HOMEBREW Digest #3575 Thu 08 March 2001

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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
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Contents:
  CCV again ("Richard Sieben")
  Malting humans (Tom Smit)
  The pilsner Phil couldn't make (craftbrewer)
  Mag-drive pumps in Australia (Rob B)
  re: Temperature Uniformity in Cylindroconicals ("Stephen Alexander")
  Beeston's Pipken pale malt (brewer)
  Brewing with Fruit/Brew Report/My .02 ("Greenly, Jeff")
  re: cylindroconical versus corny ("Stephen Alexander")
  Dusseldorf and their beers (Mark van Bommel)
  My new Brew Hero! ("Abby, Ellen and Alan")
  RE: igloo vs. gott tuns (Rob Hanson and Kate Keplinger)
  CC fermentors and reality ("Murray, Eric")
  Phoenix/Tuscon Beer spots? ("Spinelli, Mike")
  igloo vs. gott tuns (Ken & Bennett Johnson)
  re:  fermenters - continued ... ("Vernon, Mark")
  in defense of Corny fermenting ("Larry Maxwell")
  wyeast 1728 ("Czerpak, Pete")
  RE: Re: Food Grade CO2 (Bob Sheck)
  steeping grain ("Paddock Wood Brewing Supplies")
  Re: Coffee and reusing yeast (Steve)
  Adding color (Greg Remake)
  Self Service Grain, In Store Mills and Coolers (Dan Listermann)
  Re: igloo vs. gott tuns (Steve)
  Help with sources/questions Conical II (Mike)
  Jamil's CC test ("Daniel C Stedman")
  CC Fermenters (DJ)
  Re;  Igloo vs. gott tuns ("Bill Frazier")

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---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2001 23:34:00 -0600 From: "Richard Sieben" <sier1 at email.msn.com> Subject: CCV again I don't know if George Fix is going to post the e-mail he sent me, but he convinced me that I was wrong about the BB&MB unit due to it's height to width ratio. Apparently this unit DOES maintain the temperature in the yeast withing 1 degree of the rest of the fermentor. And, I understand that the butterfly valve is available. I will probably be buying one someday all my negatives are hearby erased! well sort of, I agree, it is still pretty spendy, but spendy doesn't stop me if it means good beer. If BB&MB finds a more cost effective solution, I will be buying sooner but I think the purchase is somehow inevitable for me. I felt it necessary to make my retraction in the same forum as my statement, which it turns out is 'generally' correct, but not in the case of this unit. Good work BB&MB! color me impressed. Rich Sieben (appropriately humbled) Island Lake, IL Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 07 Mar 2001 17:54:23 +0000 From: Tom Smit <lunica at ozemail.com.au> Subject: Malting humans Mauricio Wagner wrote "My idea is to malt my self" Might be better to try it out on SWMBO or a friend first! You could only malt yourself once, I would think Yours in humor Tom Smit Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2001 18:43:06 +1100 From: craftbrewer at telstra.easymail.com.au Subject: The pilsner Phil couldn't make G'Day All / Now you have to pity poor Phil. gets in Dr Pivo from overseas, scrouges the best ingredients, invites all insubdry (but not me) to the big day. And do we get a classic beer, true to style. Not a chance. NO DIACETYL is the cry. / Well it takes a true brewer from OZ to do it right, so I do my famous Bastardised Bohemian and much to Phils envy and disgust, yes i crack it just right. All the right flavours and that hint of diacetyl. a delightful drink that will be soon consumed. Smoother than baby oil on a ........... whoops minds adrift again. / Phil is sooo impressed he has invited me down to Burradoo for a proper brew session. Yes its true he does need someone to hold his hand. The invite was actually more of a plea really. I NEED to brew a decent drop Graham, help me. Now you know he's desperate when he says 'Graham these planes fly themselves, you can come back with me next time I'm up, sit in the pilots seat if you like." / Now i was willing to take up the offer til in true Mungo-man style he says 'oh bring your gear down, i have none. You'll have to pay for that." Then he say "and sorry mate pool tables torn, no billards as well, just me'. No way you'll get me up front in a flying coffin, even if it has an airbag for the captain, but if the only entertainments is Mr I need someone to help me brew- well even SWMBO looks good (cr+p need another eight beers to get her looking good.) / Now I have seen and met the man. No way will I be left on my own with him on a all nighter. / Shout Graham Sanders / oh My mate at Customs told me Dr Pivo when he left this country had a funny smile on his face. Last time he saw that was on a couple of newly weds after the honey-moon. Can't help putting Phil and Dr P in the picture, tent and all. Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 07 Mar 2001 19:07:35 +1100 From: Rob B <rbyrnes at ozemail.com.au> Subject: Mag-drive pumps in Australia Hi all, Has anyone in Australia bought a magnetic-drive pump in the last year or so? If so, where from and an approximate cost. I ask this because there appears to be a complete dearth of information online regarding home brewing in Australia, save for a couple of shops that have a web presence. the information that is online appears to be geared towards kit or extract brewing for the most part. Cheers, Rob Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2001 03:26:46 -0500 From: "Stephen Alexander" <steve-alexander at worldnet.att.net> Subject: re: Temperature Uniformity in Cylindroconicals AJ writes ... >Beer in contact with the walls is thus cooled and sinks >forcing a welling up of warmer beer through the core. We should note that beer achieves it's maximum density around 3C(37F), so below that temp (common when lagering) colder beer rises rather than falls and the circulation pattern for lager chilling would invert. Lets consider the warmer fermenting temperatures tho'. M&BS, discussing CC circulation pp 661-662, generally agrees stating, "There is also considerable debate about circulatory current in these vessels. The driving forces are the carbon dioxide evolution during fermentation and convection currents. Carbon dioxide is released during fermentation at the deepest part of the vessel. It is the relatively long distance to the surface which causes the particularly strong upward current of beer along the central axis of the vessel. The return of the beer is mainly near the walls of the fermenter. Circulatory patterns have been studied in detail and appears to vary somewhat with the rate of fermentation, the position of the coolers and the speed of cooling". What is not obvious to me is that there is any "relatively long distance to the surface" in a 1/2bbl CC fermenter, nor any CO2 differentiated "deepest part of the vessel" in these tiny CC fermenters. Also the necessarily smaller temp differences long the relatively tiny dimensions of a 1/2bbl CC fermenter will create correspondingly smaller forces to drive the circulation pattern. I don't think that circulation of the wort/beer in a tiny CC fermenter is likely to play any role in fermentation performance since unlike a 1000bbl unit there is not enough hydrostatic pressure difference from top to bottom to increase CO2 solubility nor slow yeast growth. >Temperatures within a cylindorconical should be reasonably uniform as a >mixing of the beer is one of the features of the design. True, but temp differences in other shaped fermenters with comparable coolers should also create temp gradients that (equally weakly) drive convection so create similarly uniform temperatures. There is still the open question - do these temp gradients actually cause a convection on this tiny scale and is it decidedly an improvement over similar convection forces in other shaped vessels. Also do these convections have any impact on fermentation performance, as they certainly would in a 4 meter deep fermenter ? My hunch is that a conventional 'top freezer' fridge would do an admirable job of chilling from the top and so setting up a desirable fermenter temp gradient for convection. >Yes, there will be a gradient - it wouldn't >work if there weren't but it should amount to no more than a couple of >degrees F if that. I agree - but how large a temp gradient will occur in a non-conical fermenter with a similar chiller, and what sort of temperature differential is needed to negatively impact a beer ? Kunze shows a 6C temp differential (10C/4C) in his diagrams of CC circulation due to thermal gradients. A quick and crude calculation is that if all of the energy in a 5gal 12P fermentation was used to this end one could only maintain a 5.5C temp differential from the top to the bottom of a carboy for 50 hours. This assumes all of the fermentation energy was expended at one surface and there was absolutely no convection. In real life the temp differences due to fermentation heat in a small HB fermenters can be ignored even if there is no convection at all. If there is a significant temp differential within our small HB fermenters it is not due to heat from fermentation but from surface cooling or heating coupled with a lack of convection. -S Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 07 Mar 2001 04:46:46 -0500 (EST) From: brewer at cotse.com Subject: Beeston's Pipken pale malt I am having trouble finding a source for Beeston's Pipken. Can anyone out there recommend a supplier. You are more than welcome to recommend yourself if you have the malt! ;^) Thanks, Jake Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2001 05:44:23 -0500 From: "Greenly, Jeff" <greenlyj at rcbhsc.wvu.edu> Subject: Brewing with Fruit/Brew Report/My .02 Comrades, With this Nor'easter blowing through the mountains and hollows of my West Virginia home, my thoughts turn to spring, specifically the spring brewing season. As a novice brewer, I am always trying to stretch the boundaries of my brewing skill and so I would like to try brewing a beer with fruit. I would like to know what tips, hints and ideas the Collective has for me. Specifically, what fruits are more desirable? Also, what kind of processing will I need to do to the fruit? Lastly, is it better to include fruit in an ale or a lager? Ultimately, I would like something flavorful and refreshing for quaffing out on the porch as the weather finally starts to warm up a bit. Some time ago, I decided to brew a stout, for the winter months. Several of you provided a lot of good advice and I tried some new techniques that were challenging and really useful. Well, I am happy to report that the stout, called No. 3 (my 3rd "house brew"), was quite successful! It was almost unanimous that I drop the use of black patent, and I am glad I did, because No. 3 tastes very similar to my targeted beer, Watney's Cream Stout. It has a woody roasted taste and silky mouthfeel thanks to the judicious use of roast barley and plenty of malto-dextrin. Final gravity was a wee bit higher than expected, but that's fine. All in all, a very good beer, and I thank you all! I don't know much about conical fermenters, except to see them