HOMEBREW Digest #3066 Fri 25 June 1999

[Prev HBD] [Index] [Next HBD] [Back]


	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
		Digest Janitor: janitor@hbd.org
		Many thanks to the Observer & Eccentric Newspapers of 
		Livonia, Michigan for sponsoring the Homebrew Digest.
				URL: http://www.oeonline.com


Contents:
  Champagne Advice? (Michael Knauf)
  Brewpubs?!? in Greensboro, NC ("Brett A. Spivy")
  hardware notes (stencil)
  Re: typos (David Lamotte)
  re: typos (feldman)
  Berliner Weisse ("Eric R. Theiner")
  Wacky Thermometers ("John Robinson")
  swan necks ("Dana H. Edgell")
  easy summer ale recipe ("Curt Speaker")
  Re: typos (Tim Anderson)
  Fermentability of Sugars (Dave Burley)
  Cutting kegs (Rick Lassabe)
  yeastcakes to avoid. ("Stephen Alexander")
  ph of yeast starter (mike rose)

* Beer is our obsession and we're late for therapy! * 2000 MCAB Qualifier: Buzz-Off! Competition 6/26/99 * (http://www.voicenet.com/~rpmattie/buzzoff) Send articles for __publication_only__ to post@hbd.org If your e-mail account is being deleted, please unsubscribe first!! To SUBSCRIBE or UNSUBSCRIBE send an e-mail message with the word "subscribe" or "unsubscribe" to request@hbd.org. **SUBSCRIBE AND UNSUBSCRIBE REQUESTS MUST BE SENT FROM THE E-MAIL ACCOUNT YOU WISH TO HAVE SUBSCRIBED OR UNSUBSCRIBED!!!** IF YOU HAVE SPAM-PROOFED your e-mail address, the autoresponder and the SUBSCRIBE/UNSUBSCRIBE commands will fail! Contact brewery at hbd.org for information regarding the "Cat's Meow" Back issues are available via: HTML from... http://hbd.org Anonymous ftp from... ftp://hbd.org/pub/hbd/digests ftp://ftp.stanford.edu/pub/clubs/homebrew/beer AFS users can find it under... /afs/ir.stanford.edu/ftp/pub/clubs/homebrew/beer COPYRIGHT for the Digest as a collection is currently held by hbd.org (Pat Babcock and Karl Lutzen). Digests in their entirity CANNOT be reprinted/reproduced without this entire header section unless EXPRESS written permission has been obtained from hbd.org. Digests CANNOT be reprinted or reproduced in any format for redistribution unless said redistribution is at absolutely NO COST to the consumer. COPYRIGHT for individual posts within each Digest is held by the author. Articles cannot be extracted from the Digest and reprinted/reproduced without the EXPRESS written permission of the author. The author and HBD must be attributed as author and source in any such reprint/reproduction. (Note: QUOTING of items originally appearing in the Digest in a subsequent Digest is exempt from the above. Home brew clubs NOT associated with organizations having a commercial interest in beer or brewing may republish articles in their newsletters and/or websites provided that the author and HBD are attributed. ASKING first is still a great courtesy...) JANITORS on duty: Pat Babcock and Karl Lutzen (janitor@hbd.org)
---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1999 07:48:05 -0500 From: wolfman2 at gate.net (Michael Knauf) Subject: Champagne Advice? I've got what seems to be a very nice mango wine in the secondary, and am considering doing the sparkling wine/champagne thing for the first time, anybody got any pointers? Michael Michael Knauf 305-446-8453 Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1999 07:48:48 -0500 From: "Brett A. Spivy" <baspivy at softdisk.com> Subject: Brewpubs?!? in Greensboro, NC I will be traveling to Greensboro, NC Saturday afternoon. Can anyone make reccomendations on pubs, brewpubs, great beerjoints, rest., homebrew shops, etc. You can respond to my email if you like and I will digest with reviews after the trip. Thanx . . . Brett A. Spivy Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1999 13:04:23 GMT From: stencil at bcn.net (stencil) Subject: hardware notes I don't submit my beer for judging, so using any of these gadgets is no assurance of improved product - just reduced labor and/or hassle. I mash in a paper-thin stainless steel 20-qt stock pot ($18 at Ames variety store.) A plastic 1/2-in bulkhead fitting is let into the side, right above the turn of the bottom. An 11-in piece of 1/2-in PVC pipe and two PVC elbows are wedged inside. The elbows permit the pipe to lie flush on the bottom of the pot. The pipe has been bandsawed with a zillion parallel cuts, just deep enough to penetrate the wall - the openings are maybe 1/16-in square. The pipe is wrapped with a piece of