HOMEBREW Digest #3452 Sat 14 October 2000

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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
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Contents:
  Medicinal Beer (Christopher Farley)
  Lactose free sweet stout. (Brad McMahon)
  Old porter receipe ("Graham Sanders")
  Draught beer. (Alan Davies)
  toxic levels of methanol ("Dr. Pivo")
  Saccharine ramblings and wide open target ("pksmith_morin")
  Re: Strange Brew ("Fred L. Johnson")
  Old Porter ("Darrell G. Leavitt")
  Acorn Use Info ("Schneider, Brett")
  Detroit Water (Rod Prather)
  Hydrometers R Us ("Donald D. Lake")
  RE: Honey character ("Brian Lundeen")
  RIMS Procedures, Mashing In & Sparge Temps, Apple notes,HERMs ("Jay Wirsig")
  modern amber malts ("Paddock Wood Brewing Supplies")
  A Coffee flavored beer ("Shane A. Saylor, Eccentric Bard")
  Re: RIMS Procedures, Mashing In & Sparge Temps, Apple notes,HERMs (Some Guy)
  Re: "Strange Brew" (Danny Breidenbach)
  Subject: longest time you can lager without harm? (Nathan Kanous)
  Love that dirty water! DETROIT! You're my home town... (Some Guy)
  Re: Strange Brew ("John Watts")
  What it means and why it still is a ghost that just won't die in your brewery Steve ("Richard Sieben")
  pH meters (William Frazier)
  Re: Old Porter ("Lubben, Mark E.")
  Methanol from Distillation? ("Dittmar, Robert D")
  Detroit City Water (Anthony and Mary Ann Tantillo)
  Oak shavings (adam larsen)
  Does unmalted grain have proteolytic enzymes?... ("Anthony Torrez")
  Bottled conditioned beer from a cornelius tank (Dan) (DKASEN7)

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---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2000 00:32:14 -0500 (CDT) From: Christopher Farley <chris at northernbrewer.com> Subject: Medicinal Beer > From: Jacob Jacobsen <beermakerdk at yahoo.com> > Subject: "Strange Brew" > > Fast forward to several weeks ago. It's now late > September. I had been unable to get any brewing done > and was running out of beer. I decided to try one of > these to see it it was as bad as I remembered. Wow! > The "medicinal" taste is gone and the beer is very > drinkable. Beer isn't supposed to improve with age, > is it? You betcha. I usually associate "medicinal" with "phenolic", like a Bavarian Hefeweizen. That said, here are some possibilities: 1. That bottle of medicinal beer you tried was indeed infected. The one you tried many weeks later wasn't. The quality of a single batch of homebrew can vary from bottle to bottle. 2. The bottle of medicinal beer contained some residual chlorine, which can can react with wort to create chlorophenols, which are discernable as medicinal flavors even if present in tiny quantities. 3. The flavor you tasted was indeed a "green beer" flavor and it 'aged out'. Over time, higher alcohols are reduced. Tannins, which cause a astringent bitterness, will drop out. Diacetyl (butterscotch), and acetylaldehyde (green apple-like) are absorbed by the yeast. But even as the forces of good are acting on your beer, evil is at play. Oxidation sets in, and little undesirable bacteria and wild yeast keep growing in your beer. So age is beneficial, but only to a point. - ---- Christopher Farley Northern Brewer / 1150 Grand Avenue / St. Paul, MN 55105 www.northernbrewer.com Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2000 15:20:13 +0930 From: Brad McMahon <brad at sa.apana.org.au> Subject: Lactose free sweet stout. Richard Dulany wrote: >My question: is there an alternative non-fermentable sugar that I can >use in place of lactose in making a sweet stout? Many breweries do not even use lactose when making sweet stout. Lactose is not particularly sweet but boosts the final gravity so there is a great mouthfeel. Just reduce the amount of bitterness and you will have a great sweet stout. > Could I just add extra malt > extract and hope that the yeast couldn't > convert all the sugar to alcohol? Yes - and lessen the amount of bittering hops. Good luck. Wimpy48124 at aol.com wrote: > Two guys I work with won trips to the Games and they never saw any > spiders in the 'loo. The spiders were probably there but they might have been full up on other tourists before your friends arrived. Salties don't occur that far south - only Graham has salt water crocs in his backyard. Now sharks... that's a different story. When I lived in New York I didn't see any alligators in the sewers, but I knew they were there...... > They did say though, that the beer was great, > [they have no taste, whatever is on sale {cheap!} is great to them] > and that it was real cheap with the currency exchange. Grrr.. don't mention the exchange rate.... Cheers and beers! Brad Aldgate, Sth Australia. Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2000 16:59:07 +1000 From: "Graham Sanders" <craftbrewer at cisnet.COM.AU> Subject: Old porter receipe G'day all Well i was going to pull myself off line for a few days, you know, brew room to make. But this topic is a bit dear to the old heart. so before i go off and roast some grains for my Rauch beer this weekend, My input on this subject. I like to think i brew a fairly mean old style porter, with the addition of brown malts and Bret. But of course i'm biaised when it comes to my creations. So first my receipe and then comments 19 lites 2.0 kg pale two row malt 2.4 kg brown malt (home roasted of course) 0.8 kg Medium crystal (home roasted again) 0.2 kg Chocolate malt (yes again home roasted) Londonise the water (i assume you can get the specs) mash single infusion at 66c 60 ibu bittering hop I use Pride of Ringwood (now isn't that a surprise) 10grams Goldings 10 minutes Guiness ale yeast at 18c and of course Bret yeast as well Now nothing special about the mash and boil. I recommend you read the bit on Home Roasting and make your own brown malt. To me this is one of the keys. Fresh roasted brown malt makes a wonderful flavour that just can't be beat. to me its far,far more authentic that bought brown malt. this could be one of the problems with people trying to copy the old style. fresh roasted stuff also still has some enzymic strength (but reduced). Now the Bret. Be careful here. Bret is funny that sonme people will utterly love it, while others give the exactly the same reaction as someone seeing SWMBO for the first time. I have experiemented with various doses, up to 20 %, but consensis believes about 3% addition is more than enough (sometimes i hate popular opinion.). Anyway what i do is when the wort is cooled, I separate 500ml and seed it with Bret. I let it ferment for a week, then pasturise it (heat it in a pan at 80c for 10 minutes) and throw that into the ferment. The rest is stock standard. Again as earlier said, the older the better. This is definitely one of those beers that, unlike women, age helps greatly. 6 months plus is ideal. So thats it, now I'm off to make some Munich and cara-Munich. I have a Rauch-beer to make. Shout Graham Sanders Oh if Scott is out there he might want to chime in on my porter. After all I did send him a bottle to try. Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2000 19:05:06 +1000 From: Alan Davies <afjc at cnl.com.au> Subject: Draught beer. I have a problem with beer deteriating in kegs. Having been away for three months, I found four diff. kegs of beer have deteriated in quality. All were quite drinkable except for a haze[ this was my interest in filtering] I have found that all beer have gone cloudy, even the keg left on refrigeration. they are drinkable but only just. They seem to have lost a lot of hop taste and have a slightly burnt taste.All air was replaced with C.O.2. I used Whirlfloc kettle finings in these brews on the cold break my problem seems to have come in , in these brews. Comments would be appreciated. Alan Davies. Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2000 11:19:54 +0200 From: "Dr. Pivo" <dp at pivo.w.se> Subject: toxic levels of methanol AJ writes about methanol: > Yeast processing sugar don't produce > methanol. Nevertheless, some does appear in the beer we make and in the > distillers mash - I'll take a stab and say its at parts per billion > level i.e. not enough to hurt you. Now if this parts per billion beer or > mash is distilled the heads may contain methanol concentrated a thousand > times over their level in the beer i.e. parts per million. This I would > worry about. Actually this is kind of a paradoxical thing. Methanol itself is not the problem, and not toxic to the optic nerve, leading to blindness, as was cited earlier. In the same manner as ethanol (booze) is broken down to acetaldehyde (you know, the "cut green apple" taste, and 50,000 lines of "Bud has it, Bud doesn't have it") in our friend the liver, so is ethanol's one carbon deprived brother (methanol) broken down to acetaldehyde's one carbon deprived brother....commonly known as formaldehyde. While acetaldehyde may be the chief booger responsible for the "hangover", formaldehyde is toxic as hell...especially to nerves and not just the optic one.... it's sort of like stripping the insulation off your wiring. More important in the methanol thing, is that the exact same enzyme (alcohol dehydrogenase) does the deed to both alcohols, and I'm pretty sure has a better binding affinity to our two carbon friend. So what to do with a methanol poisoning? Give them ethanol (?!). Oddly as it may seem, if you increase the ethanol level, it will compete for "enzyme space", keeping the methanol as such, and only allowing minute amounts at a time to be converted to formaldehyde, at a rate at which the body can "sort of" handle it. So here comes the paradox: Since ethanol is the "cure" for methanol poisoning, it is not only the absolute amount of methanol that matters, but the proportion to ethanol. Since the proportion would be the same whether concentrated or not, it should in contrast to AJ's guess, not make a whit.... further, since "everyone" lets the distillate before 78C go down the flush, or saves it for shoe polish remover (this is the "methanol rich" portion) the proportion of methanol to ethanol in beer is