HOMEBREW Digest #345 Fri 26 January 1990

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


Contents:
  Unreceived Digests (man)
  Midwest Mail Order Supply Query (techentin)
  Steve McEvoy and Wort Chillers (Doug Roberts  at  Los Alamos National Laboratory)
  HBD:  Dry Hopping (techentin)
  Yeast starters (boubez)
  The HB archive (boubez)
  Orange Extract ("Lance "Doogie" Smith")
  Dry Hopping Techniques (David Baer)
  Brewing supplies (Jennifer_Glass)
  Mail order yeast. (Mike Charlton)
  Novice Questions (John DeCarlo     )
  Relax.  Don't worry.  Have a valerian homebrew. ("Every sperm is sacred. Every sperm is great. If a sperm is wasted, God gets quite irate.")
  re:	#343, brewpub news and temperatures (florianb)
  Priming questions (Brian Glendenning)
  re:    kegging problem  (Darryl Richman)
  spent grains usage (Alan Duester)
  Wheat Beer (pyt)
  Re:  	yeast storage and SNPA yeast (Chuck Cox)

Send submissions to homebrew%hpfcmr at hplabs.hp.com Send requests to homebrew-request%hpfcmr at hplabs.hp.com Archives available from netlib at mthvax.cs.miami.edu
---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 25 Jan 90 07:17:50 EST (Thu) From: kato!man at granjon.garage.att.com Subject: Unreceived Digests I didn't receive digest's 342 or 343. Could someone send them to me e-mail ? Thanks, Mark Nevar att!kato!man Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 25 Jan 90 08:45:33 CST From: techentin at Mayo.edu Subject: Midwest Mail Order Supply Query I would like to find a good mail-order place in the Midwest. Our local shop doesn't have the selection that I would like. I already have the address of The Winemaker's Shop in Columbus, OH, as well as several places in CA, and have requested catalogs. How about Wisconsin or the greater Chicago area? Please send and names/addresses/phone numbers to me, and I will summarize and post them in a couple of days. Thanks in advance. - ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Bob Techentin Internet: techentin at Mayo.edu Mayo Foundation, Rochester MN, 55905 USA (507) 284-2702 - ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 25 Jan 90 08:45:20 MST From: roberts%studguppy at LANL.GOV (Doug Roberts at Los Alamos National Laboratory) Subject: Steve McEvoy and Wort Chillers > Date: Wed, 24 Jan 90 09:55:21 EST > From: chw at barnardstar.bellcore.com (Charlie Woloszynski) > > As for my personal experience, I recently went through these thoughts, > and ended up building an immersion wort chiller, circulating cold water > through the tubing and immersing the wort chiller into the boil near the > end. This effectively sanitized the wort chiller and, since the > water goes through the middle, made clean up (the outside only) much > easier. I made my own for about $25 in plumbing supplies > (soft copper tubing and some fittings to hook up to the faucet). > My beer has, honest to god, gotten much better. It is crisper, cleaner, > and lacks off flavors that have been following me for a while. > While not all of the improvement was from the wort chiller, (I gave up on > Red Star yeast and now use Munsion and Fission Ale Yeast) I > think it really helped. Remarkably similar to my own experiences. I have also noticed a marked improvement in my beer since I did two things: 1. Started using a wort chiller (mine cost ~$24 to build). I also immerse the chiller in the boiling wort ~15 minutes before the end of the boil to sterilize it. 2. I stopped using Edme ale yeast. Munton & Fisson is also one of my favorites, but I also like Whitbread dry ale yeast at least as well, and maybe better, depending on the recipe. - --Doug ================================================================ Douglas Roberts | Los Alamos National Laboratory |I can resist anything Box 1663, MS F-602 | except temptation. Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545 | ... (505)667-4569 |Oscar Wilde dzzr at lanl.gov | ================================================================ Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 25 Jan 90 10:30:07 CST From: techentin at Mayo.edu Subject: HBD: Dry Hopping I have been reading some comments on HBD on dry hopping, and I would really like to give it a try. Could I talk sombody with experience into posting some of the specifics of how you dry hop? I haven't read much on the techniques - mostly just concerns about infection. When do you dry hop? How long? How much? Is it necessary to rack into a secondary fermenter to get the brew off the hops? Do you dry hop instead of finishing or as a compliment? John Polstra mentions in his posting that most infections start in the first 24 hours, so I assume he waits a few days before dry hopping. Is is possible that some of the dry hop infections came from dry hopping too soon? Would anyone who has had a bad experience with dry hopping care to comment on the same specifics? - ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Bob Techentin Internet: techentin at Mayo.edu Mayo Foundation, Rochester MN, 55905 USA (507) 284-2702 - ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 25 Jan 90 11:54:44 EST From: boubez at bass.rutgers.edu Subject: Yeast starters It seems to me that a lot of homebrewers use yeast starters before pitching (understatement?). I'd like to try it, especially if it gets the yeasties up'n'running qucker. Can somebody please e-mail me a step-by-step fool-proof procedure for starting the yeast? Thanks a lot. toufic Toufic Boubez boubez at caip.rutgers.edu --There's NO OAT BRAN in Motor Oil! Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 25 Jan 90 11:57:36 EST From: boubez at bass.rutgers.edu Subject: The HB archive I have tried several times to recall a digest from the archives, to no avail. I don't know if I'm doing it right, but here are two of the different ways I tried: send 329 from homebrew send 239 from homebrew-new Does anyone have any advice for me? Thanks. toufic Toufic Boubez boubez at caip.rutgers.edu --There's NO OAT BRAN in Motor Oil! Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 25 Jan 90 11:11:15 CDT From: "Lance "Doogie" Smith" <lsmith at umn-cs.cs.umn.edu> Subject: Orange Extract A month back I requested info about the possibility of using Orange Extract in place of grated orange rind to add orange flavor to a Christmas beer. No one had any advice so I went ahead. It seems to have worked out fairly well. The beer has a very distinct orange aroma (maybe a little too much) but the flavor is not overwhelming. The orange extract I used was a 1 ounce bottle from Schilling which I found in the spice section (when I was looking for coriander). There also seem to be other extracts available for the more adventurous. Read the label though. I noticed a cherry extract which seemed to have no cherries in it. One bit of warning. The extract is made up of oil of orange, water and a lot of alcohol. This stuff is inflammable so keep it away from open flames. I noticed a sudden amount of foam when I added it to my wort so do be careful when adding it. Otherwise treat it like you would finishing hops. I added mine about 5 minutes before the end of the boil. Enough to get it mixed without boiling off the orange essence which I assume is volatile. All in all it's fairly easy way to add orange. You don't have to deal with grated orange rind or the things that might have been on the rind which didn't wash off. [Attention Twin City brewers! Another Bosso/Prairie Homebrewers meeting is coming up on February 10. If you need details e-mail me a message and I'll fill you in. lsmith at umn-cs.cs.umn.edu.] Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 25 Jan 90 09:31:51 PST From: dsbaer at EBay.Sun.COM (David Baer) Subject: Dry Hopping Techniques Does anybody have some simple instructions for dry hopping. When is the best time to add hops? How much hops do you use? Do you put the hops in a bag or loose? Pellets or leaf? What about clogging your siphon tube? Any problems (outside of wort contamination) that you have experienced and solved? Any information will be appreciated. Dave Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 25 Jan 90 11:51:00 EST From: Jennifer_Glass at ub.cc.umich.edu Subject: Brewing supplies Can anyone give me the name of some good mail-order supply places? I live in Ann Arbor, Michigan and there seems to be only one good place to buy supplies so they probably get away with robbery. Thanks in advance. Jennifer Return to table of contents
Date: 25 Jan 90 12:46 -0600 From: Mike Charlton <umcharl3 at ccu.umanitoba.ca> Subject: Mail order yeast. Hi all. For our next batch of beer, my brewing partner and I have decided to use a liquid yeast culture instead of our usual Red Star or Doric dry yeast. The problem is that none of the supply stores here will stock yeast cultures (They won't even order them in specially). Is there somewhere we could get these cultures mailorder? (A Canadian supplier would be most useful, but I'll take anything I can get). What is a good yeast for a pale ale? Finally, while I'm at it, we got someone to smuggle a few bottles of Guiness Stout from England in hopes of using the yeast. Unfortunately, it seems that Guiness there is no longer bottled "live" as we found no evidence of any yeast sediment. Can anyone confirm this? Thanx, Mike Return to table of contents
Date: Thursday, 25 Jan 1990 14:35:40 EST From: m14051 at mwvm.mitre.org (John DeCarlo ) Subject: Novice Questions >Date: Wed, 24 Jan 90 17:03:38 -0500 >From: William P. Taylor <wpt at cwns5.INS.CWRU.Edu> >Subject: WARNING: Novice Alert > > I've been following this DIgest for a couple of months, and >having never brewed anything in my life (intentionally that is) I've >developed a few questions. > >1. What/Who is Pappazian and Zymurgy?? I see these names a lot in > the DIgest and it seems they are beer gurus. Charlie Papazian is many things to the homebrewing community. He is president of the American Homebrewers Association. He also wrote _The_Complete_Joy_Of_Homebrewing_, a classic text on the subject. _zymurgy_ is the magazine of the American Homebrewers Association, so it has lots of good articles on home brewing. >2. How long does it take to brew a batch of beer?? Step-by-step > if possible. Well, roughly speaking you clean all your equipment (I let it sit in a bleach solution about an hour for sanitizing). Then if you brew from extract (not all-grain) like me, it takes about two