)
  Doug Jones; broken thermometer (Marc Gaspard)
  Re: Chest freezer (dbell)
  Acid Sanitizers? ("James Hojel")
  Source for CaCl? ("Houseman, David L           TR")
  Barlywine Yeast? (J. Todd Hoopes)
  MOM (Jack Schmidling)
  Overcarbonation -- from corn sugar? (John W. Braue, III)
  Sugar(s) (John W. Braue, III)
  results: To replace blow-off, or not? (Michael Pfeuffer)

****************************************************************** * POLICY NOTE: Due to the incredible volume of bouncing mail, * I am going to have to start removing addresses from the list * that cause ongoing problems. In particular, if your mailbox * is full or your account over quota, and this results in bounced * mail, your address will be removed from the list after a few days. * * If you use a 'vacation' program, please be sure that it only * sends a automated reply to homebrew-request *once*. If I get * more than one, then I'll delete your address from the list. ****************************************************************** ################################################################# # # YET ANOTHER NEW FEDERAL REGULATION: if you are UNSUBSCRIBING from the # digest, please make sure you send your request to the same service # provider that you sent your subscription request!!! I am now receiving # many unsubscribe requests that do not match any address on my mailing # list, and effective immediately I will be silently deleting such # requests. # ################################################################# NOTE NEW HOMEBREW ADDRESS hpfcmgw! Send articles for __publication_only__ to homebrew at hpfcmgw.fc.hp.com (Articles are published in the order they are received.) Send UNSUBSCRIBE and all other requests, ie, address change, etc., to homebrew-request@ hpfcmgw.fc.hp.com, BUT PLEASE NOTE that if you subscribed via the BITNET listserver (BEER-L at UA1VM.UA.EDU), then you MUST unsubscribe the same way! If your account is being deleted, please be courteous and unsubscribe first. Please don't send me requests for back issues - you will be silently ignored. For "Cat's Meow" information, send mail to lutzen at alpha.rollanet.org ARCHIVES: An archive of previous issues of this digest, as well as other beer related information can be accessed via anonymous ftp at ftp.stanford.edu. Use ftp to log in as anonymous and give your full e-mail address as the password, look under the directory /pub/clubs/homebrew/beer directory. AFS users can find it under /afs/ir.stanford.edu/ftp/pub/clubs/homebrew/beer. If you do not have ftp capability you may access the files via e-mail using the ftpmail service at gatekeeper.dec.com. For information about this service, send an e-mail message to ftpmail at gatekeeper.dec.com with the word "help" (without the quotes) in the body of the message.
---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: ulick at chemcon.internet-eireann.ie id m0tTZ9S-0006NfC; Sat, 23 Dec 95 18:58 GMT Date: Sat, 23 Dec 1995 18:58:37 +0000 From: Ulick Stafford <ulick at chemcon.internet-eireann.ie> Subject: All grain supplies in Ireland To: Posting Address Only - No Requests <homebrew at hpfcmgw> In-Reply-To: <199512230800.AA240535606 at hpfcmgw> Message-Id: <Pine.3.89.9512231849.A114-0100000 at chemcon.internet-eireann.ie> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I have recently taken a delivery from Brupaks and am now in a position to offer grain, hops, Wyeast, books, equipment, etc. to Irish homebrewers by mail order. Email, fax, phone or write for a catalogue. _____________________________________________________________________________ Wexford Brewing Company | Ulick Stafford, Proprietor Purveyor of Advanced Homebrewing Supplies | ulick at chemcon.internet-eireann.ie Ballyhurst, Taghmon, Co. Wexford | Phone/Fax: +353-53-47957 Return to table of contents
Date: Sat, 30 Dec 1995 06:49:05 -0500 From: af509 at osfn.rhilinet.gov (Rolland Everitt) Subject: personal attacks Lately there have been a couple of unnecessarily personal and nasty attacks (IMHO) posted here. This list membership seems to include people at every level of expertise. Occasionally, someone will post information that another person takes issue with, and wishes to debunk. It is good to correct misinformation, but I think it can be done without preaching, making personal remarks, or being arrogant. I don't believe it is the purpose of the list to hold anyone up to public ridicule - just my opinion. Rolland Everitt af509 at osfn.rhilinet.gov Return to table of contents
