HOMEBREW Digest #2723 Tue 26 May 1998

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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
		Digest Janitor: janitor@hbd.org
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Contents:
  tubing size vs. pressure drops (John_E_Schnupp)
  Re: Weavils from hell ("Braam Greyling")
  What is PolyClar anyway? (Steve Markley)
  3068 - a mixture of two species? (ALAN KEITH MEEKER)
  Hop around the clock (ALAN KEITH MEEKER)
  Ringwood yeast (ALAN KEITH MEEKER)
  butt-jelly re-revisited... ("Pat Babcock")
  Airlocks (do you needs them?) (Domenick Venezia)
  Re: Spent grain recipe suggestion (Jeff Renner)
  How much malt? ("Hans E. Hansen")
  Malaysia (Tom_Williams)
  re: apartment kegging (LowpineUno)
  Evil weevils ("David Johnson")
  Sour Mash (Ken Schroeder)

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---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 24 May 1998 23:40:31 -0700 From: John_E_Schnupp at amat.com Subject: tubing size vs. pressure drops Does anyone have (or can point me in the correct direction) information on the pressure drop on various tubing sizes (ID)? Specifically I'm looking for 1/8" ID, but a chart or some such table for sizes from 3/8"ID to 1/16"ID by 1/16" would be great. I'm attempting to make a cap for a 3L PET bottle which will allow me to keep the beer at the correct carbonation level. To due and keep it very portable, I will need to use some small ID tubing or put up with having to carry around 4' - 6' of a larger ID tubing, in which case the whole thing wouldn't be quit at portability friendly. TIA, John Schnupp, N3CNL Colchester, VT 95 XLH 1200 Return to table of contents
Date: Mon, 25 May 1998 10:43:01 +200 From: "Braam Greyling" <braam.greyling at azona.com> Subject: Re: Weavils from hell Jon wrote >>>> Does anyone have any insight into the detrimental affects and degradation processes of these little *$&#( at *'s? >>>> I once got some malts straight from the maltsters with these thingies in. I cant find any detremental effects on the beer due to these little buggers. Except maybe I lose a point or two in mash effeciency. Luckily I could keep them away from my imported German malts. Make sure you seal the infected malts off and keep them away from the other malts. I store the infected malt in a different location.. Cheers Braam Greyling South Africa Return to table of contents
Date: Mon, 25 May 1998 06:18:14 -0600 From: Steve Markley <smarkley at micron.net> Subject: What is PolyClar anyway? A friend suggested I use PolyClar to help get rid of my chill haze(s). I and concerned though, he couldn't tell me anything about it. I like to know as much as possible about what goes into my beer! Can anyone tell me what PolyClar is and the recommended usage? Thanks... Steve Markley Return to table of contents
Date: Mon, 25 May 1998 11:33:25 -0400 (EDT) From: ALAN KEITH MEEKER <ameeker at welchlink.welch.jhu.edu> Subject: 3068 - a mixture of two species? Robert Dittmar writes concerning the idea that Wyeast 3068 may actually be a mixture of two different yeasts... Funny you should mention this. I was just talking with a fellow at the GABF On The Road here in Baltimore and he was making the same claim - that 3068 is a mixture of an ale yeast and delbrueckii and that, therefore, one might see changes in character when re-using the yeast cake from one batch to make a new one. Specifically, he was claiming the clove-like esters come from one species while the banana-like esters come from the other. Personally I tend not to believe this as I obtained very satisfatcory results in my Bavarian style Weissbier from 3068 and I always start from a well isolated single yeast colony from YPD agar. I ended up with all the characteristics I was looking for in this beer including BOTH the clove and banana esters. Additionally, The colonies all seemed uniform - not a mixture of two different morphologies. However, I suppose it is possible that all the esters could be supplied by one species and that I picked a colony of this species for my starter. Still, hard to explain the homogeneity of colony types though, especially since this fellow claimed that 3068 is a mixture of cerevisiae, an ale yeast, and delbrueckii which I believe is a lager yeast. I'd have expected some distinctive colony differences. Perhaps there is confusion between Wyeast 3068 used for Bavarian Weiss (supposedly saccromyces delbrueckii from Weihenstephan 68) and Wyeast 3056 used for the *Berliner* style which apparently *is* a mixture of cerevisiae and delbrueckii. Maybe someone from Wyeast can clarify this matter?..... Happy Brewing! - ------------------------------------------------------------------ "Graduate school is the snooze button on the alarm clock of life." -Jim Squire -Alan Meeker Johns Hopkins Hospital Dept. of Urology (410) 614-4974 __________________________________________________________________ Return to table of contents