actually HIGHER than in its distilled cousin. But, as AJ so correctly stated: > not enough to hurt you. ... just add the distillate to that list. ...On the other hand, formaldehyde is a great binder of polyphenolics, and probably the most superior manner of reducing haze without affecting proteins (head formation, body). So for you individuals who put a crisp, clean, star bright, clear beer on the top of your brewing priorities, there could be a good solution in this for you.... .... drink a bottle of wood alcohol (methanol), wait about two hours, and then draw some of your blood and mix it in with your primary. This will be efficacious in two manners.... formaldehyde precipitation of polyphenols will lead to clearer beer.... and if you happen to get the proportions "not quite right"... I promise you.... you won't "see" the difference. Dr. Pivo PS All that seriousness and all those funny words in the same posting? I was gon'na throw in something snide like: "That you believe unquestioningly in what you were told is clear an that is called superstition - so happy Halloween" ... but it did seem a bit mean. Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2000 04:38:17 -0500 From: "pksmith_morin" <pksmith_morin at email.msn.com> Subject: Saccharine ramblings and wide open target I suppose I left myself exposed to Christopher Farley's written shot - (Say, Chris, is that Bill Shakespeare I see there?) : ). I should note that I am a professional (and brew a great deal still on my own). What I really meant to say was screw the homebrew supply shops. Just avoid them altogether, and buy great hops through your local kind brewery... Or, more appropriately, any purchase is a vote, and I still vote my conscience, regardless of its impact. And, as I started out as an avid homebrewer, as did a great many of my colleagues (indeed, in America, I would have to say most of my professional colleagues), the choices I made as a homebrewer have informed the choices I make now. In short, I am asking that we as brewers, regardless of our affiliation, look at what we're doing and why - for me, it has always been about the beer and in choosing ingredients for their impact on quality, and not primarily for their profitable economy. In my view, the rush to "Super Alpha" varieties has been spurred by the latter motive, and that motive has never been good for craft anything, including beer. Cheers, Paul Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2000 06:40:25 +0000 From: "Fred L. Johnson" <FLJohnson at worldnet.att.net> Subject: Re: Strange Brew Jacob asks about a medicinal flavor in his beer that mysteriously disappeared after bottle conditioning for about 5 months. I suspect that the off-flavor was due to phenols that may arise from various sources. Jacob suspects an infection caused the problem, but I'm not convinced since Jacob doesn't describe any other evidences that the beer was actually infected (e.g., cloudiness). After that much time in the bottle, I believe an infected beer would likely be overcarbonated. Jacob, was there any other evidence that this beer was infected? Also Jacob, how well did the beer attenuate? I have noticed that a non-infected fermentation that results in such phenolic flavors often will attenuate poorly, and I suspect that there are biproducts (perhaps the phenols themselves) that inhibit complete fermentation. I would offer that other sources could have caused the off-flavor, such as pitching into a wort that was quite warm. As for the disappearance of the medicinal flavor, I am awaiting comments from others more knowledgable than I about what yeast can do with phenols, given enough time. - -- Fred L. Johnson Apex, North Carolina USA Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2000 06:09:40 -0400 From: "Darrell G. Leavitt" <leavitdg at plattsburgh.edu> Subject: Old Porter Jeff is right! I bought a huge bag of the brown malt (Fawcett) thinking that I'd try to make an old porter...well...it was like real bad coffee... I tried several other times, adding 2 row , and if my memory servers me well, I think that I came to the conclusion that about 1/2 lb is about all that most Porters could stand, and perhaps a pound in a stout (for a typical 8-10 lb grain bill)....it is real strong tasting, and as Jeff pointed out, has no diastatic power. btw, I made a coconut porter recently that came out real good. I have not gotten brave enough to use real coconut yet, but plan on doing so. I used Tony (lastname?)'s suggestion (Tony is the brewer at Elm City in Keene, NH) to not put the roasted barley in the mash, but rather in the lauter tun, and I do think that this cuts down a bit on the harshness that can sometimes accompany roasted barley... ..Darrell <Terminally Intermediate Home-brewer> - -------------------------- Darrell G. Leavitt, PhD SUNY/ Empire State College - -------------------------- Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2000 07:14:16 -0400 From: "Schneider, Brett" <Brett_Schneider at bose.com> Subject: Acorn Use Info I have a reprinted book at home that I