HOMEBREW Digest #3590 Mon 26 March 2001

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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
		Digest Janitor: janitor@hbd.org


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Contents:
  Euro Beer (Aaron Robert Lyon)
  Re: GFI protection (Spencer W Thomas)
  American ale (Alex MacGillivray)
  I Can't Name My Dog Spot No More (" Jim Bermingham")
  Re: What/If to Plant (Jeff Renner)
  Many Q's ("Jay Wirsig")
  Amsterdam Beer Bars ("Tomusiak, Mark")
  RE: Refractometer Calibration ("Dennis Lewis")
  Commercial Beer Recipes ("Andrew Moore")
  Refractometers (Dave Burley)
  Measuring pH (Brian Lundeen)
  Fermentation And Cellar Temp Blues (Todd Bissell)
  Re: Newcastle Clone Questions (Lance Levsen)
  Oak and Soda (Drew Beechum)
  Oxygen supply (Ralph Link)
  Extract - dry vs. liquid ("Doug Moyer")
  Graham's Disapearance (Road Frog)
  Barrels and oakey doakey beer (Dave Burley)
  my oak barrel story ("John Campbell")
  flamethrowers ("Joseph Marsh")
  Amsterdam Beer Drinking ("Fred Waltman")
  flatulence and pitching yeast ("res0a8pl")
  Sabco Little Squirt (mchahn)
  Keg Carbonation (mchahn)
  ProMash and Refractometers (Frank Tutzauer)
  HOMEBREWERS IN UK ("Wilf Phoenix")

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---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2001 10:31:19 -0500 (EST) From: Aaron Robert Lyon <lyona at umich.edu> Subject: Euro Beer I have a few groups of friends going to Europe over the summer. One has a couple of weeks, the other a couple of months. Both have the ability to go anywhere within reason (they're both backpacking). For some reason, after a couple of pints I promised them that I'd create a list of worthy beer countries and places to hit within them. They're holding me to it. Anyway, whatever input people could provide would be appreciated. Thanks. -Aaron Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2001 10:36:07 -0500 From: Spencer W Thomas <spencer at engin.umich.edu> Subject: Re: GFI protection >>>>> "Joe" == Joe Yoder <headduck at swbell.net> writes: Joe> I think what [the other] Joe means is that if you have a GFI on a Joe> circuit all the other outlets on the circuit are protected. This is true only if the circuit was wired *through* the GFI. That is, if the circuit comes from the breaker box to the "Line" side of the GFI, and the rest of the circuit is wired off the "Load" side of the GFI. If the GFI is wired in parallel with the other outlets, it provides no protection to those other outlets. =Spencer Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2001 06:43:23 -0900 From: Alex MacGillivray <sockeye at kpunet.net> Subject: American ale I'm trying to come up with an idea on an American ale. I've never really made one before and I'm wondering if I can get some feedback from you with this idea for a 15 gallon batch. 22 pounds 2-row pale malt 6 pounds 40l Crystal 3 pounds cooked rice 1oz Chinook 10% for 60 minutes 1oz Chinook 9.6% for 2 minutes Wyeast American ale 2 Rain water. Hops added after hot break. Full boil for 120 minutes. I'm hoping that the longer boil will help to give it a reddish colour. Thanks in advance, Alex Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2001 10:03:02 -0600 From: " Jim Bermingham" <bermingham at antennaproducts.com> Subject: I Can't Name My Dog Spot No More People are funny, we like to name things. We name our children, our pets, boats, summer homes, my wife has names for all of our cows. The scary part is she can tell you which one is which and there's over 70 of them. People like to name their home breweries too. Since the 15th of this month I have seen the following names in the Digest: Whistle Pig Brewing Company, Smallaxe Brewery, Pizza Port Solana Beach Brewery, Ironhead Nano-Brewery, Edge Ale Brewery, Fuzzy Bear Home Brewery, Ixnae of Blochead Home Brewery and Yellow Breeches Brewery. A few years ago I created a web page and included some pages on my brewery. I named my brewery The JackA$$ Brewery. Most people think I named it that because my wife raises jacka$$es. Not true, I named it that because that's my wife's pet name for me. Hey Jacka$$! You Jacka$$! That Jacka$$! She's always calling me Jacka$$. Ain't Love Grand! Anyway, I created these web pages and joined some beer rings. Yesterday, 22 March I got an e-mail telling me to cease and desist using the name JackA$$ Brewery. This gentleman who sent the e-mail said he was going around the circle of a beer ring and he came across my page. He went on to say he lost two friends in a car accident, one being his brother. After this loss he legally changed his name to Jack A$$. Don't know why, he didn't say, I wonder if he is married and if so did his wife change her name to Jennie A$$? Now this is the truth people I'm not just pulling your leg. Mr. A$$ went on to say he also brews beer and has a registered trademark for his beer: Jack A$$'s Beer, and has a registered trademark for his brewery: Jack A$$'s Brewery. He thought that I was infringing on his trademark and was going to seek legal action if I didn't change my brewery's name. Now I don't know if JackA$$ Brewery is an infringement on Jack A$$'s Brewery or not. Seems to me he is referring to his Buttock's Beer and I to the animal but who knows for sure in this sue happy world. I'm asking two things please send me the names of your home brewery and how much money you have. If you have lots of money I am going to change my brewery's name to yours, register the name, then put a suit on your a$$ for all your money. Mr. A$$ if you're out there lurking you can join in now and tell your side of the story. Jim Bermingham Looking for a name in, Millsap TX. [Janitor's note: Rather than belabor the issue regarding email filtering, I have exchanged the double sibilants above for double dollar signs. Hopefully that will allow the Digest this appears in to pass the filters without interfering with Mr. Bermingham's humorous story...] Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2001 11:07:45 -0500 From: Jeff Renner <nerenner at umich.edu> Subject: Re: What/If to Plant Bob Hall <nap_aca_bh at nwoca.org>, who remembers to include that he's from Napoleon, OH, asks about hops >I'm thinking about using the windmill on my farmstead as a hop trellace. Fun that you should choose the windmill as planting decorative hops on them was an old midwest farm tradition. >1) Which varieties are best suited to the Mid-West climate, eg. hot >summers, cold winters? My Cascade hops grow like weeds. I never fertilize them beyond spent grains during the winter (Dave Sapsis years ago said that fresh (uncomposted) spent grains are too "hot" and will, burn the hops - still true, Dave?). I water them if we have a dry spell, but not very often. I figure they're pretty much on their own. Even the big antlered, hoofed rats we have here don't seem to bother them. >2) What about insects and disease control/resistance? I fought the good >fight but finally turned over the grapes and raspberries to Japanese >beetles. Won't even bother with the hops if JBs are a big problem. Again, I've never had any trouble, but we don't seem to have a problem with JBs in general. >3) Is it best to use one or two rhizomes per hill? Whatever you plant, they'll multiply quickly if they have a happy home. I planted eight around a 18 foot lamp post and have to prune out the extras each spring. Good luck. - -- Jeff Renner in Ann Arbor, Michigan USA, c/o nerenner at umich.edu "One never knows, do one?" Fats Waller, American Musician, 1904-1943 Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2001 11:15:21 -0500 From: "Jay Wirsig" <Jay.Wirsig at can.dupont.com> Subject: Many Q's First of all I would like to thank the many responses to my questions they are appreciated - you can only get so far "book learning". I have several other questions that I would like to pose: 1) Water - my water supply is PH 8, Alkalinity 89 ppm, Ca 36 ppm, Mg 8.2 ppm, Chloride 21.7 ppm, sulphate 30.4 ppm. My practise to date for lagers has been to add 0.5 grams/gallon calcium chloride to increase calcium by an additional 36 ppm, (chloride also goes up by 64 ppm) , the CaCl addition is followed by an addition of citric acid to reduce the PH to 6.0 (measured using an aquarium kit). I do these additions for all of my brewing water. a) Should I be treating all of my water this way? or should I just add CaCl to the mash water only while also acidifying the sparge water? b) The citric acid is suggested in Noonan's Lager book - Is there a different taste than using lactic acid? 2) I posted a question that seems to have stumped the group - I have several varieties of hops growing in my back yard (Cascade, Tettenanger & Nugget). I would like to verify that they are what the nusery said they were particularily the Tettnanger. Does anyone know of a lab service that I can send the tettnanger hops to for confimation. 