HOMEBREW Digest #246 Thu 07 September 1989

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


Contents:
  Doug Roberts ??s on cara pils etc. (BROWN)
  re: Mashing (Darryl Richman)
  re: racking to secondary (Darryl Richman)
  Homebrew supplies mail order (boubez)
  Results of the Great British Beer Festival (What Universe is this?)
  mashing crystal malt (iwtio!korz)
  Mackeson's and Soft Brown Sugar (Patrick Stirling)
  TCJOHB (Revised addition - when?) (Brian Atkins)
  pause in fermentation (Pete Soper)
  Video (MARKIEWI)
  Doric Ale Yeast, and CWE (Marc San Soucie)
  Dextrin Malt - does it self-convert? (Mike Fertsch)
  Re: Homebrew Digest #241 (August 30, 1989) ("Richard_A_Morano.WBST311")

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---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 6 Sep 89 08:15 EST From: <BROWN%MSUKBS.BITNET at CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU> Subject: Doug Roberts ??s on cara pils etc. Doug Roberts asks about mashing cara pils as a source of dextrin. I have been adding about 1/2 pound to all my mashes over the last year. I don't have a controlled experiment to test its effect, but it theoretically increases body and head retention. I produce a nice full-bodied beer, with creamy head on the beer, but that may also be due to high mashing temperatures. More importantly, I BELIEVE that you must mash cara pils to get the goodies out. Boiling or steeping it will not do the trick. (I'll have to check the literature on this, but that is my best recollection). You may want to check this out before using any more of it in your extract recipes. I notice that you mashed it with the crystal malt in your second (Malz bier) recipe, but it may not contain enough enzymes to mash alone (crystal has NO enzymes) -- I'll definately have to consult the literature on this, but again that is what comes to mind. A pound or two of pale malt should provide the necessary enzymes. Doug also writes: > Anyhow, working on that assumption, I cooked > up the following recipe last night: > 7# light syrup > 2# Cara Pils (dextrin malt) > 2# light crystal > 1# extra rich crystal > 1/2 oz Hallertauer hops (5.0% Alpha acids) > 1.0 oz Willamette hops (4.5% AA) > 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp Citric acid, 1 tsp yeast nutrient > 1 TBL Irish Moss > 11.5 oz Edme Yeast > I mashed the cara & crystal malts for 2 hours at 140 F, then sparged > to about 4 gallons. Then, added the syrup & Hallertauer hops. Boiled > for 30 minutes, and added the Irish Moss. Then boiled for 30 more > minutes and decanted to the primary where I added the salt, citric, > nutrient & Willamette Hops (dry hopping, I believe this technique is > called). Willamette, BTW, is a wonderful aromatic hops. A few personal opinions on your recipes (this one and Clara Bell): 1. For a beer this malty I'd suggest more bittering hops, at least 2 oz. of 5% alpha acid bittering hops. Another opinion: Save that nice Hallertauer for flavor or aroma hops (added to the last 10 minutes of boil, steeped, or dry hopped). I've gone to high alpha acid varieties exclusively for primary bittering hops, saving the wonderful Willamettes, Cascades, Saaz, etc. for flavor and aroma. What are other people's experiences? Does the variety of bittering hops really affect flavor (as opposed to bitterness) at all? Finally, I thought dry-hopping usually took place a few days before bottling. The acidity and alcohol in the fermented beer prevents the flourishing of all the bacteria on those unwashed, unheated hops flowers. Although I do not practice this technique (being a bacterio-phobe), I understand it results in WONDERFUL hop aroma. 2. Salt, citric acid and yeast nutrient? My opinion (from what I've read and experienced) is that these adjuncts are unnecessary when making extract beer. I've made wonderful extract stout with distilled (actually R/O) water. The extract should provide enough nutrients, acidity and minerals (salts) for proper fermentation. Perhaps this is not true for some syrups. Any other opinions out there? 3. 