at the local brewpub here. But it seems to me that there isn't a gadget made that can help you make better than the best beer you're able to make, regardless of how much the thing costs. As I've been putting my brewery together, I've bought some things that the conditions in my home demanded, like a temp. controlled fridge so I could brew during the summer. There have also been a lot of things that I didn't need, or that I was able to scrounge around for, like bottle washers, carboy carriers, King Cookers, 10 G. brewpots and the like. What I have now allows me to make consistantly good beer, that my friends and I enjoy. I figure that if I am making great beer with $200 sunk into carboys, kegs, and assorted other geegaws, and you're making equally great beer with $2000 conical fermenters, plus the hundreds of dollars more in equipment to support such a gadget, well, which one of us is ahead of the game? Like I said, just my .02 worth.. Brewing happily in the hills, Jeff Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2001 05:40:08 -0500 From: "Stephen Alexander" <steve-alexander at worldnet.att.net> Subject: re: cylindroconical versus corny Steven M. Claussen writes ... >Stephen remains undaunted by his lack of experience using a >CC, and this shows in his somewhat misinformed critque. Words have meanings - I wrote no critique, but stated a few facts. CCs are expensive and there is (as yet) no strong evidence that they make better beer. A critique is a critical review of an item or work, and I haven't attempted that. As for experience - no one needs to experience all possible choices in order to make rational decisions among them. Why do you choose not to eat spoiled foods without experiencing this choice ? Because you understand, by theory and reports of others the implications of this choice. Same w/ CCs. I hoped to foment a discussion on CC fermenters to extract experience from guys like you who have actually used them. So far I have heard that they cost $400/$600 and up to $1200, that they conveniently allow withdrawal of trub and yeast, and aren't too bad to clean. That with an $800 chiller added they produce uniform fermentation temps and that their ferments compare favorably to seriously defective ones in cornies. >If you are ever >in Portland, Stephen, I invite you to stop by and brew with me so you >can experience the joys of a CC first hand. I do not claim that the CC >is the be all and end all, simply that it is the best tool (by an order >of magnitude) that I have found to do the job. I would enjoy that, tho' I don't get to Portland often. I can understand and with qualification agree with your comment about it being the "best tool" for fermentation. My point remains that sometimes (even often) the best tool is not required to perform a job and it's cost cannot be justified. If I framed houses or layed floors for a living I'd certainly use a pneumatic nailer as the "best tool" for the job. Since I perhaps on average sink a dozen nails into wood in a given year I instead use a hammer as a practical cost-effective alternative. Althought the pneumatic nailer would be preferable for speed and convenience, the hammer does not do an inferior job of setting nails when properly used. I feel much the same about $1000 (or even $500) expenditures on HB fermenters. >(1) A >corny is a tall narrow vessel, while the CC is relatively wider and >shallower [..] beer clears much more quickly in the CC than in a >corny. Your argument seems to be that a lower aspect ratio improves clearing and that is almost certainly true. OTOH I can easily chill/drop a corny fermenter by placing it in a fridge. Neither design works as quickly as an $80 filter tho'. >(2) If you are doing a ten gallon batch in two five gallon >cornies, you have to worry about evenly splitting the wort [...] >The 12.2 IMO you really need about 25% headspace in a primary fermenter so your 12.2gal unit is about right for 10g batches and a 10g corny would accommodate 8gal batches. Having the *proper* sized fermenter for a given batch is always pleasant. Unless 10 gal batches were the only size of interest I think I'd prefer a selection of necessarily less expensive fermenters. Splitting the yeast between containers is a very minor inconvenience - agreed. >(3) A five gallon brew in a five gallon corny gives excessive >blow off. As does a 12.5 gal batch in a 12.2gal CC. Come on there is no one preferred brewing batch size except ones that match your consumption. I don't need 10gal batches of strong ales or seasonal ales, but I like to brew 15gal batches of pils. No one fermenter size is ideal. >(4) The >side racking port on a CC gives much more control over avoiding >transferring excess yeast and spoooge when racking than I was able to >obtain with a corny. I'll give you that one. I've used cornies on several occasions as fermenters and the inability to see what is happening in the opaque container is annoying. >(5) the CC allows you to do either open or closed >fermentation, or a hybrid of the two. And the corny doesn't ? I don't see that - just remove the top pressure release or a fitting or even the entire top if you need to open ferment. >(6) My completely anecdotal >non-variable controlled experience is that fermentation finishes quicker >in the CC and finishing gravity is consistently lower than a similar >brew fermented in a corny (generally about 2 points SG). According to >my offline discussion with George Fix (nice guy, by the way), there is >apparently some scientific