aluminum insect screen giving at least a double thickness, secured with a couple of nylon tyraps, and capped with a copper sweat-type cap. Every now and then the elbow that lies hard against the bottom shows signs of scorching. Everything gets thrown out and rebuilt every dozen batches or so - say, annually. I've never seen any sign of galvanic corrosion, but a lot of husk ends up embedded in the mesh. Two flat 8-in square red rubber heating pads (American Science & Surplus, $3.75) are secured to the outside of the pot with cotton-webbing uniform belts. They run on 115vac, and can cause localized boiling of the mash in their vicinity (p-poor s/s heat transfer) if run for more than ca. 30 minutes. Guessing, they draw 5~6 amps each. The whole pot gets wrapped in what looks like a cervical collar, made of the legs from a pair of old dungarees, sewn end-to-end and stuffed with the polyfoam (not styrofoam) batts computer boards are shipped in. The heating pads are needed only only in deep winter, when cellar brewhouse air temps approach 45-50F; direct-heat steps are by way of a propane range burner (hazard perceived, considered, tolerated.) The mash is constantly agitated by a bandsawed maple propellor, 10-in diameter, 2-in blade width, driven through a dowel shaft by a variable-speed 3/8-in hand drill clamped in a plywood bracket that sits atop the pot lid. The lid is from a plastic ferm bucket, makes a plug fit to the stockpot, and supports a 1-in layer of styrofoam. Boil is in a 10-gal stockpot, side drained through a 1/2-in brass globe valve, and usually using a s/s false bottom. This is fired on a Cajun ramjet that eats a pound of propane an hour. Fermentation is in 6-1/2 gal plastic buckets that have a plastic bulkhead fitting let into the center of the bottom. A thread-to-barb elbow makes up to a length of 5/8-in tubing long enough to extend up the side to the bucket's rim where it's secured with duct tape. The bitter end is protected by aluminum foil until it's time to rack to secondary (Wohrle's, the local meat packer, has a retail store where they sell dispenser boxes of 10-in squares of foil for the deli trade. Fine stuff.) Sturdy-enough wooden legs, secured with duct tape, keep the plumbing off the deck. A layer of "florist marbles," flat glass pellets from American Sci&Surp, and a stainless steel scrubby, hold back virtually all the solids when racking. A quart of marbles displaces a pint of liquid. Lagering is in carboys and the beer is drawn from them by "assisted siphoning," racking cane thrust through a two-hole stopper, pressurization from a miniature aquarium pump, ca. 1/2~1 psi. (Hazard perceived, etc: this is not enough to force the stopper out.) This _batterie_ has been stable for about two years now. Some day when I get too feeble to snatch 50-pound buckets up onto the counter I'll build a pumpless RIMS with a resistance-heated recirc tube. Till then I'll keep the faith: I believe I'll have another beer. stencil sends Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1999 23:09:58 +1000 From: David Lamotte <lamotted at ozemail.com.au> Subject: Re: typos While I enjoyed Tim's post greatly .... He who Lives by the sword Dies by the sword.. >tim >(Who lives in Portland Oregon and now feels morally > obligated to by an Easy Masher.) To BY an EasyMasher ... BY ....... surely you mean BUY ! Sorry couldn't help myself. David Lamotte Brewing Down Under in Newcastle, N.S.W. Australia Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1999 09:34:46 -0400 From: feldman at lexmark.com Subject: re: typos I found it odd that when Tim Anderson picked on Jack and Jeff for their spelling mistakes he ended his post with: >tim >(Who lives in Portland Oregon and now feels morally obligated to by an >Easy Masher.) I think I will also by an Easy Masher, or maybe I'll go ahead and BUY one....... Bobby Feldman B.O.C.K. Member Brewers of Central Kentucky Not even your beloved spell-checker can save you now!!!!!!! :-) Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1999 09:48:42 -0700 From: "Eric R. Theiner" <logic at skantech.com> Subject: Berliner Weisse I'm interested in brewing a Berliner Weisse. Anyone have some ideas on where to find a lactobacillus delbrucki culture (if that's the right one). Step by steps on what to pitch and how would be greatly appreciated. Rick Theiner Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1999 