Date: Sun, 31 Dec 1995 01:10:09 +0900 From: CHOLLIAN-USER <IPS at chollian.dacom.co.kr> Subject: glyceol question I have a question concerning the use of glycerol in freezing live yeast. Living in Korea and brewing beer is like trying to order a pizza delivered on top of Mt. McKinley. Neither the equipment nor materials exist in familiar forms. I buy in bulk whenever I am in the states and freeze the hops. That's worked *OK* so far. But since liquid yeast packets are so fragile and because I brew about once a month I want to experiment freezing the slurry from the bottom of a primary fermentation. One of my books suggests mixing glycerol with the slurry to prevent the cell walls from bursting. The pharmacist I bought the glycerol from here in Korea, said not to eat it in any amount, but I can't beleive that the book "The Complete Joy of Home Brewing" would be so wrong as to suggest something dangerous to one's health. Has anyone done this? Is glycerol safe to consume? And what is glycerol anyway? The amount I'd be using would be around two liquid ounces in a five gallon batch of beer. Greg Wilson ips at chollian.dacom.co.kr Return to table of contents
Date: Sat, 30 Dec 1995 11:34:02 +0000 From: "Ben Wyche" <bwyche at voicenet.com> Subject: YEAST QUALITIES Does anyone know a source that lists the qualities of the various commercial yeasts. By qualities, I mean the taste results that the various commercial yeasts bought at homebrew stores are suppose to impart to the beers that are brewed with them. Thanks, Ben Wyche bwyche at voicenet.com Return to table of contents
Date: Sat, 30 Dec 1995 15:14:40 -0500 From: hoopes at bscr.uga.edu (J. Todd Hoopes) Subject: Sterilize/Sanitize I recently read a post concerning a reply to another post. Most of this post I read and accepted (I'm a biochemist not an engineer) I wanted, however, to make a few additional comments on the sterilization/sanitation thing. First, nothing one does in the HB world is sterile. You just don't have the equipment and the things you need would cost you more than your car...even if it's a nice car. You need, as an absolute minimum, an autoclave and a clean hood (biological containment cabinet) and all the little sterile disposables like .22 micron filters for your wort ,transfere tubes, pipets, etc.. To be realistic I'd go with a class II clean room. There are chemical methods for rendering you beer sterile, but most would leave it poisonous to you or require the use of strong oxidants like ozone (not a good idea for anything that is supposed to taste good, besides its dangerous) My personal favorite is irradiation. It leaves no residue and would be unlikly to change the flavor of your beer. Not even a virus will "live" through this one as it nicks and derivatizes DNA. ( no it will not make you beer radioactive ) Alas it to is expensive and requires annoyingly difficult to get government permits. Read the preceding ranting as, "all the beer you brew is contaminated". No problem... Although I'm not sure on this, I'd make a considerable wager that no commercial brewery was contamination free either. I've not done any experiments to find out exactly how many CFUs (colony forming units) and how much time prior to pitching it takes to affect the flavor of a beer, but I'm sure its quite high. In fact by laboratory standards brewing is no "cleaner" than cooking. I normally use a wort chiller that I constructed myself (no problem even for a non-engineer), but I have on ..err..ahhh.... a fewww occasions been too lazy to use it and clean it. In these cases I've left the beer overnight to cool and pitched the next day. Was it contaminated?.. Of course,as most beer is, but it was not an "infected beer" (noticeable contamination). As a disclaimer I have detected DMS in one of my batches cooled this way, but it was the exception not the rule. (I use light english 2 row as a base malt. This fact may have something to do with lack of DMS in most slow cooled batches.. I have no idea.) A bath tub full of water changed every 30-60 min will cool a wort in about three hours. (assuming a relatively cool water source and you stir you beer on occasion) A similar method was mentioned, by Charlie Scandrett. It works, but takes some time. A final point. Bleach (sodium hypochlorite) is a hell of a toxic compound and will kill most things it runs into even spores provided the contact is prolonged and the concentration is high enough. Given an elevated temperature and high concentration of household bleach I.E.