data supporting this as well. A little quicker I can believe, but lower FG is doubtful IMO. George implies that he's getting results like that - but I'd really need to be convinced by a double blind trial at this point. DeCleck and several other studies (one from Brauwelt 1992 that I wish I could get my hands on) studied fermentation performance in various shaped fermenters. CCs developed as a result of the early work. Only in very recent years have CCs dropped to the current very wide aspect ratios (they used to be as tall in scale as cornies). Anyway the forces on the yeast, the impact of depth on CO2 solubility, the localization of CO2 evolution, the potential for fermentation heating wort and for temperature differentials are orders of magnitude greater for the commercial fermenters than our HB size units. You can't extend these commercial studies of geometry to small scale without understanding the impact of all the changes and no one does. Commercial fermenter geometry undoubtedly does shave some *time* off the fermentation. I believe that this is a fair reading of several studies. I haven't seen any that claim differing *final* gravity occurs since that implies a yeast performance problem. In fact DeClerc adamantly states that the final gravity is only determined by the wort. It doesn't matter much to me - my beer remains in the fermenter till the weekend and shaving a day or two off the schedule is almost meaningless to me. I have doubts that in our relatively tiny fermenters with their correspondingly tiny pressures and temp diffs that any significance can be ascribed to fermenter geometry. I can believe that temp control, trub removal and yeast removal have impacts on the final beer, and the removals can certainly be performed more easily in many CC designs, but that doesn't mean geometry is the issue, nor that the same advantages can't be had with other designs. == JamilZ adds some interesting comments. I'm most impressed with Jamil's personal experiment, but both this and Fix's reports would seem to require better controls to prove their hypothesis. >It seems, from reading Fix and others, that a corny keg would be a really >bad choice for a fermenter, because it is so tall and thin. It would seem so if you believe that experiments of 100+hl fermenters automatically apply to 0.1hl fermenters without any knowledge of the underlying mechanisms, nor accounting for the known differences. Fix's tall vs squat fermenter experiment is intriguing, but the details and description of controls is entirely lacking. >However, once you feel you are making >great beer, the investment in the CC fermenters will make a noticeable >difference that, IMHO, makes a great beer truely outstanding. These >stainless steel CC fermenters are absolutely fantastic. Cognitive dissonance may explain this statement as much as fact. More evidence is needed. -S Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 07 Mar 2001 11:51:59 +0100 From: Mark van Bommel <markbom at xs4all.nl> Subject: Dusseldorf and their beers Mauricio Wagner asked about weissbier in Dusseldorf. Dusseldorf is not a good place to drink weissbier. You're too far to the north of Germany to get the good one's. But it is the capital of Alt, the bitter, light brown ale fermented at low temperatures. I absolutely love those beers. There are at least four brew pubs, all in the centre of the city. Zum Schlussel, Im Fuchsen, Schumacher and Schlosser. My personal favorite is Schumacher, which is close to the Central railway station (Hauptbahnhof), quite big but not to commercial. Im Fuchsen en Zum Schlussel are very nice as well. Schlosser is a bit to commercial for my taste. Zum Schlussel has a weissen, but not a very good one, very watery. More info: http://www.tiac.net/users/tjd/bier/germany.html http://www.biercity.de/ I will you send you some more details by private e-mail. Have fun, Mark van Bommel markbom at xs4all.nl http://www.xs4all.nl/~markbom P.S. The digest doesn't accept non-ascii characters. So you should read Schluessel, Fuechsen, Schloesser and Duesseldorf. Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 07 Mar 2001 07:30:06 -0400 From: "Abby, Ellen and Alan" <elal at pei.sympatico.ca> Subject: My new Brew Hero! Fred wrote: "I live on an island in alaska so I can't just go to the local brew shop. Any help would be great." Wow. I thought I was on the edge of the planet here in the Gulf of St.Lawrence trying to find Wyeast XLs (I drive to Halifax, two provinces and 3 hours away, to Brewing Centre - www.betterbrew.com). I have just elected Fred as my "Resourceful in the Circumstances Home Brewer Number One!" What is your set up, Fred? How do you get supplies? Any other "edge hangers" out there? Alan McLeod in PEI Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 07 Mar 2001 07:59:58 -0500 From: Rob Hanson and Kate Keplinger <katerob at erols.com> Subject: RE: igloo vs. gott tuns Ed Jones writes: >I'm slowly gathering the bits to go all-grain and I've decided on using >10 gallon round water coolers. Our local GFS store sells the 10 gallon >igloo variety for $39. Are these physically similar to the gott 10 >gallon ones and if so, can they take the heat of mashing/sparging? >Also, what are the rough limits in terms of pounds of grain that can >be mashed in one of these? Thanks for the help! While I'm not an all-grain brewer yet, I found this article from Brewing Techniques that may help to answer some of your questions: www.brewingtechniques.com/library/backissues/issue5.4/palmer.html