11:31:33 -0300 From: "John Robinson" <robinson at novalistech.com> Subject: Wacky Thermometers Hi all, I've got an interesting experience to relate. I've got an alcohol thermometer (red line for temp) that is of the long thin lab style. It is not a total immersion one, in fact it only requires about 73mm or some such thing for an accurate reading. I've been using this thermometer quite satisfactorily over the last year, and have correlated its readings with other thermometers. All was well until this last weekend. My first clue was when boiling wort read 220F! Later, a sample drawn off for an SG check read 120F! A subsequent check with another thermometer revealed a wort temp of 80 (still higher than I like, but water temps have been quite warm here lately). There are no obvious cracks, nor did this device suffer any trauma that I am aware of. It just started reading strangely. Any suggestions (beyond the obvious of buying another one!). Any idea what may have caused this? - --- John Robinson "The most basic rule of survival in any situation is: Technical Architect Never look like food." - Park Ranger. NovaLIS Technologies robinson at novalistech.com Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1999 09:52:52 -0700 From: "Dana H. Edgell" <edgell at far-tech.com> Subject: swan necks Mark Sedam copied from Gillian Grafton... >Beer Engine > This is the correct term for the device commonly seen in British >pubs which pumps beer from the cask to > the bar. Also known as a handpump or beer pump. > > It can't be emphasized enough that you should use the correct beer >engine for the style of beer. Beer > engines have two styles of neck, the swan neck and standard neck. >Swan necks do untold damage to > beers with a flowery hoppy aroma knocking the aroma out of the >beer. The second feature which affects > the beer is the sparkler. Sparklers force the beer through many >small orifices producing a tight frothy head > on the beer. Northern style beers (eg Tetley) should be dispensed >through beer engines with a swan neck > using a sparkler and produce an excellent pint that way. Southern >style beers (eg Fuller's London Pride) > should NOT be dispensed via a swan neck and certainly not through a >sparkler. The result of this is of > course, that Southern beers are not served with a head. Southern >beers served in the northern manner are > lifeless travesties of beers, whilst served in the proper manner >they are a revelation, a wholly different beer. > So the moral is get the beer engine appropriate to the style of >beer you have brewed. I can see a sparkler releasing most of the aromatics in a beer at once but how can a beer be subject to "untold damage" by just a swan neck. Wouldn't it act simply like a tube similar to the beer lines? If anything I would have assumed that a swan neck would preserve aromatics as the beer can be slowly dispensed right at the bottom of the glass. Dana - -------------------------------------------------------------- Dana Edgell mailto:edgell at cari.net 2939 Cowley Way #G http://www.quantum-net.com/edge_ale San Diego, CA 92117 (619) 276-7644 Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1999 14:34:09 +0500 From: "Curt Speaker" <SPEAKER at SAFETY-1.SAFETY.PSU.EDU> Subject: easy summer ale recipe If anyone is looking for a quick and easy "lawnmower beer" recipe, I am pretty pleased with one that I whipped up: Spring/Summer Wheat Ale ******************************** 6# 2-row pale malt 6# wheat malt 0.5# munich malt 0.75 oz. Fuggles (full boil) 0.5 oz. Fuggles (30 min) 1 t. irish moss Wyeast #1056 or similar clean ale yeast single step infusion mash, conversion at ~153F - 90 minutes S.G. - 1.044 (YMMV) F.G. - 1.006 (ditto) A nice clean, quaffable beer for the warm summer months. Cheers! Curt Curt Speaker Biosafety Officer Penn State University Environmental Health and Safety speaker at ehs.psu.edu http://www.ehs.psu.edu ^...