1-2 TABLESPOONS of irish moss? That seems like a lot to me. Check your local literature. Not trying to bash on you, Doug. I'm just a frustrated brewer in the humid midwest, waiting for the mold count to drop in my damp house and runnin' out of homebrew from last year. Glad you're back in the saddle! Jackie Brown bitnet: Brown at msukbs Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 6 Sep 89 06:37:09 PDT From: Darryl Richman <darryl at ism780c.isc.com> Subject: re: Mashing From: kipps at etoile.ICS.UCI.EDU "I'm about to try mashing for the first time :-) using a 33 qt enamel pot "as the mashing tun. Good luck to you. Plan ahead so that you know what you want to do at each step. And don't worry too much about times and temperatures-- these things do work naturally. "but I've thought of another way that I "haven't read about. Why not emerse the pot in a sink of water? It seems "like an easy way to control the temperature surrounding the mash. Has "anyone tried this before or know of a good reason not to? Can you get a sink full of water at 150-160F? Can you do this within a few degrees? If you are going to do a single step infusion mash, Dave Line's suggestion of an insulated cooler is probably the best way to do it. There is a big advantage to moving up from 5 gallon batches when working with grain. I don't worry about losing temperature during a rest with a 15 gallon batch--there is just too much thermal inertia (combined with the stainless steel pot I use) for it to move in half an hour or more. --Darryl Richman Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 6 Sep 89 06:47:20 PDT From: Darryl Richman <darryl at ism780c.isc.com> Subject: re: racking to secondary From: roberts%studguppy at LANL.GOV (Doug Roberts at Los Alamos National Laboratory) "5. Has this ever happened to anyone else? I racked my Clara Bell batch "from the primary to the secondary day before yesterday. The head had "just fallen after a healthy, vigorous initial fermentation. However, I "noticed the next day that fermentation had completely stopped. I've "experienced this before where racking seems to shock the yeast "temporarily (up to a few days), and then fermentation resumes. I'm "always careful to let the wort cascade down the side of the glass "carboy to minimize oxygentation, and I always make sure to syphon a "big slug of yeast with the wort in an attempt to assure continuous "fermentation. However, about half the time I notice that "fermentation comes to a complete halt for up to 3 or 4 days, after "which it slowly resumes. Any ideas? After the head falls, most of the yeast has run out of food and is falling out of solution and becoming dormant. One of the reasons why you get a head on fermenting beer is the same as why you get it on a finished beer-- there are CO2 bubbles building a head in conjunction with the protiens. When the fermentation slows down, there is a lot less CO2 coming off the beer, so there isn't anything to form a head with. Also, I usually notice that the airlock doesn't move much after racking. I attribute this to the fact that I have purged most of the CO2 out of solution as well, by running it through that narrow racking tube. This is actually a Good Thing (tm) because it means that I've purged the air out of the carboy I'm racking into. But it takes the slowed down yeast quite a while to once again reach a saturated solution of CO2; only after this will the CO2 begin evolving from the beer again. --Darryl Richman Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 6 Sep 89 09:57:39 EDT From: boubez at bass.rutgers.edu Subject: Homebrew supplies mail order Hi there! I'd like to ask the homebrewers out there about their favourite mail-order place for brewing supplies. I live in New Jersey (if that's any help) and would like to buy equipment and supplies hrough the mail. Thanks in advance. toufic Toufic Boubez boubez at caip.rutgers.edu boubez at bass.rutgers.edu Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 6 Sep 89 08:00:36 CDT From: jmellby at ngstl1.csc.ti.com (What Universe is this?) Subject: Results of the Great British Beer Festival Results of the Great British Beer Festival August 1-5th, in Leeds, UK, the yearly GBBF was held. Sadly, once again, I was not present. However, yesterday's "What's Brewing" gives the results of the competition: Supreme Champion Beer of Britain: Chiswick Bitter (Fullers/Griffin Brewery) Closest to this in the USA is Fullers ESB (that I know of) Highly Commended: Theakston's Old Peculier (available in the USA in bottles or kegs, but of course this is not cask beer in the USA) Runner-up Timothy Taylor's Landlord (strong pale ale) And I don't believe this is available in the USA Mild & Light Bitters 1. Taylor Gold Best 1033 2. Courage BItter Ale 1030 3. Bateman Mild 1033 Standard Bitters 1. Fuller Chiswick 1035.5 2. Butcome Bitter 1039 3. Golden Hill Exmoor Ale 1039 Strong Ales 1. Theakston Old Peculier 1057 2. Bateman Victory Ale 1056 3. Fuller ESB 1055.75 Special Bitters 1. Bateman XXXB 1048 2. Moorhouse Pendle Witches Brew 1050 3. Youngs Special 1046 Best Bitters 1. Taylor Landlord 