keep forgetting to get complete title and author of, but it discusses the use of acorn meat in beer. The book (and I will confirm this over the weekend and post again) is something like Beers and Wines of Old New England by C. Sandborn Crawford? It says the normal handling procedure was to crack the nuts and bag them and place them in a cold water fast running stream for some period of time to leach them and preserve them at the same time. Then they can be used for the brwing process. I had a hankerin' to give it a try, so if others want to get a small group of test subject brewers I'm game. Maybe we should pick a standard base ale of some sort and a medium profile yeast and just let the nuts make the difference. Sort like an Election Year Nutcase Ale.... Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2000 07:14:31 -0300 From: Rod Prather <rodpr at iquest.net> Subject: Detroit Water > For anyone with Detroit city water, what style is our water best suited > for [after de-clorination]? Also a question for Jeff Renner, what is your > water parameters, do you modify your water, and how best to modify my > local water for brewing your CAP? Are you on Detroit city water? In my earlier days, Strohs was my favorite "Lawnmower beer" (hot weather, quick drinking, slug 'em down style). They closed the old Detroit brewery and screwed the beer up big time. It's never been the same since. To quote a classic Coors commercial, "It's the water". Just a data point, but who knows. <GRIN> Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2000 08:58:25 -0400 From: "Donald D. Lake" <dlake at gdi.net> Subject: Hydrometers R Us I was toodling around on the world wide web and found a site for this speciality company that manufactures hydrometers of all shapes, sizes and kinds. Check it out their site. You'll find out way more than you would ever want to know about hydrometers. http://www.stevenson-reeves.co.uk/index.html Don Lake Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2000 09:08:17 -0500 From: "Brian Lundeen" <blundeen at rrc.mb.ca> Subject: RE: Honey character Graham Sanders comes forth with a possible explanation for my perplexing Pilsner with: > Now this works fine, but every now and then and i mean rarely, I would > produce a beer with a distinct honey flavour and aroma. Well bugger me if this honey > flavour only occurred > in Pale Ales / ESB's, and only when i bottled them, not out > of the keg. Not > in lagers, and not in any light coloured ales. Also not in porters or > stouts. I've been trying to figure out the source of the strong honey character in my recent Pilsner, and I thought it might be a characteristic of the DWC Pilsner malt, which I had never used before this beer. (And like you, I point this out to people with pride, as if that honey character was what I was shooting for). It also has a sweetness that surprised me given the fact that I mashed too low, and dropped my terminal gravity lower than I wanted, and which is becoming more evident, although I thought this might relate to the hop bitterness mellowing a bit with time. The thing that sticks out with the Pilsner was how much I mucked about with the mash, trying to get the pH down to what I thought were appropriate levels. Possibly I "abused" the mash in my panic, possibly what I'm seeing now with the honey character is a result of that. I hate to leap to conclusions, but that was the only thing out of the ordinary with this batch. Perhaps I am seeing this form of staling that was described. Take from this what you will, but I am growing increasingly more careful in how I handle my beers at all stages; in the mash, the recirc and sparge, the boil. Perhaps it's time to invest in a CO2 tank (which I'm going to need for kegging one day anyway) so I can purge my receiving vessels. Cheers, Brian PS. No books were opened in any manner in preparing this report. The data presented herein is entirely that of the author's and may be as outdated as my fashion sense. All data was gathered without the aid of cat-swinging, and with only mild offense to SWMBO, or as I like to think of her, SWLMHMW(MOTT). Curiously, I find that word pronounceable after 2 or 3 barleywines. ;-) Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2000 10:13:52 -0400 From: "Jay Wirsig" <Jay.Wirsig at can.dupont.com> Subject: RIMS Procedures, Mashing In & Sparge Temps, Apple notes,HERMs I have recently started up a RIMS brewery (10 ga MTl, MARCH Pump (as per Tippen), 1/2" SS tubing with Swagelok fittings, SS False bottom 1/8" holes hinged in middle, syphon dip tube 1/2" off bottom). My Pump sits 20" below the bottom of the tun. I have had several problems: 1) I have had a problem with pluggage of the lines with grain/husk debris that is a real pain. 2) I spend 15 min stirring to break up dry clumps - do others spend this amount of time doing this? 3) Foaming in MT I 'm wondering what other RIMS brewers use to prevent this. My current procedure is to put 1Q of water to lb of grain into the Mash tun and raise it to strike temp using the inline heater and external