Good luck! - --Rob Hanson The Closet Brewery Washington, DC "I like the taste of beer, its live white lather, its bright-brass depths..." --Dylan Thomas Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 07 Mar 2001 08:26:39 -0500 From: "Murray, Eric" <emurray at sud-chemieinc.com> Subject: CC fermentors and reality It seems odd to me that Mr. Alexander finds it necessary to try and convince everyone how and what others should brew with, so much so that he goes to quite lengthy means to prove others wrong. Steven does provide good scientific data from time to time that is useful, but tends to go off on rants occasionally when no one asked for his opinion. If someone wants to ferment their beer in their kitchen sink, and enjoys doing so, who are we to try and convince them otherwise. Some have posted that they enjoy what they consider to be advantages of using various fermentation vessels. They are sharing what they enjoy doing and that they like using the various methods and results from those methods. If you enjoy your brewing setup and are pleased with the results, there is nothing to prove otherwise. Steven, continue to ferment in carboys since that is the way you enjoy brewing. Don't buy a CC fermentor. Those using CC fermentors, continue to brew in your CC fermentor since that is what you enjoy. Brewing equipment is an individuals option and is a personal preference based on what the particular brewer likes to use and enjoys. As long as the brewer is satisfied with the means and the product. That is all that matters. I don't think that anyone is trying to force Mr. Alexander to go out and buy a CC (although he may be trying to get the CC users to abandon theirs and go back to carboys in a secret plot to salvage the equipment for himself !!) Get over it and argue about something else. The thread is growing tiresome. I think it has even put Phil Yates to sleep and is why we have not heard from him today! Eric Murray Louisville, KY Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2001 08:52:25 -0500 From: "Spinelli, Mike" <paa3983 at dscp.dla.mil> Subject: Phoenix/Tuscon Beer spots? HBDer,s Going to Phoenix/Tuscon on 3/16 for the weekend. Any "must see" places? Thanks Mike Spinelli Cherry Hill NJ Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2001 06:13:31 -0800 From: Ken & Bennett Johnson <fearless1 at abac.com> Subject: igloo vs. gott tuns Hey All, From: Ed Jones <ejones at sdl.psych.wright.edu> >>I'm slowly gathering the bits to go all-grain and I've decided on using 10 gallon round water coolers. Our local GFS store sells the 10 gallon igloo variety for $39. Are these physically similar to the gott 10 gallon ones and if so, can they take the heat of mashing/sparging?<< I have used a similar 10 gallon coolier for a mash tun for 4 years. Yes, they can take the heat just fine. Mine is starting to show the signs of 75 batches of mash. It will eventually begin to warp as mine has. But it has been a fantastic tool for the price! I expect this tun to make it to 100 batches before she retires. >>Also, what are the rough limits in terms of pounds of grain that can be mashed in one of these? Thanks for the help!<< I can get 22lbs in mine if I really push it. Obviously you can manipulate this some by changing the water/grist ratio. The sensible thing to do would be to not try to pass 20 lbs (I keep telling myself this also). But, let's be honest and admit that it will happen. Ken "MAD about Barleywine" Johnson Work like you don't need the money Dance like nobody's watching Love like you've never been hurt - ----John E. Gaddy Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2001 08:10:44 -0600 From: "Vernon, Mark" <VERNONMARK at phibred.com> Subject: re: fermenters - continued ... Sounds like Steve has a bug up his A#$ about conical fermenters....maybe he was frightened by one during a brewery tour as a small child..... Just because you wouldn't spend the money on one does not mean you have to bash them as being overpriced...give it a rest.... Mark Vernon, MCSE, MCT Sr. Network Engineer - LanTech "The beautiful thing about learning is nobody can take it away from you." - B.B. King Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2001 09:16:20 -0500 From: "Larry Maxwell" <larrymax at bellsouth.net> Subject: in defense of Corny fermenting I have been tinkering with fermenting in 10 gallon Corny kegs for a while and don't see any great disadvantages, especially when compared to the price of cylindroconicals. I have no hard data, as I'm not the type to do that sort of rigorous experimentation, but I perceive at least as fast attenuation as fermenting in a carboy. With a 10G size, I would think a 5-7G batch would not suffer from the long-tall geometry disadvantage that some attribute to the smaller 5G Corny kegs. Two 10G units allow one to do either two 5G batches, one 10G batch, or even a 15G batch at a time. Yes, splitting the larger batches evenly between the two requires attention--I monitor the change in depth in the kettle as the wort is pumped out. They ARE cleanable without reaching inside if one uses a long-handled "turk's head" brush (readily available from a restaurant supply or industrial supply company) which is relatively inexpensive and makes cleaning a snap. Someone here recently mentioned a toilet bowl brush if I recall correctly, and I suppose that's an even cheaper alternative. I have also tinkered with fermenting in Corny kegs placed in unusual orientations, such as a 5G on its side with the long dip tube