(60 C, 5% bleach solution) you will kill everything you need to kill in less than ten min.. ( Not that I think anybody is stupid, but I'm speaking of sanitation of equipment. If you drink 5% bleach solution, .app. 0.26% sodium hypochlorite, you may kill yourself, but mostlikly you'll just have serious stomach problems for the rest of you life.) Pitch with a large volume 500-1000 ml of yeast just entering lag phase and you will have no problems even with an overnight cool down.. provided you don't live in an sewer. Again, I make no claims about DMS. I don't have the data to talk on this subject. This post is not a correction to, or an attack on, any other post. Just points sparked by something I read here. Sorry if I took up too much band width on a topic everyone has heard 100 times. I'm off to get pleasently plastered. ********************************************************************* Do unto others.. for given a reversal of situation they would surely do it unto you. J. Todd Hoopes <Hoopes at bscr.uga.edu> Return to table of contents
Date: Sat, 30 Dec 1995 18:44:04 -0500 From: jtf at carol.net (J. Thomas Foelber) Subject: Left-handed Sand Wedge Today I brewed my first batch with a newly converted 15.5 gal. keg. I assembled all the needed equipment and ingredients (a "steam" beer with repitched pilsner wyeast). It wasn't too long before I realized that my old spoon (12 inches) was far too short for the job. I quickly called a local kitchen supply store only to find that they wanted $17.50 for a SS 21 inch stock pot spoon. NO WAY! That would have been nearly half of what I paid for the keg! With this short notice I came up with a solution that worked great. With a little bit of cleaning a junior left-handed sand wedge from my son's golf bag made a perfect stirring tool. These run about $5 to $7 at the used sporting goods store. An extra long handle with a nice grip! What more could I ask? I plan to continue to use the wedge unless someone knows of a good reason not to. (My son says, "Okay" as long as I get him a new one.) J. Thomas Foelber jtf at carol.net Return to table of contents
Date: Sat, 30 Dec 1995 17:12:56 -0800 From: taustin at sps.lane.edu (Tackett Austin) Subject: how long for bottle fermentation? I bottled several batches then left town for a week. It was cold (50s) in my house. When I got back, my week old and older beer had not fermented. Will they? Thanks, Tackett taustin at sps.lane.edu Return to table of contents
Date: Sat, 30 Dec 1995 22:46:44 -0500 (EST) From: Marc Gaspard <mgaspard at mailer.fsu.edu> Subject: Doug Jones; broken thermometer Here's my $0.02 on thermometers: One of our club members turned me on to one of the most useful devices in my homebrew arsenal; the DIGI-DIAL 300L digital thermometer! It's similar to the dial thermometers with the spike, except at the top is a handle sort of shaped like a golfclub head, with a lozenge-shaped flat face about the width of 2 nickels. On the face is a LED readout & a small button on the left (which is fine for me since I'm left-handed). You press the button to turn it on, just stick the spike into your wort (or whatever you're measuring), press the button again, & the "F" (farenheit) indicator to the right of the will blink in a second or two. Press it again, & when the "F" stops blinking *PRESTO* instant temperature measurement! It's su- perb for instantly measuring your wort or your grain while mashing, since it gives such an instantaneous reading, & you know precisely your temp for protein rest, beta-rest, or final mash temp. Plus you can get quick readings all around your kettles or mash-tuns, to see how your burners are distributing the heat. It measures between 40-300F, but unfortunately not in centigrade. (Although you might find one that does, or does both.) I bought mine at a contractor supply store for about $10.00; they usu- ally go for about $11-12.00. I highly recommend it! Marc Gaspard mgaspard at mailer.acns.fsu.edu Return to table of contents
Date: Sat, 30 Dec 95 21:30:07 PST From: dbell at cup.portal.com Subject: Re: Chest freezer Dave Ludwig posted: >Date: Sat, 30 Dec 1995 02:20:09 -0500 >From: dludwig at atc.ameritel.net >Subject: Freezer Conversion >Hi all. Hope everyone had a very good Christmas and New Year! Santa was good >to me this year and brought me a 10 cu ft chest freezer. Same place where I >bought the freezer (my wife sent me off with green light! Yee Ha) I >retrieved a Hunter "Set 'n Save I" which is a digital programable house >thermostat. Heh! Just saw a freezer that must be an exact copy of this one, tonight! I was in Sears, picking up a little 4 cuft aptartment fridge (not <primarily> for beer, unfortunately), and saw a Kenmore 10 cu ft chest freezer. It has a deep side that would easily take 3 corny kegs, and a shallower side that would nearly fully support a 5-gal fermenter, still leaving room for 2 kegs. Add a Hunter 'stat and you're in business! I think this one was $199, by the way... Nice lagering setup, I thought! Dave Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 14 Dec 95 13:29:43 UT From: "James Hojel" <JTroy at msn.com> Subject: Acid Sanitizers? A week ago or so, someone asked about the break-down characteristics of acid sanitzers. I use star-san as my main sanitzers and would like to know its characteristics. How long is its shelf life? How long will a solution last in a container? TIA JTH "The fish is killed by its open mouth" Return to table of contents