4) I have a converted keg two tier rims. I used to have a problem with stuck sparges using 1q/lb dilution, It was recommended that I increase this to 3 l/kg and I have not had a problem since. I now have some carry over of grain when I pump to the boiler (2/3 of the time only). I'm considering filtering the mash wort through a grain bag (under the surface to prevent splashing) as it is pumped to the boiler. I'm sure that this must be a common problem with other RIMS, What are others doing to prevent the carry over of grains? Is this something that I should be concerned about? 5) I have two techniques that I tried on my latest brew that worked very well for me so I'll pass along to the collective. I use hop bags to prevent clogging of my kettle drain. I carefully fish out the aroma hop bag and tie it to the end of the kettle spigot in such a way that the cold wort enters the open hop bag and is then filtered through the whole hops in the filter bag and spashes nicely into the fermentation bucket doing some oxygenation in the process. I get a pretty clean wort. The other thing that I tried that a fellow HBDer posted was direct heat on the bottom of the tun for boosting temperature (despite being well insultated my RIMs doesn't have the power to boost temps ver quickly when it is -10C outside). I was very concerned about scorching but once I established the RIMs recirculation at full throttle (March pump) I fired up the 160,000 BTU cajum cooker on very very low throttle. It took a few minutes as my thermocouple is in the mash but It climbed quite nicely 1 deg C per 1.5 min. Despite the fact that grains had made it through the false bottom, there was no scorching. I did not do any stirring. I have read an awful lot about RIMS stuck mashes and I think that many times this can be resolved by increasing dilution rate, many books talk about the desire to have a good thick mash, in my experience "book learning" can sometimes create more problems. 6) My Efficiency has been 85-93 (the results in the 80's had RIMS recirc spills associated with them - dumb stuff don't ask) My late runnings are still 1.010 to 1.012 so I don't think I'm extracting any tannins. Are these efficiencies good? I read a lot of books that base recipes on 90% efficiency is that the average? I tend to use 80% for my planning using a mid gravity to account for any spills etc and dilute in the fermenter if too high or have a higher alc beer. Promash is pretty great by the way if you don't have it or a similar tool and brew often I would strongly suggest it. >>Jay Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2001 08:17:09 -0800 From: "Tomusiak, Mark" <tomusiak at amgen.com> Subject: Amsterdam Beer Bars Greetings all...having spent quite a bit of time over the last several years beer hunting in Amsterdam, I thought I would pass on some recommendations: * Cafe Belgique; tiny pub by Dam square, has six or seven taps including DeKoninck, La Chouffe, usually something from Brouwerij 't Ij, etc.. Love the atmosphere - dark wood and gleaming copper taps. * In de Wildeman; perhaps the most famous of the Amsterdam beer bars. Phenomenal selection. * De Beiaard; with many taps of Dutch and Belgian beers, located on Spui square, great place to have a beer in the glassed-in patio and watch traffic chaos unfold outside. There are many more. My most important suggestion is to proceed immediately to the bottle shop De Bierkoning, near Dam square, and buy a copy of the "Serious Drinker's Guide to Amsterdam" by Hugh Shipman. It's a comprehensive guide to all the best beer bars, and is all you need to spend several days stumbling around town. By the way, Bierkoning has an incredible selection of beer and glassware - you'll be tempted to throw away the contents of your suitcase and replace them with beers. As luck would have it, I'll be there in about two weeks and look forward to trying out a new bar specializing in Dutch beers, 't Arendsnest; check it out at http://www.arendsnest.nl/index.htm. Cheers, Mark Tomusiak Boulder, Colorado Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2001 11:23:59 -0500 From: "Dennis Lewis" <dblewis at lewisdevelopment.com> Subject: RE: Refractometer Calibration > Question 4: How can fiddling with an adjustment screw based on 0% > Brix water