hours or so (it takes a long time on one burner to get 3 or more gallons of water to boil for one thing). The wort will boil for an hour or so of this time. Then you get the hot wort chilled and in the fermenter and get yeast added. This can take a long time or a short time, depending on the method you use (wort chillers take roughly half an hour or so, other methods may take longer). Then your beer ferments a week or two, depending on the yeast activity (I spend half an hour or so racking the beer from the primary fermenter to the secondary after a few days, plus time to sanitize the secondary fermenter). Just before bottling or kegging, you prime the beer to get the yeast to carbonate it for you. This involves a little time to boil the half pint of water. Then I spend some more minutes siphoning the wort back to the primary fermenter, just to get a little less sludge in my beer. Then you mix in the priming solution and get ready to bottle/keg. Up until this point there is very little investment in time :-) Unless you keg (not me, yet), you have to bottle your beer. This can take hours, but there are ways to speed it up. Bottle fillers help. Using large bottles (2 quart plastic soda bottles, for example) helps. >3. What kind of price advantages are there? Well, the cheapest batch I have made (2 cases) cost me roughly $12. For other batches, especially if using a kit, I have spent up to $28 (hops, kit, extract, grains, etc.). Of course this doesn't take into account the time you spend or the equipment costs. I understand that you can get the costs down even lower using all-grain. John "Still, at $1.50 to $3.25 per six pack, it can be a *lot* cheaper than imported beer" DeCarlo ARPANET: M14051 at mwvm.mitre.org (or M14051%mwvm at mitre.arpa) Usenet: at ... at !uunet!hadron!blkcat!109!131!John_Decarlo Fidonet: 1:109/131 Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 25 Jan 90 16:33 CST From: "Every sperm is sacred. Every sperm is great. If a sperm is wasted, God gets quite irate." Subject: Relax. Don't worry. Have a valerian homebrew. Greetings: I'm considering adding some valerian to my next batch of beer, which will be a porter. The relaxing qualities of valerian should make it easier to RDWHHB, one'd think. 8) (RDWHHB = Relax. Don't worry. Have a HomeBrew) I was wondering how much I should add, in which form (powdered, flaked, or as leaves or something) and if there was anyway to mask the taste/flavor. I'm wanting to aim for a mild effect (not sedation). - Ted - -- "The fire was stupid; putting Vila on guard was suicidal. What's the matter? Is staying alive too complicated for you?" -- Avon ptgarvin at aardvark.ucs.uoknor.edu / ptgarvin at uokmax.UUCP | Eris loves you. in the Society: Padraig Cosfhota o hUlad / Barony of Namron, Ansteorra Disclaimer: Fragile. Contents inflammable. Do not use near open flame. Return to table of contents
Date: 25 Jan 90 13:01:33 PST (Thu) From: florianb at tekred.cna.tek.com Subject: re: #343, brewpub news and temperatures Steve McEvoy sez: "I'm a bit daunted by the lengths (and expense) that people go through to control temperature..." One of the things which really surprised me about brewing was the relationship among yeast performance, taste, appearance, and temperature. In the beginning I thought "Oh, you just dump the yeast in and wait a while. Then drink." Now I've come to believe that the single most important factor in brewing aside from ingredients is the temperature. I've made identical batches of brew at different times of the year and come out with two different brews simply because the ambient temperature was different during the fermentation. I think there is nothing better you can do for your yeast than provide them with (again aside from nutrition) the proper temperature at the proper time. Miller gives a good description of this in his book. Many lager yeasts like to have different temperatures at different stages. Ale yeasts get real stubborn if the temp is too low. Steam lager never seems to taste as clean as cold lager. I don't think quality control can ever be fully realized without a system for temperature control. I wish it could. The best we homebrewers can do without large expense is cellering, refrigerating, and, if nothing else, "under-the-housing." ___________ I really enjoyed the news of Seattle brewpubs from Norm Hardy. It seems that Seattle-ites know good brew when they taste it. Our local brewpub is just booming, even though it produces swill. It's the only game in town. Their brews taste as the following: Golden Ale: goat urine Bitter: goat urine from a goat who drank their golden ale. They *do* make good hamburgers, though. Florian. Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 25 Jan 90 18:02:31 EST From: Brian Glendenning <brian at radio.astro.utoronto.ca> Subject: Priming questions I have some questions about priming with sugar to get the beer carbonated. 1) Is the amount of priming sugar independent of the bottle size? In other words, should I be using the same amount (~3/4 cup) of priming sugar if I'm bottling in 1l bottles rather than 12oz? 2) How about head space? 