removed and, more recently, two 10Gs suspended upside down from a rack, with the short dip tube used for liquid and the long dip tube used for CO2 (or air) displacement! I am trying this latest variation for a number of reasons, including transferability using gravity and trying to improve the cleaning process by using a sort of spray head as was discussed not long ago here in relation to cleaning carboys. Fun stuff! Larry Maxwell Atlanta GA (where the ghost of Prohibition lingers on) Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2001 09:20:17 -0500 From: "Czerpak, Pete" <Pete.Czerpak at siigroup.com> Subject: wyeast 1728 I have used Wyeast 1728 only once and it was in a strong scotch ale. OG was in the neighborhood of 1.100ish and FG was about 1.030ish. In no way do I find this beer too sweet. malty yes, sweet no! When compared to similar commercial scotch ales, it was right on the money in terms of taste. Grain bill was about 50% munich, 2%roasted barley, 2% peat smoked, and the remainder as 2 row pale. I also boiled down the first gallon to about 1.5 qts as well which were added at the last 10 minutes of boil. boil was longer than normal - about 120 minutes. color is nice - deep deep ruby red. not as red as guiness though. My yeast was scaled up about 5x including multiple times at 0.5 gallon size in order to increase my cell count to pitch directly to my 5 gallon batch. visible ferment (surface foam) started between 8th and 18th hour. this is normal for my batches that were not previous used slurrys of full batches. slurry batches tend to start by 6 hours after pitching except if they had been stored for a long time in the fridge. FWIW, the brew has been judged a few times and no one has deemed it too sweet. In fact, it pulled in two first places in Boston and Brooklyn this past february. Good luck, Pete czerpak albany, NY Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 07 Mar 2001 09:47:29 -0500 From: Bob Sheck <bsheck at skantech.net> Subject: RE: Re: Food Grade CO2 It's pretty important that pure CO2 be used to produce quality welds so I am sure it must be pretty pure. I never had any quality problems with my refills. Bob Sheck / Greenville, NC Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2001 09:23:17 -0600 From: "Paddock Wood Brewing Supplies" <orders at paddockwood.com> Subject: steeping grain Andrew asks about steeping grains. We recommend that you remove the grain prior to boiling. In fact, for specialty malts that do not require a mash, a 30 minute steep at 140F will avoid all husky astringency as well as extracting desired flavour and colour. You may wish to rinse the grains a little afterwards if using a grain bag. cheers, 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: Wed, 7 Mar 2001 08:02:35 -0800 (PST) From: Steve <gravelse at yahoo.com> Subject: Re: Coffee and reusing yeast Okay, I'll give this one a shot. First, What's your name? We don't need to know your last name if you don't want to post it, but 'D H' or 'uqob' is rather impersonal and I like to direct my response to a person. Anyway, you said: "1. Someone recommended to me reusing yeast from a batch just brewed. Here's how the process would work: On the 3rd day when I am swapping wort(1) into the secondary fermenter, I also have a new batch of wort(2) to transfer onto the yeast that settled out in the first 72 hours of wort(1)" Sounds good and works great! "I understand from the person who suggested it that activity starts much quicker than pitching." Yeah, a couple of hours. "My worry, of course is that off flavors will be transfered from the yeast that isn't dormant but dead from the alcohol content of wort(1)" Possible, but not probable. You'll be racking this batch off the yeast into a secondary in a few days anyway. The yeast don't start causing off flavors unless they've been sitting for a long time. "Any comments from more experienced brewers or individuals who have tried this method?" I do this frequently, be prepared for a quick and vigorous fermentation. If it's a big beer that you are racking, make sure you have a blow off hose set up or you'll be sorry. "2. Coffee and beer: I would like to use coffee in a brew: a) should I steep the grounds in a hop bag or just toss them in the mash? b) should I not use grounds but beans instead? c)Should I not do this at all because of some problem with caffeine and yeasts?" I would suggest using coffee flavoring or strong brewed coffee, not the grounds. Coffee has oil in it and can affect the head on your beer so you'll want to make sure you get rid of that oily film on the coffee. To eash his own, other brewers may have different methods. "3. I know oxidation of hot wort is bad, very, very bad. But is there any significant danger to cooled wort (65F) when transferring to the primary fermenter? I ask because I used a wort chiller (copper coils) to chill my wort straight from the stove. This worked great, but I still needed to pour it through a strainer to get out the hops. Being poured into a 6 gallon bucket that's a fair amount of splashing. Did I ruin my brew?" At certain times oxydizing the wort is very desirable. This is that time. The yeast need the oxygen in order to do their job. The time to add oxygen is after you cool the wort to 80F or below and you want as much as you can get into solution. You can add it during the transfer by using an aerating wand, or pouring from bucket to bucket, or using an oxygenating stone. There are a number of ways and they each have their pros and cons. Hope this helps. SteveG Newport, RI "Homebrew, it's not just a hobby, it's an adventure!" Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 07 Mar 2001 10:02:42 -0600 From: Greg Remake <gremake at gsbpop.uchicago.edu> Subject: Adding color Hello all, Is there something simple I can do to darken my fermented beer (still in secondary)? Yes, I know color is not very important, but if there is an easy remedy I'd rather have the color end up looking as intended. Thanks to my supplier confusing and mislabling two crystal malts he milled for me, my brown ale looks more like a pale. I'm not about to go to the trouble of blending two beers, but if I can find something like a caramel coloring that can darken the finished beer without impacting the flavor or head, I'd be willing to try it. I thought about adding food coloring to my priming solution, but I don't know if that would introduce any negative impacts. Any other thoughts? Cheers! Greg Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2001 11:16:34 -0500 From: Dan Listermann <72723.1707 at compuserve.com> Subject: Self Service Grain, In Store Mills and Coolers Wil Kolb (happydog at nations.net) asks about self service grain and store mills. We store all our malt in 7 gal buckets and almost insist that our customers serve themselves. This saves us a lot of time and effort and provides our customers with a bit of entertainment. We have very few problems and I would never consider insisting our people do it. Homebrewers are frightfully honest people. We have two mills in the store that our customers use. The primary one is a Philmill II that is mounted in a wooden box and is fed with a 20 lb hopper made from a 5 gal plastic carboy. Inside the box the grist is funneled into a 1.5" pipe where is falls through to the recieving container. This produces relitively little dust and could easily be improved to release even less dust. I don't feel a deep need to do this because it is located at the far end of the store. The other mill is a 1/2" drill driven Philmill I. We ask that our customers use this mill if they are crushing dark malts and have no light malts to chase them with. We don't want a pile of dark dust shooting out of the big mill into somebody's pils grist. This mill uses a 3 liter pop bottle( - 3 pound capacity) hopper and a 2 liter pop bottle as a recieving funnel so it also produces little dust. Ed Jones ( ejones at sdl.psych.wright.edu) asks about Igloo vs Gott coolers. For all practical purposes they are interchangeable. The take the heat very well although the inside may buckel eventually. This seems harmless. I have one that I have been using for 11 years that finally gave out. The area around the hole cracked. I now use it for keeping kegs cool at picnics. A 5 gallon cooler can hold 12 pounds for mashing and 15 for lautering ( the mash compacts during lautering ) 10 gallons will hole twice that amount. $39.00 is an excellent price for a 10 gallon! Dan Listermann Check out our E-tail site at www.listermann.com! Contribute to the anti telemarketing forum. It is my new hobby! Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2001 09:09:45 -0800 (PST) From: Steve <gravelse at yahoo.com> Subject: Re: igloo vs. gott tuns Hi Ed, You said: "I'm slowly gathering the bits to go all-grain and I've decided on using 10 gallon round water coolers. Our local GFS store sells the 10 gallon igloo variety for $39. Are these physically similar to the gott 10 gallon ones and if so, can they take the heat of mashing/sparging?" I use the Rubbermaid (big, orange) cooler and a friend of mine uses the 5 gallon version of the Igloo cooler. I believe they are both similar in make. They are designed for cold and hot drinks and should hold up to any mashing that you do. "Also, what are the rough limits in terms of pounds of grain that can be mashed in one of these? Thanks for the help!" I've brewed an Imperial Stout with 20 lbs. of grain and was about 3/4 of the way to the top. You could probably squeeze two or three more lbsout of it. If you have any questions on how I set it up to mash in, send me an email me and I'll send you a description of my setup. SteveG (gravelse at yahoo.com) Newport, RI "Homebrew, it's not just a hobby, it's an adventure!" Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 07 Mar 2001 12:28:42 -0500 From: Mike <mroesch at bellsouth.net> Subject: Help with sources/questions Conical II I have been reading (With avid interest) the Conical Fermenter discussions. Some things come to mind that I thought I'd ask the group. I'm using the "Affordable Conical II", configured with a ball valve (PVC) at the bottom port and a racking valve (like the ones brew shops sell for use in the PVC buckets). First some observations: 1. They look neat and with 5.5 to 6 gallons of wort I can lift them up to table/counter height without rupturing myself. 2. When moving from floor to counter/table I have more of a "sense of security" than i did with my glass carboy fermenters. I'm not a klutz, but it is nice to know that all I can get from a dropped fermenter is lost beer, a mess and some bruises. I'd hate to think about the cuts I could receive from a shattering carboy. Note that currently this is important to me as I have to brew in the kitchen and then after filling the fermenter I lug it to the basement. This process is fraught with danger with a carboy IMHO! 3. The rubber top is kind of cheesy, but it seems to seal well as I noted in my last post and I have a good indication of CO2 pressure in the fermenter, it "pooches up" a little. Also when cleaning I was able to verify a seal by rinsing with hot H2O, putting the top on, stoppering the air lock hole and observing the rubber top, It "pooched in" indicating a seal as the unit cooled down (I also opened the racking port and noted that blown tire "sound" as air rushed in). 