correct for temperature in a 12 Brix solution? My refractometer says that is has auto-temp correction--not sure what that means because the quantity of test liquid is so small that it rapidly cools (or warms) to the refractometers temp. I calibrated my refractometer to 10 Brix by using a known solution. I have a scale that is accurate to 0.1g. So I put 10 grams of priming sugar (dextrose) into a cup on the scale, then filled it with warm distilled water to a total of 100 grams. Then stir like hell until it is all dissolved. I figured that this is a better calibration point than 0 Brix (although that is much easier to obtain.) plus I wanted to test the linearity of the refractometer. On a side note, I created a large chart for checking the SG of a fermentation in progress. I used the equations from Louis Bonham and put them in a spreadsheet with OG across the top and apparent SG along the side. The data in the chart are the calculated SG as if you took a hydrometer reading. (By the way, I also had it laminated at the local copy place, just in case.) This way I can sneak a small sample with an eyedropper and test the SG instead of having to pull out an entire hydrometer tube full. Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2001 11:31:28 -0500 From: "Andrew Moore" <abmjunk at hotmail.com> Subject: Commercial Beer Recipes I apologize for asking for something that I know has been recently posted, but I am having trouble accessing the archives. Recently, there have been some questions regarding commercial beer clone recipes. I think someone posted online sources for this information. Could someone resend that to me privately? As a brewing newbie, it would be useful to know what ingredients are used in commercial beers, allowing me to understand the relationship between familiar tastes and specific ingredients. Thanks in advance, Andrew Moore Richmond, Virginia Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2001 14:33:57 -0500 From: Dave Burley <Dave_Burley at compuserve.com> Subject: Refractometers Brewsters: Franks asks questions about his refractive index measurements. Refractive index ( what a refractometer measures by assessing the angle light is bent when passing through a sample solution) is related to temperature, the solvent and its dissolved contents. It is a surrogate measurement for specific gravity. Just as specific gravity is not a perfect measurement of sugar content ( or potential alcohol - the real target) neither is a refractometer the perfect tool for this. The advantage ( or disadvantage) of the refractometer is that is requires a small sample ( no more SG wort sample to drink!) and is quick. The portable refractometer has its real use in the vineyard where it's used to assess the Brix of grapes in the field. It is also useful in brewing, allowing you to follow the dissolved solids as the mash progresses, but SG is still the best measurement for OG in my opinion. Frankly, Frank, I wouldn't worry about this too much as the refractometer responds to other substances which come along with the wort sugar and can have an effect on the refractive index ( which is an explanation of why you need a corrective factor). A similar corrective factor exists buried in the calculation of potential alcohol from specific gravity. I am a little puzzled by your Nd =<1 measurements as many organics ( e.g. alcohol Nd = 1.359) have a refractive index greater than one. I suspect an error in the measurement. Also remember that improper mixing of the wort will produce different SGs and unless your refractometer sample was from exactly the same solution as your SG measurements this could also be a source of error in your calculations of a correction factor. I suspect Louis' 1.04 correction was from a standardized ASBC text and I would use that number as it likely has a long history in many professional brewing labs. I suspect the screw adjustment is a mechanical adjustment and not a temperature correction, so don't worry about the fact that you never have to change it. BTW, I admire your efforts here to understand what's going on. Keep on Brewin' Dave Burley Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2001 16:01:17 -0600 From: Brian Lundeen <blundeen at rrc.mb.ca> Subject: Measuring pH I need to get a better understanding of this whole mash pH thing: 1. What is the desired pH range for the mash? What I currently believe: 5.2-5.5 