3) Does it make a noticeable difference if you use malt extract instead of corn sugar? Thanks! Brian - -- Brian Glendenning - Radio astronomy, University of Toronto brian at radio.astro.utoronto.ca utai!radio.astro!brian glendenn at utorphys.bitnet Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 18 Jan 90 06:40:41 PST From: Darryl Richman <darryl at ism780c.isc.com> Subject: re: kegging problem From: florianb at tekred.cna.tek.com "The talk recently about kegging encouraged me to ask this question about "a kegging problem I'm having. I recently started kegging after a present "of a Cornelius system for Christmas. The first time I tried it, the keg "wouldn't seal. I tried initial overpressure, drying the seal, wetting the "seal with water or glycerine, but nothing worked. I took the keg back to "the dealer where my wife bought it, and spent about an hour trying various "kegs. Finally we came up with a combination of keg+lid which didn't leak. "Even then, it leaked when the direction of the lid was reversed. Hmmm. Most of my kegs leak when the lid is closed; it takes 20psi or more on a couple to prevent them from leaking. My O-rings are always wet when I close it up because they've just come out of a bleach solution and been rinsed. I believe that the lids are only intended to go on one way--with the bail closing away from the taps on a pin-lock keg (don't know about ball-lock style kegs, I don't use them). One thought: there is as little tab welded onto the lid, on the side that the bail closes towards. You *are* making sure that that tab goes over the lip of the keg while the O-ring stays beneath it, aren't you? I try to center the lid in the hole by twisting the bail before I close it. It would be so much easier to find your problem if I could see it! ;-) I did buy new O-rings for all my kegs because the small O-rings that go around the CO2 inlet tube and the liquid draw tube began leaking. I thought the first one was a fluke, but when I cam out to my refrigerator after being gone a week and found 1/3 of my keg of steam beer on the bottom of the fridge and a slow leak out of the outlet tube--well, that was enough! The old ones had a rectangular cross section, the new ones are round; they seal sooner and require less torque on the wrench. Well, I hope I've given you some ideas, although I'm not sure about any of them. Oh, yes, you can find leaks more easily by making a soap solution from dishwashing liquid and painting it over the lid and the in/outlet fittings to find your leak. Don't do this with beer in the keg. This is the same trick one might use to find a gas leak (instead of a match ;-). --Darryl Richman Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 25 Jan 90 20:17:16 EST From: capnal at aqua.whoi.edu (Alan Duester) Subject: spent grains usage >I know I read somewhere (this Digest, zymurgy, some place) about someone >making use of the spent grains left over from the brewing process >to make various food products. >Was it cookies, granola bars, or yet some third recipe? Cooking with the spent grains is likely to end up with whatever you're working on ending up having the taste & texture of the "Raw Bits" of Prarie Home Companion fame - Oat Hulls & Wheat Chaff. I'd suggest feeding it to chickens and then eating them...... :>) ======================================================================== Al Duester, Ocean Engineer, MS S201 # SPAN: 6308::capnal Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution # INTERNET: capnal at aqua.whoi.edu Woods Hole, MA 02543 # GEnie: A.DUESTER (508) 548-1400 x2474 (508) 457-2000 auto-receptionist for touch tone phones ======================================================================== Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 25 Jan 90 20:02:58 PST From: pyt at hprvlc0 Subject: Wheat Beer Full-Name: Pierre-Yves Thoulon I'm planning on brewing wheat beer for my next batch (fell in love with it in Munich a couple of years ago...). Since I've never done it before and Papazian in not real loquacious on wheat beer, I wondered whether any of you would have advice, recipes, etc... to share. In particular, what kind of flavoring and aromatic hops would you use ? Thanks, Pyt. PS: BTW, I've seen dry-hopping mentioned a bunch of times in the digest. What *is* dry-hopping ? (Novice question, sorry...:-) Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 25 Jan 90 11:26:44 EST From: bose!chuck at uunet.UU.NET (Chuck Cox) Subject: Re: yeast storage and SNPA yeast Florian asks: > A question regarding Sierra Nevada yeast.... Yes, you can culture yeast from the bottom of SN bottles. Two caveats: 1) Use at least 3 bottles, This increases the initial number of cells, and insures that a single bad bottle won't prevent your yeast from growing. just pour the clear beer into a pitcher, and enjoy it after feeding the yeast. 2) Use the freshest beer you can find. The cases have the date clearly indicated. Since I am on good terms with the local liquor stores, they don't mind if I go crawling through their stock looking for fresh beer. - Chuck Cox - All we are saying, is give yeast a chance - Return to table of contents
End of HOMEBREW Digest #345, 01/26/90 ************************************* -------
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