1042 2. Batham Bitter 1043 3. Marston Pedigree 1043 New Breweries 1. Hop Back Summer Lightning 1050 2. Whitby's Own Force Nine 1055 3. Sara Hughes Dark Ruby Mild 1058 Surviving the American Dream John R. Mellby Texas Instruments jmellby at ngstl1.ti.com P.O.Box 660246, MS 3645 Dallas Texas, 75266 (214)517-5370 (home) (214)343-7585 **************************************************************** * "For those of you that don't live in Texas, this is the time * * of year when it gets so hot here that little pieces of the * * medulla oblongata flake off like dandruff and people start * * making speeches about how we need to stamp out these porno * * businesses, or build a new medical school in Lubbock, or put * * in a bid for the 1996 Olympics. And then they argue about * * it, and one of em kills the other one." * * -- Joe Bob Briggs * **************************************************************** Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 6 Sep 89 09:18:55 mdt From: att!iwtio!korz at hplabs.HP.COM Subject: mashing crystal malt >In digest #245, Doug Roberts writes: >I mashed the cara & crystal malts for 2 hours at 140 F, then sparged I don't know about Cara Pils (Dextrine) Malt, but Crystal Malt has no enzymes (they have been killed by the heat used in manufacturing the malt), so there is no point in mashing Crystal Malt. Anytime you raise the temperature of the malt above 160F or so, you denature the enzymes that convert the starches to complex sugars to simple sugars. I simply steep the Crystal Malt in a grain bag while the liquor comes to a boil. Then I sparge with ice cold water into the primary -- yes, I know it's not as efficient as a hot sparge, but once I pour the hot wort into the cold sparge water, I can pitch immediately. Al. Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 6 Sep 89 09:30:40 PDT From: pms%jammer at Sun.COM (Patrick Stirling) Subject: Mackeson's and Soft Brown Sugar Doug Roberts says: "I will never again make a batch with brown sugar as an ingredient (a little honey or molasses, perhaps, but not caramelized refined sugar)." Which I agree with! However, to shed a little light, I think one problem may be that in Britain soft brown sugar is (relatively) unrefined. It's not dyed refined sugar, it's thick, gluey (almost gooey) stuff, somewhere between turbonado (sp?) and white sugar. Turbonado is much less refined, black and gooey but still somewhat crystalline. Perhaps with British style brown sugar the Mackeson's would come out better. Not that I'd try it, mind you. Can anyone recommend a book that describes the differences between different styles of beer? E.g. Maerzen, Trappist, Bock, Alt, etc. I'd like something pretty detailed, that describes what gives each style its individual character. patrick Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 6 Sep 89 09:18:32 pdt From: Brian Atkins <atkins at hpindqa> Subject: TCJOHB (Revised addition - when?) Full-Name: Brian Atkins Does anyone know if Charlie P. is planning to product a revised edition to "The Complete Joy of Home Brewing"? Two things I would like to see added are (of course) a complete index, and expected starting and final specific gravity ranges on more of the recipes (mostly the all grain brews toward the end of the book). Is there a place we could call/mail to to provide requests for a revised edition? Also, has the net index to TCJOHB been revised lately? My copy is at least 8 months to a year old. Can someone post the latest, greatest copy? Thanks! Brian Atkins Return to table of contents
Brian Atkins atkins at hpindqa.HP.COM (408) 447-2057 Information Networks Division - 43LS Hewlett Packard 19420 Homestead Road, Cupertino, CA 95014 Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 6 Sep 89 13:05:03 -0400 From: Pete Soper <soper at encore.com> Subject: pause in fermentation In HBD #245 roberts%studguppy at LANL.GOV (Doug Roberts) says: >5. Has this ever happened to anyone else? I racked my Clara Bell batch >from the primary to the secondary day before yesterday. The head had >just fallen after a healthy, vigorous initial fermentation. However, I >noticed the next day that fermentation had completely stopped. I've >experienced this before where racking seems to shock the yeast >temporarily (up to a few days), and then fermentation resumes. I'm >always careful to let the wort cascade down the side of the glass Don't do that. Running the wort down the side in a thin film causes air to dissolve in the wort. Run the hose or another racking tube all the way down and fill the new container from the bottom up instead. >carboy