heat. I then add the grains by pouring them in from a 5 gal pail (with pump off). I find I get a lot of clumps that are dry in the middle, I do a lot of stirring to break up the clumps (15min). I then restart the pump which plugs off after a few minutes of recirc. I then take apart the suction line to clean it out and drain off a couple of quarts to ensure the line from the MT is relatively clean. I then reassemble the tubing and start the pump and repeat if necessary. During the mash I often see a bit of foaming in the MT. I have been recirculating at full rates as this is what seems to keep the lines clear perhaps if I slowed the rate by closing the discharge valve a little less foaming will occur. Next time my plan is to recirculate a gallon or so by hand using a measuring cup until the suction to the pump runs free, then attach the pump suction, allow the pump to prime and recirculate at full rates then start to close the dischage off a little. Should I also increase the dilution rate of water per lb of grain? What are others RIMS brewers procedures. My false bottom hole size is 1/32" larger than SABCO's but I assume that pretty much every false bottom lets some grain debris through (especially while it is being stirred in) until the bed sets up a bit. The temperature of my grain bed in the MT during sparge is 74 deg C enven though I'm using 78deg C water from the HLT, Should I raise the sparge temp so that the MT temp is 77-78 deg C? Why do RIMS system put their thermocouple in the recirculation line as opposed to the grain bed. Is it not grain bed temp that we are concerned with? I have a fairly sophisticated system that uses a thyristor to pulse the in-line heater on/off so I'm not too concerned about scorching the wort. Have I missed the post by Pat on how his decoction vs RIMs for his Weizen tested? I did a weizen with my RIMS following the same temp profile as the rest mash in Warners book. It was a little thin, phenolic and more apple with only slight bannana It was fermented a 23dec C (my basement temp in Aug is 22 and I've estimated a deg or two for fermentation) and was oxygenated using an aquarium pump (a new addition) and pitched with Wyeast Weihenstephen, primed using corn sugar. It did not compare to the decoction batch that was fermented at 20 deg C, not oxygenated. I got a stuck mash when doing this Weizen with my RIMS (I was using a slotted ring at the time before my false bottom) so a lot of Oxygen would have gotten into the mash as I was cleaning out the system repeatedly - would this give me the apple? I also boiled for 2h reducing by 15-17% which is high. What does HERMS mean? Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2000 09:31:55 -0600 From: "Paddock Wood Brewing Supplies" <orders at paddockwood.com> Subject: modern amber malts Christopher Farley <chris at northernbrewer.com> asked about experiences with modern amber malt. We find Beeston's Amber to be amazing. It's unlike any other Amber available. It produces strong flavours somewhere between a biscuit and Special-B. In practice you can use about 1/2 the amount of Beeston's for a regular amber in any recipe. We love it in ESBs... Very toasty. Stephen Ross -- "Vitae sine cerevisiae sugant." ______________________________________________ Paddock Wood Brewing Supplies, Saskatoon, SK orders at paddockwood.com www.paddockwood.com Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2000 12:03:38 -0400 From: "Shane A. Saylor, Eccentric Bard" <taliesin2 at earthlink.net> Subject: A Coffee flavored beer I have a question on brewing brewing a coffee flavored beer. I know one could use coffee beans like a Suprema or something similar from Starbucks or a similar place. And I also realize that it may also throw off the alcohol content reading, but can one use coffee flavored liquor to make a coffee flavored beer? I also realize that the beer may be a dark one after adding the liquor (it is a bit syrupy). Thoughts? - -- Everything on this earth has a purpose, and every disease an herb to cure it, and every person a mission. This is the Indian theory of existence. --Mourning Dove, 1888-1936 - --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: herbs-unsubscribe at witchhaven.com For additional commands, e-mail: witchhaven-help at witchhaven.com Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2000 12:48:21 -0400 (EDT) From: Some Guy <pbabcock at hbd.org> Subject: Re: RIMS Procedures, Mashing In & Sparge Temps, Apple notes,HERMs Greetings, Beerlings! Take me to your lager... Jay Wirsig writes... > Have I missed the post by Pat on how his decoction vs RIMs for his > Weizen tested? The non-decocted hefe needs a couple of weeks more to condition, and then I'll triangle test it. On hydrometer sample tasting, I prefer the non-decocted... - -- - See ya! Pat Babcock in SE Michigan pbabcock at hbd.org Home Brew Digest Janitor janitor@hbd.org HBD Web Site http://hbd.org The Home Brew Page http://hbd.org/pbabcock "The monster's back, isn't it?" - Kim Babcock after I emerged from my yeast lab