Date: Mon, 25 May 1998 11:39:14 -0400 (EDT) From: ALAN KEITH MEEKER <ameeker at welchlink.welch.jhu.edu> Subject: Hop around the clock Concerning hop plants - I've got new hop plants growing in my back yard and am trying to get the buggers to grow up the trellis behind them. All the sources I've read say that you should "train" them to grow CLOCKWISE along the support. So, my question is is this CW as seen from ABOVE or CW as seen from BELOW ie - from the point of view of the hop plant? I assumed it meant below but the twines seem hellbent on going the other direction. hmmmmm I should probably let them go whichever way they feel like. Another question - do the bines twist the oposite way South of the equator? Perhaps one of our prolific Aussie friends can jump in here... - ------------------------------------------------------------------ "Graduate school is the snooze button on the alarm clock of life." -Jim Squire -Alan Meeker Johns Hopkins Hospital Dept. of Urology (410) 614-4974 __________________________________________________________________ Return to table of contents
Date: Mon, 25 May 1998 11:42:28 -0400 (EDT) From: ALAN KEITH MEEKER <ameeker at welchlink.welch.jhu.edu> Subject: Ringwood yeast At the GABF I had an ale made with Ringwood yeast - it had a very interesting taste profile! Has anyone here had any experience with this yeast? Is it a single strain? Any widespread commercial examples of its use? Reliable sources of cultures? Thanks... - ------------------------------------------------------------------ "Graduate school is the snooze button on the alarm clock of life." -Jim Squire -Alan Meeker Johns Hopkins Hospital Dept. of Urology (410) 614-4974 __________________________________________________________________ Return to table of contents
Date: Mon, 25 May 1998 11:37:25 -0500 From: "Pat Babcock" <pbabcock at oeonline.com> Subject: butt-jelly re-revisited... Greetings, Beerlings! Take me to your lager... Some may remember this exchange back in February, the forwarded being the last installment. Immediately afterwards, having a good supply of replacement o-rings purchased via a gift certificate to my local Brew & Grow (thanks, Mom!), I ran downstairs, grabbed three of my least favorite and most empty kegs, replaced the bung seals, lubricated them with Vaseline [tm], sealed and pressurized them. Just over three months later, they are chewing gum, folks. I went down to open the kegs, and large gobs of o-ring stuck to the keg, and to the bung. The ring came off in pieces. Based on this, I have to reiterate my original "don't do it". It just takes longer than the other types of seals seem to, but it breaks the black rubber seals down just as well. And, to head 'em off at the pass: don't know why some seem to have better success using Vaseline than others. Perhaps they replace their seals more often? This is gonna be a pain to clean up, and I would rather not have had the experience. (On another note, I ruined the seal on my whole-house-filter-cum-beer-filter the same way. It swelled up like a water balloon.) - ------- Forwarded Message Follows ------- From: Self <pbabcock> To: post@hbd.org Subject: butt-jelly revisited... Reply-to: pbabcock at oeonline.com Date: Sat, 7 Feb 1998 12:19:11 -0500 Greetings, Beerlings! Take me to your lager... In private conversation, Brian Wurst <brian at mail.netwave.net> said... > P.S. - I've used Vaseline(tm) as a tank lid sealant for something on > the order of 170 keggings and the gaskets are just fine...perhaps > your swimming pool filter gasket material is a lower grade (or > completely different) material than the food grade stuff in corny > keg gaskets? This is going to sound horribly untechnical, but it DOES seem to work just fine on the black o-rings (such as the bung cover - heh! Butt jelly! Bung! Snicker!). Those red, green and orangish-tan ones swell up and get all gummy. Don't know if they are synthetic or what, but that's been my experience. (And the pool cover ring is one o' them orangish-tan ones...) See ya! -p Somwhere right near Jeff Renner... See ya! Pat Babcock in SE Michigan pbabcock at oeonline.com Home Brew Digest Janitor janitor@hbd.org AOL FDN Beer & Brewing Maven BrewBeerd at aol.com Return to table of contents