Date: Sun, 31 Dec 95 11:18:00 EST From: "Houseman, David L TR" <DLH1 at trpo3.Tr.Unisys.com> Subject: Source for CaCl? Does anyone know about a reasonable source for calcium chloride, CaCl? Various chemical companies sell it as analytical or technical grades at about $34/lb while the unpure Ice Melt (about 92% CaCl - the rest unknown) is about $.33/lb. That's a big difference. What I want is food or pharmaceutical grade at a reasonable price. TIA, Dave Houseman Return to table of contents
Date: Sun, 31 Dec 1995 13:14:17 -0500 From: hoopes at bscr.uga.edu (J. Todd Hoopes) Subject: Barlywine Yeast? I brewed a douple bock that will be 14 months old this new years. I followed the advice of my local HB shop and used a Bavarian Lager yeast. It was a hell of a fight with the yeast to get them to ferment most of the sugar. Now I want to brew a Barlywine and I don't want similar problems. Can anybody out there recomend a good ale yeast for (OG 1.1) ? I like YL yeast best...it's easy to culture, but anything will do. If you have a personal strain for such endevers I would be eternally greatfull. I can creat and maintain mono-cultures as a kind of payback. ********************************************************************* Do unto others.. for given a reversal of situation they would surely do it unto you. J. Todd Hoopes <Hoopes at bscr.uga.edu> Return to table of contents
Date: Sun, 31 Dec 95 12:56 CST From: arf at mcs.com (Jack Schmidling) Subject: MOM >From: merino at cynergy.com.au (Charlie Scandrett) >Subject: Mother of all Momilies JS>In retrospect though, it really is not idiot proof as a heavy motor hinged JS>so the center of gravity puts all the weight on the belt could produce JS>enough tension to distort the shaft. >When a shaft has a bending moment applied it curves in a "Radius of Curvature". If a 20 lb motor was hung on a pully 1 inch out from the bearing, on a 3/4" shaft its ROC would be about 450 yards, i.e. a deflection of only 0.00003 inches! Steel can take this easliy. The key words are "idiot" and "could". The former "could" put a 200 lb motor on a mill. >I didn't bother to calculate how many millions of lbs... You also didn't bother to look at a MM and note that the shaft diameter is 3/8" and not 3/4". Furthermore, I simply presented a possibility and not a dire warning as in the case of the gear motors. The serious problem comes when one puts a small pulley on the motor and the same size on the mill and keeps tightening the belt till the mill doesn't slip under load. It takes far more that 20lbs of tension to get this to work. >You setup is safe for this lifetime Dion! In his case, you are probably right but keep in mind that the MM carries a lifetime warranty and he may outlive me. >I can't imagine many bacteria surviving, but the spores of many (especially "Pediococcus") would. I believe you mean "could". Everything we do is a calculated risk. There are enough "ifs" in the process that I stand by my position that a beginner risks little if he cools a batch overnight. JS>For all practical purposes, if you put a lid on the kettle after the boil, it is sterile and will stay that way for a long time. >It may remain not seriously infected, but "sterile" is a misuse of english, sooner or later such a technique would produce noticible bacterial off flavours. The cooling of headspace in the kettle must draw fresh air into the pot. Now you are confusing two issues. Letting new organisms in while cooling has nothing to do with whether the wort was sterile at the end of boil, no matter how you mean the word. Remaining "not seriously infected" is all that we require, isn't it? >What you can sometimes get away with is not good brewing practice. I never suggested that it was good brewing practice. I suggested that if a wort chiller intimidates a beginner enough to keep him from brewing, he and the community are better off if he tries a batch without one. He can use one when he feels more comfortable with all the other details. >The