Saturday Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2000 11:50:37 -0400 From: Danny Breidenbach <dbreiden at math.purdue.edu> Subject: Re: "Strange Brew" Jacob Jacobson asks: "Beer isn't supposed to improve with age, is it?" I dunno. But I've read other stories about beer improving with age, which is why I have my last batch, which was a miserable excuse for a beer, still languishing in bottles. Sampled several times over the past 18 months, it always came out bloody awful. So it's clear that not all faults disappear with age. Interestingly, my last beer, yucky though it is, hasn't gotten any worse. So does that mean that at least I'm not totally hopeless? - --Danny Boy Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2000 11:51:52 -0500 From: Nathan Kanous <nlkanous at pharmacy.wisc.edu> Subject: Subject: longest time you can lager without harm? Karl Meyer asks.. > For anyone with Detroit city water, what style is our water best suited >for [after de-clorination]? For God's sake Karl, make some Stroh's!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! nathan in madison, wi Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2000 13:00:11 -0400 (EDT) From: Some Guy <pbabcock at hbd.org> Subject: Love that dirty water! DETROIT! You're my home town... Greetings, Beerlings! Take me to your lager... Karl Meyer asks.. >For anyone with Detroit city water, what style is our water best suited >for [after de-clorination]? I once sent the Detroit analysis report to AJ for review. As I recall, he stated that we are most fortunate and that our water can be used as the basis water for any beer style. Of course, this was also over five years ago. I'll call for a new report and see how it compares to that of 1995. I think we draw from "water park #4". I've already brewed an amber ale, barley wine, stout, kolsch and several hefes that fit style well this year, so I suspect the water hasn't drastically changed from that report. ALso, I know of at least one extreme west sider that comes inot Canton to fill his carboys with brewing water. (Hi, Crispy!) - -- - See ya! Pat Babcock in SE Michigan pbabcock at hbd.org Home Brew Digest Janitor janitor@hbd.org HBD Web Site http://hbd.org The Home Brew Page http://hbd.org/pbabcock "The monster's back, isn't it?" - Kim Babcock after I emerged from my yeast lab Saturday Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2000 12:29:03 -0500 From: "John Watts" <watts at radiks.net> Subject: Re: Strange Brew A couple of years ago I tried making a Pumpkin Ale and overdid the spices a bit. Okay a whole lot. The result while interesting, was also very nasty. I couldn't bring myself to dumping the whole lot, so I shoved it to the back of the beer closet and decided to forget about it until I needed bottles. Fast forward 10 months and find me short on bottles. I grabbed some of the Old Nasty, popped the tops and started to dump. About halfway thru bottle 1 I noticed that the smell wasn't as bad as I remembered. Took a swig of bottle 2. The overwhelming tastes had mellowed to the point where it was very drinkable. Not great, but okay. If you search the archives you'll find volumes on the effect time has on homebrew. Basic rule is don't give up on your beer. It can be very forgiving of the mistakes made in the process. You may not get what you were planning, but it may not be the total loss you thought it would be. Rgds John Watts watts at radiks.net Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2000 12:44:56 -0500 From: "Richard Sieben" <sier1 at email.msn.com> Subject: What it means and why it still is a ghost that just won't die in your brewery Steve Steve Alexander came down from the heavens and gave us a nice source of his data, and using his data, HSA is still most likely a ghost. (Nice report by the way Steve, thank you for the reference!) http://www.scisoc.org/asbc/journal/pdfs/1999/0204-05R.pdf The beer they used in the test was a nice standard beer at 12 degrees Plato and was something like a regular old corn lager made with 90% malt and 10% corn. If you look at table III closely, you will see what Steve is talking about, yes the Nonenal potential is higher when you bubble PURE OXYGEN through the wort as opposed to PURE CO2. A little extreme don't you think when compared to the real world? I for one, do not bubble oxygen through my wort, in fact I don't even bubble air through it which is what, 21% oxygen? So even if I did make this special effort to bubble air through my wort, can't I safely assume that I can only produce about 1/5 of the Nonenal potential of doing the same with PURE OXYGEN? Now look at the column for 'Natural Aging' which was storing the beer for three months at room temperature, since this gave the highest (and most damaging) parts per Billion concentrations of Nonenal potential. The CO2 bubbling gave 0.27ppb, Oxygen bubbling with good hot break gave 0.98ppb and Oxygen bubbling with poor hot break gave 2.69ppb. So if I bubble air through my wort I would expect to get .42ppb with good hot break. (0.98-0.27)/5 to represent the potential additional