^ (O_O) =(Y)= """ Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1999 12:03:16 -0700 (PDT) From: Tim Anderson <timator at yahoo.com> Subject: Re: typos At the very end of a post poking fun at the spelling errors of others, tim (yours truly) wrote the following: >>> tim (Who lives in Portland Oregon and now feels morally obligated to by an Easy Masher.) <<< This is the REAL reason not to pick on spelling, grammar, etc. I'd love to claim I did it on purpose, but I could never forging myself. tin (Just kidding.) _________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free at yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1999 17:45:22 -0400 From: Dave Burley <Dave_Burley at compuserve.com> Subject: Fermentability of Sugars Brewsters: I found this table in M&BS in the Beer Quality section and thought it might shed some light on what yeast can and cannot ferment and what oligosaccharides remain in some beers and not others. What you will find on examination of these *commercial* beers analyses is that certain yeasts ( lager) can ferment maltotetraoses and some cannot ( ale) *if* the category of the beer corresponds to the type of yeast used. I will copy part of the text section devoted to the subject, since it is necesssary to understand the table, especially how fermented beers can have glucose in them. It is because they have been primed. Note that this table and comments deal with commercial beers. Filtration, chilling and the like can alter these percentages of higher oligosaccharides which participate in the "secondary" fermentation and disappear slowly.The brewer can allow sugar to remain in the beer if he so chooses (part of the style) by terminating the fermentation by chilling and or filtration. HBers can potentially have lower levels of these, perhaps, since we tend to allow fermentations to go longer than is feasible commercially ( or at least I do). Unfortunately, the format of the HBD in which line length is limited will make the table clumsy and I suggest you print it out and piece it together. M&BS (1971-77) p611 1st edition: "CARBOHYDRATES Of the carbohydrates present in wort, glucose,fructose,sucrose,maltose and maltotriose will normally be fermented. Unattenuating yeast strains will not ferment maltotriose and the superattenuating strains will partly ferment maltotetraose, but in general beer will contain low levels of sugars other than those added as primings ( Table 22.5) Nevertheless trace amounts of many sugars have been characterized. [and a list of sugars and comments follows that does not relate to this subject - DRB] Representative analyses of the carbohydrates in beer are given in Table 22.5 [What follows is a discussion of the analytical techniques employed all of them separation techiques not chemical analyses - DRB] As mentioned earlier the residual carbohydrates in beer account for its sweetness. The relative sweetness of various beer constituents is given in Table 22.7 [what follows is a comment on sweetness and artificial sweetners]" [DRB -Note the use of the term SG in the following table and not FG, since I assume these measurements were made on commercial beers, not the end of the fermentation in which the term FG would be appropriate.] "Table 22.5 Sugar content of commercial beers Sugar as w/v% Type OG SG Fructose Glucose 1.Pale Ale 1050 1011 nil 0.06 2.Brn Ale (primed) 1032 1012 1.0 1.0 3.Stout (primed) 1033 1013 0.53 0.61 4.Sweet Stout (primed) 1045 1022 0.6 1.2 5.Pale Ale 1068 1019 0.01 0.01 6.Strong Ale 1085 1026 trace trace 7.Lager 1032 1007 nil trace 8. Lager Export 1045 1008 nil nil 9. Stout conditiond 1044 1008 nil nil 10 Ale 1038 1002 trace 0.8 11Lager 1040 1003 trace 0.8 12 Lager 1046 1003 nil trace 13 Lager 1045 1004 nil 0.27 14 Lager 1052 1011 trace 0.15 15 Lager 1045 1008 nil nil [To save space, I left out the "Sucrose" column which was "nil" for all except the three primed beers for which it was "trace" amounts. - DRB] Second section Sugar as a %(w/v) of sample Type Maltose Malto- Malto- Total (hydrate) Triose tetraose 1.Pale Ale 0.54 0.28 0.04 0.92 2.Brn Ale (primed) trace 0.2 0.4 2.6 3.Stout (primed) trace 0.08 0.06 1.28 4.Sweet Stout (primed) trace 0.6 0.3 3.6* 5.Pale Ale 0.7 1.7 0.4 2.9 6.Strong Ale 0.16 0.21 0.12 0.49 7.Lager trace trace trace trace 8.Lager Export trace 0.28 0.18 0.46 9.Stout (conditnd) nil trace nil trace 10Ale nil trace trace 0.8 11Lager nil nil nil 0.67 12 Lager trace trace trace trace 13 Lager 0.17 0.24 0.09 0.77 14Lager 0.13 0.16 0.14 0.58 15Lager 0.25 0.33 0.20 0.78 * also contained lactose(hydrate) 0.9%" What does all this mean? Lager yeasts do in fact remove all the oligosaccharides ( including malto-triose and malto-tetraose) if given a chance ( see numbers 7, 11 and 12). I would interpret numbers for Lagers 8, 13, 14 ,15 as either an ale yeast was used ( this was (is?) a not uncommon