people at "The Brewery" (http://alpha.rollanet.org/) have a post of mine in the technical library under "Thermodynamics of Wort Chilling" in which I have tables for calculating the boil time and cooling time effects on the DMS threshold. If you want a ready reckoner to determine the effect of your technique on DMS, have a look. I applaud you for your efforts but we are talking on two different levels. You are scaring beginners and I am trying to unwind them. >There is no doubt that Jack's technique will smell/taste to most of us like a freshly opened can of corn. Speaking of factoids! Who are "most of us"? I assure you that many of those us's have tasted beer made this way and have noticed no such smell/taste. But as an aside, since moving to the country, I have been using about 40% corn in my beer. It's fun using local stuff, it is practically free, it reduces by 40% the amount of grain I must lug back from the City and it tastes good. And speaking of taste, with 40% corn that has been "cooked" for several hours, I can't help but wonder what the big objection would be if the beer had a bit of "cooked corn" taste. > We can't all be as desensitised as Jack Schmidling. No but I suspect that most beginners are and that is MY point. >Putting the kettle is a bathtub of ice water and *stirring* both water and wort is a simple "low tech" solution. A reasonably intelligent Rhesus monkey could do it, unless he was very, very timid. What about all those spores and cysts that get in while stirring? I would guess the probability of contamination is lower if the kettle is just covered and left to sit overnight, not to mention the simplicity of the approach. >JS>"I say BAH!"------the Bart Simpson retort. Real experts don't have time to keep up with such profound thinkers. It is with sadness and resignation that I admit to only knowing through heresay who M. Simpson is but never had opportunity to watch his highly uplifting show. Didn't he kill his wife or something like that? >From: "Pat Babcock" <pbabcock at oeonline.com> >Cantilever-mounted motor equipped with v-belt pulley to a reducing pulley. The pulley drives a sprocket which drives an identical sprocket mounted to the mill. A chain to connect the sprockets, and there you have it: the shock absorbing quality of the belt and pulley system, while the sprocket and chain isolates the Maltmill (TM) shaft from any lateral stress resulting from suspending the motor weight with the shaft through the belt. Your name Rube by any chance? Not sure I even follow that but it seems like a highly complicated way of avoiding the obvious. What is the objection to just putting a 3" pulley on the motor and a 12" on the mill? It is simple and will run forever with or without a lifetime warranty. The amount of belt tension to run the mill at full load is trivial. >Why? Because, like Jack, I am not qualified to speak... There was no way, without creative editing, that I could get that I before the like.... >I'm sure Jack really meant to think about spores in his discussion of boiling.... I believe the state of maximum survival is known as a cyst and I was thinking about them while keeping in mind the fellow intimidated by the wort chiller. >By the way, Oh Great Banisher of DMS (TM), I've two slow-cooled, domestic pale malt-based batches of beer I need you to come and exorcise the DMS from. One o' us poor mere mortals have been stricken by the mytholgical momism. Based on the presumption that you kept the kettle tightly covered during the cool down, I concede your defeat. However, there are lots of other variables that could be the cause, not the least of which might be hyper-sensitivity to that taste. BTW, did you throw the two batches out yet? Would a beginner throw them out if they were his first two all grain batches? >What do I mean? Look in your workshop, Jack. You derive your living by selling some of that which intimidates the newbies. Guess again. I "derive a living" by cashing dividend checks on investments resulting from selling my real business. I make mills because I rose to the challenge of filling a serious need in one of my many hobbies. I have the luxury of being able to derive pleasure from producing the very best without having to worry about deriving a living. When it ceases to be fun or someone else comes up with a better mill, I will graciously bow out.. >Just because a competitor sells the chiller fittings is no reason to start throwing stones. That is downright silly. Most people (including me) make their own chillers. Furthermore, I am not aware of any competitors nor what that would have to do with trying a batch without a chiller. I am not anti-chiller. I use one all the time but mainly because I want to finish the batch the same day I start it. I made several batches without one just as a learning experience. We could debate the merits of immersion vs counterflow again but I think the current discussion is far more useful. The type of chiller is far less important then the need (perceived or otherwise) to use one in the first place. For those who missed the previous debate, my humble opinion is that immersion chillers are vastly superior for most of the reasons that really matter. js Return to table of contents