pickup with good hot break plus the 0.27ppb that is with CO2 bubbling which I assume to be the minimum attainable. Using the same logic, for a beer with poor hot break (2.69-.27)/5+.27=0.754. So what does that mean to us homebrewers? Well for reference, I can barely taste trans-2-nonenal at 2ppb in Bud Light, a beer that can hide no off flavors whatever. This report is talking about half of that in a beer with a good hot break 0.98ppb, and a little more than that with poor cold break 2.69ppb, BUT THIS IS WITH ARTIFICIALLY BLOWING OXYGEN THROUGH THE MASH! With standard brewing and not specifically trying to get air entrained into my mash, I am sure I am getting less than the 0.754ppb and probably closer to the .42ppb since I get a good hot break on my brews. In either event, I don't think I would taste it, even in the lightest beer I have ever made. So even in a commercial setting, this is still a ghost. Yes it's there, but not at any level you can taste or maybe even accurately measure as being beyond the margin for testing error. Maybe you need to get out of the library and into the brewery for a change, the beer you can drink is much more refreshing than the beer you can only read about. I think there are two kinds of brewers TFT and TFP brewers (too f*cking theoretical and too f*cking practical) and you need to strike a balance someplace in between. For a Halloween treat I am going to soak some cardboard in water and hand it out to the kiddies to see if they can taste it. Rich Sieben Island Lake, IL Still home to the HSA spook house Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2000 17:53:01 +0000 From: William Frazier <billfrazier at worldnet.att.net> Subject: pH meters I'm going to upgrade my pH meter in the near future. Any recommendations for a source and specific meter that will read to 0.01 pH units? TIA, Bill Frazier Olathe, Kansas Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2000 14:38:58 -0400 From: "Lubben, Mark E." <LubbenM at genrad.com> Subject: Re: Old Porter Chris and Drew are discussing historical (1700s) porters. Back in 96 or 97 I was interested in trying a semi-historic porter and came up with my first totally original recipe. I was trying to create a beer which avoided sticky sweet brown ales and the stout "burnt". Like ultra-dark toast. The result was quite successful even with some Bud drinkers. It became my house dark beer. I recently retraced my earlier research through Spencer Thomas's beer page http://realbeer.com/spencer/ . If you look in the recent searches (or under B) in his "list of previous searches" you can find my searches for "brown\ malt AND porter" for 92 and 94 - 98. Dunno how to search for "brown malt" & not brown porter on hbd.org. The major discussions were in 94/95 with a nice series from Jethro Gump in 97 when he was still brewer at kansas.net :^) Be careful of too much (modern) brown malt ! I just brewed a batch, after not brewing much last year, and I think Jasper's in Nashua NH (plug ;^) may have changed vendors for their brown malt. I believe in 97 they were selling Hugh Baird and for some reason I think the recent stuff may be Beestons? It may just be process/batch changes though. The new malt is a little harsher smelling (+bitterer) and gave a very faint kerosene? character when the beer had just finished primary. The odd aroma reduced after secondary and disappeared when carbonated. I still get more "black malt like" bitterness than I remember. Enough said, here is my recipe. I know the Galena is not authentic but I was just looking to finish with clean bitter (session). I considered some rauch or sour malt but skipped it. The name is from trans-US train memories ala Thin Man movies and Grandpa's (John Henry) dispatcher pocket watch plus a mellow jazz instrumental w/name. Night Train - Porter ** 10 US gallons ** 13lb Pale ale malt 2lb Brown malt (Hugh Baird?) 2lb Belgian Biscuit malt ("Amber") 1lb Munich Dark malt (can use 2#) 1lb Crystal malt 60L 1lb Chocolate malt UK 1.3oz Galena (11.5%AA) 60 min 1oz Kent Goldings 7 min Irish Moss (optional) Muntons(dry) or other British ale yeast Mash at 152F for 90 minutes Mark Lubben John Henry Brewing Pepperell, MA Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2000 13:45:29 -0500 From: "Dittmar, Robert D" <Robert.D.Dittmar at stls.frb.org> Subject: Methanol from Distillation? I have noticed several responses to Doug Brown's post concerning methanol over the past couple of days and thought I might add my two cents. I think that the reason that distillers discard the initial distillate is due to its high concentration of aldehydes, not a high concentration of methanol. A link has been forged between methanol and distilled spirits probably due to unscrupulous prohibition-era bootleggers and distillers mixing methanol with bootleg hootch in an effort to cut costs. I think the methanol in illegal liquor was added after distillation, not introduced as a result of it. I understand that methanol is far more intoxicating than ethanol so that a small addition would have substantially