Date: Mon, 25 May 1998 08:53:30 -0700 (PDT) From: Domenick Venezia <demonick at zgi.com> Subject: Airlocks (do you needs them?) In HBD 2722 Dr. Pivo said: > I've been fiddling with airlocks. The results are pretty preliminary, > but it's starting to look like you don't need them. This is not surprizing as open fermentation is/was widely used to great success. I know a brewer who brews great beer and never uses an airlock on his carboys. He just uses plastic wrap and a rubber band. The CO2 burps out under the rubber band. Domenick Venezia demonick at zgi.antispam.com (remove .antispam) Return to table of contents
Date: Mon, 25 May 1998 13:12:04 -0400 From: Jeff Renner <nerenner at umich.edu> Subject: Re: Spent grain recipe suggestion Low traffic right now, so I'll be a little freer with bandwidth than usual: Jeremy York <jeremy at ThemeMedia.com> wrote: >I've been using some spent grain in this bread machine recipe >(in my "2 lb" large West Bend bread machine): > >3.5 tbs oil >3.5 tbs honey >4-5 tbs spent grain >1 cup water less a tbs or so (adjusting for water in grain) >1 egg (or 1/4 cup water + 2 tbs dried no-cholesteral egg product) >1.25 cups whole wheat flour >2 cups unbleached white flour >1.5 tsp salt >2 tbs wheat gluten >2 tablespoons powdered milk or powdered buttermilk >2.5 tsp yeast One thing to remember about bread is that it is like beer - four basic ingredients are all you need - flour, water, salt and yeast. You can even leave out the salt, but that's like leaving hops out of beer. You probably won't like it. Any other ingredients are probably complications for beginners, but are fine once you have the technique down. It's like all the other ingredients people like to add to beer. This recipe is a fairly sweet, rich one with the honey, oil, and eggs. Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course! But you could also make a simpler, leaner and less sweet bread. This recipe has very little spent grains in it. 4-5 tbs (<1/3 cup) would weigh about 1-1/2 oz, or 45 grams, which would be about 10 grams maximum dry. The 3-1/4 cups flour will weigh about 1+ lb, so you see that this is very small proportion, ~2% of flour. Of course, when playing around with proven bread machine recipes, you have less latitude for error. In a hand recipe, if the dough is a little too stiff or wet, you just adjust the flour or water toward the end of the kneading. You could probably add a good deal more spent grains and reduce the water and flour correspondingly. Each pound of spent grains (about 3-1/2 cups unpacked) at ~80% moisture (typical) will have about 1-1/2 cup liquid and 3 oz. dry material, which will substitute for flour by weight. Of course, spent grains have non of the dough building properties of flour, so bread will be increasingly dense as you add more of them. You can also add them withought reducing the flour, which will give more dough. You'll actually have to add extra flour in this case to go with the extra liquid in the grains. If you don't substitute spent grains for all of your liquid, you can also use some last runnings instead of water or other liquid for additional flavor and a little sweetness. BTW, if you used bread flour rather than unbleached all purpose, you could probably leave out the gluten and just just a bit more bread flour. >The recipe is modified from one in "Bread Machine Baking"; all >I did was to substitute the spent grain for some texture ingredients >like wheat germ, steel cut oats, cornmeal, etc. This is exactly how I wrote my Zymurgy article - that is, to encourage bakers to substitute spent grains for part of a basic recipe. My basic recipe is 2-1/2 lbs flour 3 c. liquid (including some to rehydrate yeast) 1 Tbs. salt 2/3 Tbs dry bread yeast (1/4 oz). Rehydrate yeast in 1/4 c water at 105-115F, add it and half the flour to rest of the liquid an stir until smooth (this is a sponge), cover and let double at room temperature, add the salt and enough of the rest of the flour to make dough of a proper consistency, knead 5-8 minutes if by hand, cover, let rise until double. Punch down, let rise again, divide into two or three loaves, shape, cover and let double, bake 350-400F until brown and done. >Hrm, now I'm wondering if some of the yeast collected from >sediment would be any good for making bread... You sure can, although it is not too reliable, so I wouldn't suggest using it in a bread machine without some testing first. A lot depends on the state of the yeast. Bread yeast is descended from ale yeast, but has been selected for rapid gas production. But ale barm, the yeast from the top of a fermenting ale, was used historically for bread, and it can give a nice flavor to bread. I'd suggest a tablespoon of thick pasty top cropped yeast for each pound of flour as a starting point. Baking bread seems to be a natural corollary activity for brewers, and using spent grains, last runnings and yeast ties them together nicely. I suggest experimenting and having fun. Jeff -=-=-=-=- Jeff Renner in Ann Arbor, Michigan c/o nerenner at umich.edu "One never knows, do one?" Fats Waller, American Musician, 1904-1943. Return to table of contents