Date: Sat, 30 Dec 1995 20:44:00 From: braue at ratsnest.win.net (John W. Braue, III) Subject: Overcarbonation -- from corn sugar? Nick E Costanzo <ncostanz at emh.kunsan.af.mil> writes: >Here is a quick question to the collective knowledge of HBD. I have been a >homebrewer now for almost two years and have had many people tell me to add >anything from 1/2 cup to 1 cup corn sugar. I understand that the answer will >vary, but can anyone out there give me something scientific? I currently use >3/4 cup corn sugar and have been successful most of the time, but I have had a >few beers that overcarbonate in the bottles and are almost useless. 3/4 cup of corn sugar (BTW, in my last article, I forgot to mention that "corn sugar" is another alias for glucose) sounds good here. The occasional case of overcarbonation is probably due to infection. "Infection" is a scary, almost a dirty, word to homebrewers; it usually conjures up an image of some too ropy to pour and that smells like the cat was sick in it. But "infection" is rather like "weed": it means any kind of microbial reproduction that *we don't want*. The very first beer was probably viewed as an infection; some proto-Sumerian said, "Ninkursag damn it, the barley's gotten wet and gone all fizzy. Well, it was a bad harvest last fall, so I'd better drink the bloody thing". After that, of course, it was no longer viewed as an infection. Had it been a good harvest, he would have thrown the mess out. Someday, a homebrewer may get a mutant bacterium in his beer that causes the worst fermentation of old corn and sawdust to taste like Duvel; you can bet that *that* won't be viewed as an infection very long. In five years, we'll be buying it in little foil packets. Whilst we wait for that mutant to come along, we have infections that cause the beer to become something we wouldn't pour on the compost heap, and infections so benign that we never even notice them. You probably caught one of the more benign ones. C'est la vie. - -- John W. Braue, III braue at ratsnest.win.net I prefer both my beer and my coffee to be dark and bitter; that way, they fit in so well with the rest of my life. I've decided that I must be the Messiah; people expect me to work miracles, and when I don't, I get crucified. Return to table of contents
Date: Sat, 30 Dec 1995 20:30:42 From: braue at ratsnest.win.net (John W. Braue, III) Subject: Sugar(s) "James Hojel" <JTroy at msn.com> asks: >A fuzzy fat bearded man gave me some books last week on Real Ale. >Reviewing the recipes, I noticed that the British are very fond of using >sugars. The two primary types used are cane and inverted sugars. My first >task is obtaining these sugars. Does anyone know where one can purchase these >sugars in the USA and/or how to make them (inverted)? Cane sugar is sucrose, your basic white or table sugar (okay, some of it is made from beets, but the end product in identical). Invert sugar is the same product, boiled for a time in an acid solution. Sucrose is (bowlderizing a few concepts here) a disaccharide, a compound of two simple sugars (monosaccharides), glucose (a/k/a "blood sugar" or "dextrose", the common foodstuff of life from your beer yeast all the way down to evolutionary chain to me) and fructose, or "fruit sugar", a slightly different substance just about as attractive to the yeast as glucose is. Boiling sucrose in water (with the acid as catalyst) causes it to break down into its components. I don't know where you might buy it, as I've never gone looking for it myself. >Another question that arose is what exactly do these >sugars contributed to the beer. Other than the obvious alcohol, what do these sugars contribute as far as taste, body, and aroma? Not a lot. Beer made with an excess of sucrose (more than one-third of total fermentables) is generally described as "cidery" in taste, a term of opprobrium. Except for sweetness, sucrose is about tasteless as possible, so the "cideriness" is generally attributed to unspecified