boosted the good feelings gained from a shot of bathtub gin - at least prior to the onset of blindness that resulted from drinking too much. Rob Dittmar St. Louis, MO Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2000 18:32:52 -0400 From: Anthony and Mary Ann Tantillo <amtantillo at earthlink.net> Subject: Detroit City Water On Fri, Oct 13, 2000 at 12:15:59AM -0400, Karl Meyer wrote: > For anyone with Detroit city water, what style is our water best suited > for [after de-clorination]? Also a question for Jeff Renner, what is your > water parameters, do you modify your water, and how best to modify my local > water for brewing your CAP? Are you on Detroit city water? I've brew with Detroit city water and have made several tasty cream ales. I haven't modified the water for them; perhaps I should. In general, Detroit city water is pretty good right out of the box, in my opinion. Tony Tantillo Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2000 18:07:14 -0600 From: adam larsen <euphonic at flash.net> Subject: Oak shavings Some time back the subject of oak shavings came up: >Date: Tue, 19 Sep 2000 07:22:00 -0400 >From: "Mark Tumarkin" <mark_t at ix.netcom.com> Subject: oak shavings > >Chris asks- >i hear allot of talk about oak chips and shavings etc. ... what's my best way to go about this add some shavings to my fermenter or throw some in to my boil ? thanks a million !! > Put the oak in your fermenter - definitely NOT in in the boil as you would extract way too many tannins. The beer would probably be undrinkable, certainly very astringent. > Think about how oak was used - beer was stored in barrels, not boiled in oak tuns. - -------------------------------------------------------------------------- I think that their is a lot to say about this. First off, wood shavings were used in pre industrial times for the production of a wide variety of ales, some time in combination with various gruits and sometimes with no other flavoring agents at all. In the Baltics shavings were often boiled along with the strike water for the purpose of extracting the wood's tannins and astringent characteristics which helped to preserve the ale. Some woods also provided fine aromatic qualities. In order to prevent such a beverage from becoming unduly harsh. I would recommend that one use a high gravity recipe characterized by a high mash temperature. Such a shaving ale is far better when their is a full body with alot of residual sweetness such as is found in cream ales. Ales in which the shavings are held together with twine and placed into the secondary fermenter tend to be suited best towards high gravity ales that have their preserving agents being provided by means other then the wood. For some strange reason, Beach wood when used in such a capacity does help with clarification and i know of several brewers that use such a method during lager production. In so far as oak is concerned, i have very seen few references to it's use in shaving ales. Primarily, oak shavings were used in the mash during very elaborate mashing regimens of high adjunct grist bills used in the production of low country table ales. Although to a lesser extent, quite minor actually, one can find references to ultra high gravity fruit ales using such a method. I personally, as a result of my ethnic proclivities i suppose, find juniper, uwe, birch, linden and beach wood far preferable for use in my brewing. However, for those of you fortunate enough to have access to pinion wood the opportunity to make truly lovely shaving ales should not be denied. Return to table of contents
Date: Sat, 14 Oct 2000 00:39:57 GMT From: "Anthony Torrez" <perpacity at hotmail.com> Subject: Does unmalted grain have proteolytic enzymes?... Does unmalted grain have proteolytic (SP?) enzymes?... I'd assume not. What I'm going to be doing is brewing an entirely oat beverage (NO MALT AT ALL!!!) And I was wondering if plain rolled oats had those proteolytic enzymes to reduce proteins into amino acids. Chances are that they dont, so my real question is what types of enzymes could I add (What enzymes are in malted barley?) and in what quantities? I'd imagine that bromelain and papain are a start. _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at http://profiles.msn.com. Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2000 22:22:38 EDT From: DKASEN7 at aol.com Subject: Bottled conditioned beer from a cornelius tank (Dan) Preferring bottled conditioned beer, I have been putting my sterilized sugar/water in a cornelius tank before transferring the beer into it. The tank is than used to bottle beer directly from it by siphoning the beer from the tank into thoroughly cleaned bottles before capping. I should note that prior to adding the beer, I pressurize the tank with carbon dioxide and bleed it so that it is purge of air. Sometimes I get Brettanomyces in the bottle beer and sometime I don't. Does anyone else bottle in this manner and if so do you have similar problems? Return to table of contents
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