practice in the UK) or the fermentation was terminated after the primary fermentation by chilling and filtering. This is a common brewery practice today, as you know, especially with the 0.45 micron filters being used. Numbers 13, 14, 15 look like even the primary fermentation was terminated, since maltose remains. Sweet lagers like Hamms and such *perhaps* have these kinds of numbers, I don't know, but suspect the remaining maltose is there as a style of this type of lager. Point is, the commercial brewer does not have to totally finsh a beer to dryness. Both Pale Ales ( 1 and 5) have remaining maltose, yet all the other simple sugars have beeen fermented out. Number 9 a conditioned stout has no remaining sugars (trace) is it possible a lager yeast was used in the bottle? The Primed Ales (2,3,4) all appear to have been fermented to "trace maltose" but brewer's sugar or invert sugar added ( 1-2%) as a priming to sweeten them. In the case of the sweet stout, lactose was also added. All of these show that malto-triose and malto-tetraose remain as in all the other ales except the conditioned stout. What does this mean? Commercial ales are not always fermented to dryness. Sugar(s) is added after the fermentation in some styles. Given time, lager yeasts *can* totally remove all of the oligosaccharides including malto-triose and malto-tetraose, nevertheless, commercial lager brewers do not always allow the beer to ferment to dryness. Keep on Brewin' Dave Burley Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1999 21:04:48 -0500 From: Rick Lassabe <bayrat at worldnet.att.net> Subject: Cutting kegs Having used a circular saw for a great number of years, and used them to do many task that they are not intended to be used for, I think I am qualified to say that there is a lot of difference between cutting off the top of a keg and cutting out the top of a keg. I have cut kegs with nothing more than just a hack saw with a little oil applied while cutting, again this is cutting off. I have used reciprocating saws, saber saws and a die grinder to cut out the top of kegs, but I just don't think I would like to tackle cutting out the top with an eight inch circular saw. Now I am not saying it can't be done; just that a circular saw would work fine to cut a keg in half, but a dremel would be much easier and surely safer to cut out the top! Rick Lassabe Bayou Degradable Brewery Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1999 22:37:40 -0400 From: "Stephen Alexander" <steve-alexander at worldnet.att.net> Subject: yeastcakes to avoid. > I just tried re-using the yeast cake [...] >I was somewhat surprised as to the relatively long lag time ... >Wyeast 1098 (19 days old) from the secondary of a 1.084 batch of Old >Took Barleywine, with a very thick yeast cake. Check that OG. You shouldn't really be reusing yeast after such an abusively high OG. They may not grow normally at all, and the viability is likely to be low. If you really want to reuse such a yeast you'll need to regrow it w/ some normal/low gravity starter for a generation or more and also separate out some of the dead cells. >I'm just trying to understand this. Was the lag due to (1) the yeast >being in food deprivation dormancy, (2) sluggish due to the high alcohol >content of the Barleywine, (3) shocked because of the gravity >differential of the two batches, or (4) all the above? The very high osmotic pressure on the yeast in barleywine creates metabolic changes that does not favor normal growth. Also yeast *may* experience "excretion shock" when the environment is rapidly changed. -S Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1999 20:07:42 -0700 From: mike rose <mrose at ucr.campuscw.net> Subject: ph of yeast starter I'm very meticulous about checking the ph of the sparge, mash and wort, but while making a yeast starter I realized that I don't check the ph of my starters. Is the ph of the starter important and if so what is the correct ph for optimum yeast growth. ( I would assume that's its 5.2 but might as well check since the queue is so short) Thanks, Mike Rose mrose at ucr.campuscw.net Since Jeff is gone for a week I'm going to wild and not put my home city. Lets hope he doesn't check the archives :^) Return to table of contents
[Prev HBD] [Index] [Next HBD] [Back]
HTML-ized on 06/25/99, by HBD2HTML version 1.2 by K.F.L.
webmaster at hbd.org, KFL, 10/9/96