by-products of yeast metabolism when confronted by large amounts of fermentable substances without adequate other nutrients (your mother *did* tell you that sugar is nothing but empty calories, yes?). If the beer is fermented under conditions that lead to the sucrose or invert sugar not being exhausted, the remnant will of course increase the body and cause the beer to be sweeter. >Is it possible to use 2-row and a low mash temp. to substitute >using sugar? In conclusion, I'm trying to get a grip on brewing >with sugars and how to substitute for them while retaining the >desired characteristics. Probably not. When mashing grain, one develops a veritable witch's brew of mono-, di-, and polysaccharides (plus non-sugars) which could be emulated only through careful preparation of a pseudo-wort from the pure chemicals. Adding a pound or so of table sugar to the brew just isn't in the same league. By the same token, I know of no mashing technique that will produce an excess of sucrose (the components of invert sugar are naturally present in sparge). If there *was* such a technique, I suspect that very few would use it. My SWAG is that some British brewers added invert sugar to their wort to make up for poor yields. Later, they just dumped in cane sugar because it was easier (I've tried inverting sugar; it's a major pain in whatever end of the spine you prefer). Finally, they kept on doing it for the same reason that they drink port, and that Americans drink Coors Light -- i.e., they were told so often that it was great stuff, they came to believe it. - -- John W. Braue, III braue at ratsnest.win.net I prefer both my beer and my coffee to be dark and bitter; that way, they fit in so well with the rest of my life. I've decided that I must be the Messiah; people expect me to work miracles, and when I don't, I get crucified. Return to table of contents
Date: Sun, 31 Dec 1995 19:12:10 -0600 (CST) From: Michael Pfeuffer <pfeuffer at eden.com> Subject: results: To replace blow-off, or not? Many thanks to all those who replied to my question: >I've got a 5 gallon batch of Strong Scotch Ale in *very* active fermentation. >After 24 hours, it's blown off about 2 quarts of bubbles, and doesn't seem to >be letting up. > >I'm tempted to try to replace the lost volume with sterile water, but I also >figure I'll just end up lowering the FG. The final volume was ~2.5 quarts, and I must admit that my main concern was the loss of a 6-pack of this (potentially) wonderful brew. In the end, I went with the "don't mess with it" crowd; although several of the other comments warrant some thought: 4 people: "don't mess with it" A. McGregor: I've had large blow-offs (BO) for the past 10 batches (2-4 qts for 5 gal batch!). I was having a hard time accepting the loss of 1/2 - 1 gal of potential beer, so I've been experimenting with the BO. I've saved the BO and put it into 1 gal wine jugs, then transferred it off the trub to a secondary and eventually bottled it. My experience is that the BO beer has a watered down character, less body, and slightly more bitter than the rest of the batch. For the past two batches, recycled the BO by siphoning the BO and main batch of beer into the same secondary. I've bottled the beer, but haven't tasted one yet :^( since my beer usually take 4 weeks to carbonate properly. I have a third batch that I'm collecting the blow-off and I will I'll continue this experiment to determine if it is worthwhile. Now that it is colder, the volume of BO has come down some, if it's too small, I won't bother the save it. One thing I have noticed with the recycled the BO, is a second krausen in the combined secondary. This may imply that there is more active yeast in the BO or additional sugars in the solution. D. Venezia: If your FG is 1.015 and you increase your volume from 4.5 gal to 5.0 gal you will only lower your FG to 1.0135. If you can live with that then do it. Also topping off with preboiled water is a good way to add some hop character. Boil the water for 10-15 minutes, throw in some hops, COVER, and let boil for a minute or two, turn off the heat and allow to cool COVERED. When cool add liquid to keg or carboy. Thanks to all those who responded. I'll be cracking the first one tomorrow in celebration of New Year's Day. Have a happy 1996, y'all! - -------------------------------------------------------- Michael & Carlyn -- wq5c & ka5khk -- pfeuffer at eden.com Now Brewing: St. Pat's Dunkelweizen Now Playing: poi dog pondering, _pomegranate_ PGP public key: finger pfeuffer at eden.com Win95? No thanks, Linux is much more interesting... Return to table of contents