to minimize oxygentation, and I always make sure to syphon a >big slug of yeast with the wort in an attempt to assure continuous This is not needed. There are many many millions of yeast cells suspended in the actively fermenting wort you are racking. >fermentation. However, about half the time I notice that >fermentation comes to a complete halt for up to 3 or 4 days, after >which it slowly resumes. Any ideas? I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that the infusion of new oxygen caused by improper racking might have triggered another respiration phase in the yeast, causing the pause you observed. --Pete Soper Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 6 Sep 89 15:32 EST From: MARKIEWI%CSHLAB.BITNET at CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU Subject: Video Has anyone seen the new homevideo "A Video Guide to Homebrewing" ? it is by Papazian and a few others... and I was wondering if it was worth watching? Peter Markiewicz MARKIEWI at CSHLAB.Bitnet Return to table of contents
Date: 6 Sep 89 17:18:08 EDT (Wed) From: mds at wang.WANG.COM (Marc San Soucie) Subject: Doric Ale Yeast, and CWE A while back Martin A. Lodahl wrote: > ... and not content with trying a new recipe and > unfamiliar hops, I also used a yeast I hadn't tried before: Doric. > The yeast gave me a bit of a scare, in that it seemed very slow to > start, and formed a softer-appearing cap than the yeasts I'm > accustomed to (Edme and Red Star)(yes, I know). Has any kind HBD > reader used Doric before? Is it as attenuative as Edme? As > "estery" as Red Star Ale? Is it, for that matter, an ale yeast at > all? Youth (?) Wants to Know ... I have brewed a scullion of beers with Doric Ale yeast now, most of them Amber Ales (Pale Ales in some books, sweet browns in others), and have been so pleased with the results that I keep a stack of it around for emergency use in case some new experimental yeast doesn't pan out and a kick start is needed. Doric is indeed less attenuative than Edme and Red Star, producing in my Amber ales a nice sweet flavor with no harshness and full body. I would describe it as a fine, conservative, failsafe yeast which appears to impart no special flavors of its own. On a related subject, I have an interesting beer fermenting in my basement which is beginning to annoy me, as it has been in the secondary fermenter for nearly 12 weeks now at between 66 and 75 degrees, and shows no signs of slowing down. The fermentation collar of bubbles is thick and active, and there are no signs of filth or perversion that would indicate contamination. The yeast involved is CWE dried ale yeast, from England. I mean, I've heard of attenuative yeasts, but I really have to wonder what the heck those little beasties are chewing on by now. It was only a two-can Amber recipe! Maybe they're working their way through the glass. Maybe I should start to really worry. Or call the police. Marc San Soucie The John Smallbrewers Massachusetts mds at wang.wang.com Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 6 Sep 89 17:28 EDT From: Mike Fertsch <FERTSCH at adc1.RAY.COM> Subject: Dextrin Malt - does it self-convert? Doug Roberts posted a recipe the other day - > 7# light syrup > 2# Cara Pils (dextrin malt) > 2# light crystal > 1# extra rich crystal > 1/2 oz Hallertauer hops (5.0% Alpha acids) > 1.0 oz Willamette hops (4.5% AA) > 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp Citric acid, 1 tsp yeast nutrient > 1 TBL Irish Moss > 11.5 oz Edme Yeast > I mashed the cara & crystal malts for 2 hours at 140 F, then sparged > to about 4 gallons. Having recently discovered Dextrin Malt, this recipe looks pretty good to me. I like the color, taste, and aroma of this malt. I always thought that both crystal malt and dextrin malt contain no enzymes. If this is the case, why a 2 hour mash? Just a short steep in warm water should do the trick. Is 'rich crystal' just a darker version of 'ordinary crystal'? I've noticed a WIDE variation in color in crystal malts. Mike Fertsch Return to table of contents
Date: 31 Aug 89 07:15:10 PDT (Thursday) From: "Richard_A_Morano.WBST311" at Xerox.COM Subject: Re: Homebrew Digest #241 (August 30, 1989) Steve Conklin, How does someone get the catalog you mention? What is their phone number, etc.? I have a commercial keg system and have though about brewing my own. Perhaps you could share the steps you went through to keg homebrew. Return to table of contents
End of HOMEBREW Digest #246, 09/07/89 ************************************* -------
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