4. It is really nice to be able to siphon off trub/yeast after settling of the wort (I'm not good at leaving the post boil cold break out of the fermenter). With carboys, I have to rack the wort to a secondary to accomplish this, which allows for contamination. 5. It was really nice to grab a sample from the racking port right after I had moved the wort to it! Now for some questions, etc.: 1. Several people have stated that they are concerned about "sucking in" air when draining trub/yeast. I am too, and have found a "solution" At Beer, Beer and More Beer http://www.morebeer.com/. It is a plastic .023 micron sanitary filter for just $4.95. I'm going to order two, one for each of my conicals. I'll have to use a double hole stopper, one hole for the air lock and one for the sanitary filter. 2. Racking port and ball valve sanitation is a problem, I'm considering using a 1/2" brass butterfly valve on both the racking port and the "dump" port. again I found these at Beer, Beer and More Beer http://www.morebeer.com/. they cost a little more, but if I can maintain sanitation it is worth the $12.00 for each valve. 3. Since they are semi-opaque plastic, I am wondering if I need to cover them to exclude UV light (or other spectra) thus avoiding the dreaded "skunky beer" syndrome. Advice? The plastic may block the wavelengths that cause the problem, does anyone know? 4. Cooling: I plan on using my extra fridge for that, although currently I'm "doing ales", my basement is at 65F, but lagers will require refrigeration. That's about it for now, happy brewing! Mike Roesch Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2001 12:40:08 -0600 From: "Daniel C Stedman" <"daniel_c_stedman" at uhc.com> Subject: Jamil's CC test Jamil wrote: On my third batch after getting my CC fermenters, I did a little experiment. I split a 10 gallon batch of Robust Porter into a 7 gallon CC and a 7 gallon carboy. Both went into the same fridge for temp control and I pitched equivalent amounts of yeast slurry into both batches. The CC reached TG at 5 days, while the carboy took 8 days. In a blind tasting, the carboy batch clearly had much higher levels of diacetyl and some additional esters. The difference was so pronounced, that it completely convinced me that the CC was the way to go. There is also some interesting information in George Fix's Analysis of Brewing Techniques, pages 104 - 108 about CC fermenters, their shape, and their effect on flavor. I know the BB&MB folks designed their fermenters based on this research. Me: I may be mistaken, but the increased fermentation time and higher levels of diacetyl & esters could point to a deficient amount of pitched yeast. Are you sure you put the same amount of yeast in each one? It's not something that is very easy to eyeball, especially if you are borderline underpitching to begin with. just a thought - Dan in Minnetonka Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 07 Mar 2001 13:57:11 -0500 From: DJ <shag at ipass.net> Subject: CC Fermenters The only evidence I have supporting CC's benefits or advantages over carboys are the large assortment of old neglected unused carboys that have not been touched or lifted in over a year. My 12 gallon CC sits in my "cooling jacket" (a refrigerator). I rarely remove it (very tight fit) from the fridge as I clean and sanitize in the fridge. No lifting or turning up side down to dump liquids. My process begins with my CC holding cleaner or sanitzer and without lifting or moving it I dump the cleaner or sanitizer in the drain via ball valve and drain hose. Previous yeast or starter is dumped into the CC and the lid is clamped shut. Wort is cooled and then pumped from kettle into the CC via bottom ball valve using a quick-disconnect jumper hose. The incoming cooled wort stirs the yeast slurry in the lower cone over the next 5 minutes of pumping time therefore insuring a good mixing without any shaking or rocking. I do aerate inline between pump and CC. Keg via side port takes 5 minutes for two 5 gallon cornies. Clean/sanitize and plan next batch. My beer quality improved? I'm sure it has improved but probably not because of the CC's shape, but because the whole process involving the CC is easier on the delicate nature of the beer. I look forward to Mr. Fix's report and findings. Dan Johnson CARBOY Raleigh, NC Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2001 12:56:34 -0600 From: "Bill Frazier" <billfrazier at worldnet.att.net> Subject: Re; Igloo vs. gott tuns Ed-I have used Igloo tuns for quite a few years now. One for sparge water, the other for mashing. Both are 5 gallon size. I brew 5 gallon batches of beer and usually mash 9 to 10 pounds of grain. This amount fits fine. Recently I brewed a batch of Sister Star Of The Sun with 13.1 pounds of grain. Used 1 quart/pound ratio of mash water. Still, the mash fit into the cooler with 2 inches to spare which allowed the top to be pushed down as usual. This is about max for the 5 gallon size Igloo. You may be able to scale up to the 10 gallon from this info. No problems with heat distortion. Bill Frazier Olathe, Kansas Return to table of contents
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