Date: Mon, 25 May 1998 11:35:55 -0700 From: "Hans E. Hansen" <hansh at teleport.com> Subject: How much malt? I would like to do a partial mash, with 1 lb of flaked barley. What is the minimum amount of malted barley I should mash with it? I realize that the specific type of barley makes a difference, but all I know is it is 'generic' 2 row and probably American. Would 2 lbs do it? Thanks, Hans E. Hansen hansh at teleport.com Return to table of contents
Date: Mon, 25 May 1998 21:26:11 -0400 From: Tom_Williams at cabot-corp.com Subject: Malaysia Greetings to the international homebrewing community! It appears likely that I will be moving my home brewery from tornado-ravaged Dunwoody, Georgia to Malaysia for 2-3 years. I would like very much to hear from any HBD'ers who are actually in Malaysia, or from anyone else who can shed light on these issues: 1. Malaysian laws regarding homebrewing 2. Availability of homebrewing supplies in Malaysia 3. Practicality of supplies by mail order from the US, Great Britian or Australia. 4. Existence of homebrew organizations in Malaysia 5. Practical brewing experience in Malaysia or similar climates I will be located in Port Dickson, which is about 1.5 hours from Kuala Lumpur on the Strait of Malacca. My e-mail address will remain the same. Please answer by e-mail as I am off the mailing list and web access is unavailable while I am temporarily assigned here. If there is a significant response I will post a summary. Thanks for all the support for the last 5 years, Tom Williams Dunwoody, Georgia Return to table of contents
Date: Mon, 25 May 1998 22:48:54 EDT From: LowpineUno <LowpineUno at aol.com> Subject: re: apartment kegging Hello, Just a thought on your predicament, I too have no room for an extra frig. But that did not stop me from getting a keg (in the winter the pantry keeps it cool). Before I go any further, I would like to say that I am somewhat of a novice to brewing (9 batches so far), so this idea may have been covered previously. Anyway, my idea is a post-keg beer chiller. Similar to the wort chiller with the copper tubing. Take a length of copper tubing, and a smallish cooler (playmate style ~holds a 12pack), wind the tubing down into the cooler, winding the tubing in a configuration such that as much of the tubing will be within the cooler. Leave both ends of the tubing sticking out of the cooler, have one end of the tubing point down ( like a spigot). On the non-spigot end attach some appropriate sized plastic tubing, one end of the tubing goes over the copper tubing, the other end shall have the picnic tap wedged inside. Fill the cooler with ice 3/4 of the way full, and then fill with cold water. Adjust the pressure down a little more than what you would normally have it, this will allow the beer to be in the tubing (chiller) a bit longer. Wa-La chilled beer w/o a frig. Like I said, this an idea I had, have not tried it yet, but plan to. Any comments, suggestions, improvements to, health hazards assoc. with my thought will be appreciated. Steve Burlington NC Lowpineuno at aol.com Return to table of contents
Date: Mon, 25 May 1998 21:48:46 -0500 From: "David Johnson" <dmjalj at inwave.com> Subject: Evil weevils I have not tried this and am just speculating out loud.Fresh from my victory over the fruit flies, I was thinking that we often freeze our bird seed to kill infestations of insects. Would this kill the evil weevils? After all they are from hell, and heat wouldn't bother them. Would it change the taste of the grain? The birds don't seem tothink the seed we freeze tastes any different. :^) Return to table of contents
Date: Mon, 25 May 1998 20:56:47 -0700 From: Ken Schroeder <knj at concentric.net> Subject: Sour Mash I just signed back on to the list after an extended absence. Please forgive me if this subject has been discussed recently. I'm going to attempt a sour mash soon. First, I'm looking for information/web sites on sour mashing. I have a proceedure in mind but still need to figure out how to do it on my system. My only real question is : What happens if the mash is allowed to drop from saccrication temperature to around 55C over a period of 24 hours? In specific, how would this affect head retention and body? Ken Schroeder Sequoia Brewing (now in the Santa Cruz Moutains) Return to table of contents
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