2. Is that pH measured at room temperature or at mash temperature? What I currently believe: at mash temperature 3. If I have a temperature compensating pH meter, and it reads a sample at mash temperature to be pH 5.2, is it saying: a) This sample is 5.2 at mash temperature b) This sample would read 5.2 if you had allowed it to cool to room temperature What I currently believe: Clueless! Bottom line: When my temperature compensating pH meter is plunged into that hot mash sample, what numbers do I want to see come up on the display? Please help. I have resigned myself to losing sleep over it this weekend, but hopefully when I come in Monday, all will be made clear to me. Thanks, Brian Return to table of contents
Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2001 06:03:13 GMT From: Todd Bissell <bis9170 at home.com> Subject: Fermentation And Cellar Temp Blues I'm the consummate Beginner Homebrewer, with my very first batch fermenting steadily as I type this. While I was at first agonizing over the first 24-36 hours of seemingly little activity, I now have bubbles aplenty. Sounds like good news, right? Well, here's the catch. My "cellar" is my dark closet, with the air-temperature consistently between 72-76 degrees -- which, if I understand it correctly, means the batch itself is even warmer than that. I've read that with such warm temp's, I can probably expect to get a rather nasty batch of fusel alcohol-laced beer in the long run. That probably being the case, would you recommend still letting the batch run it's course and see if it's salvageable, or should I be thinking about tossing it? Of course, I didn't expect to make the perfect Mild Ale the first time, but I do want to learn from this newbie mistake. Any thoughts on what I can do to cool down my closet, or any other reasonable location in a small one-bedroom apartment? Running freon pipes out the back of my `fridge is not an option, but I'd appreciate any other suggestions...! Cheers! T.S. Bissell Return to table of contents
Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2001 00:41:33 -0600 From: Lance Levsen <l.levsen at printwest.com> Subject: Re: Newcastle Clone Questions Hey, Nils. > I'm going to be making the Newcastle's Clone from the Cat's Meow (recipe > below), & I've got some questions. > > Ingredients: > 3.3 lbs British pale malt extract > 3.3 lbs British amber malt extract (or less) > 1 lb turbinado sugar > 8 oz British dark crystal > 4 oz chocolate malt > 4 oz wheat > 2 oz Fuggles at 45 min (or williamette or styrain goldings) > .5 oz Fuggles at 10 min (optional) > Wyeast 1028 London Ale > > 1) Would the extract by liquid or dry, or does it matter? Does liquid > equate to dry at a 1:1 ratio? No. DME is about 1.045 SG for lb/gallon where as liquid is 1.038 SG lb/gal. > 2) Is there a big difference between British & American extract? Depends on the manufacturer, the grain, the malt, the packaging . . . IOW, way too generic a question. I would suggest looking for an extract that uses a british malt as it's base. (pipken, marris otter, something like that.) > 3) Just curious what such small amounts of grain will do? 4 oz seems pretty > small. Is the chocolate is for color? & the crystals for additional > fermentables? What about the wheat? Let's see. Assuming 5 gal (19 l) Northern Brown is supposed to be 12-30 SRM, Southern 20-35 according to AHA. 8 oz dark crystal assume 80 degree Lovibond 4 oz of chocolate at approx 450 degree Lovibond (Note: doesn't take into account the amber extract which will add a bunch of colour too.) SRM(+/-) = crystal(.5 lb x 80) + chocolate(.25lb x 450)/ 5 gal = 152.5/5 = 30.5 SRM (close enough) Seems a little high for a northern but good for a southern. > 5) The recipe says to boil for 60 mins, but to add the Fuggles at 45 min. > What's the 1st 15 min of the boil for if you don't have the hops in it? It's not the first 15 minutes per say, it's just that you'll lose a lot of hop "essence" if you boil beyond the 45 minutes. It's fairly standard in beer to boil for 60 or 90 minutes. The boil does numerous things to your wort, 3 offhand, sanitation, protein coagulation, hop acid extraction. > 6) To my uneducated brewing eye, it seems like this might recipe might be a > bit bland, only 1 lb of specialy grains & optional aroma hops. I'm used to > using 2-3 lbs of specialty grains instead. I'd like to get more flavor out > of the recipe. Any suggestions on what grains I might add & what I'd have > to remove to balance it? What would the affect of the different types of > bittering hops be (fuggles vs williamette vs styrain goldings)? :-) See, this is entirely up to you. I personally would suggest doing the recipe at least three times. Cheers, - -- Lance Levsen, Product Innovation PWGroup - S'toon. Return to table of contents
Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2001 01:43:14 -0800 (PST) From: Drew Beechum <Drew.Beechum at disney.com> Subject: Oak and Soda So there have been some questions about oak and beers on this list for the past few days. Somehow after experimentation I seem to have become a local expert over here. Very few of us could afford a brand new oak barrel (The shop I use sells American Oak for $120 for 5G and French Oak for about $142) Particularly since the barrels require care to avoid the usual self-destruction. So what's an oaking home brewer to do? Most brew shops also cover the wine market and so stock oak chips. These will typically look like pencil shavings made of oak. DON'T use these! They burn your beer with oak. Instead use a variant of home wine/brewing oak called "oak beans." These are actually cubes of barrell staves that have been fired and treated. I'll typically soak these in something for 2 weeks and then dump the beer on them in the secondary at cool temps (~55F) for 3 weeks. This seems to give the beer a nice round oaky profile. Particularly good combo I've done.. a nice bright American IPA aged on bourbon soaked oak beans. Just last week I brewed up that same combo again as well as a smoked porter that will be aged on beans soaked in Sherry and grain alcohol (to boost the sanitation props). (I think these beers will be available at hte AHA Club Night during the conference. BTW, I'm the coordinator for the Club Night anyone from anywhere who's willing to have a booth and serve beers from their club should feel free to contact me.) Good place to check for info on oak beans is the Home Wine Beer Cheesemaking Shop of Woodland Hills, CA. No Aff.. yada yada yada 1-800-559-9922. And lastly... > From: "Abby, Ellen and Alan" <elal at pei.sympatico.ca> > 2. Do not necessarily pour your beer down the side of the glass. A > beer without head can be seen as a a "dead" beer and not worth drinking > - like we might think of flat pop ("soda" for you down south). I know Alan's from Canada, but when you say down south to moi.. you trigger my old memories of home aka the Deep South, where calling a coke, "soda", will just get your butt whupped. I don't care if it's Sprite, Pepsi, Root Beer, etc,... dang nabit, it's a coke. :) - -- Drew Return to table of contents
Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2001 08:53:03 -0600 From: Ralph Link <rlink15 at home.com> Subject: Oxygen supply Hello Collective. Here in Canada we have a chain of Canadian Tire stores. This chain sells everything under the sun including tires. In their most current flyer they advertise a propane, oxygen cutting welding torch. It is a small unit and is being sold for about $55.00 Canadian (plus 14%). Can anyone tell me if the oxygen bottle would be useable to aerate wort in the fermenter. Is the oxygen a food grade? If there is such a thing.Thanks in advance for your input. Return to table of contents
Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2001 10:40:38 -0500 From: "Doug Moyer" <shyzaboy at yahoo.com> Subject: Extract - dry vs. liquid Nils, To take a shot at some of your questions: (1) The stated 3.3 lbs is a common liquid measurement (i.e., one can from many manufacturers). As to the ratio between the two, it is about 4:3 (dme:lme). In other words, if a recipe calls for 3 lbs of dry, use 4 lbs of liquid. (After all, there is still water in the liquid that has been removed from the dry.) >From HopTech's website (http://www.hoptech.com): "Liquid malt extract will make a wort of approximately 1.034 specific gravity per pound of extract per gallon of water. Dried malt extract will yield approximately 1.045 points per pound of extract per gallon of water." This is a general rule. Liquid malt will vary somewhat in the extract do to the manufacturer's process. (2) Regarding the difference in British & American, it depends on the style, of course. And the manufacturer. When I did extract, I always used the lightest possible extract and used specialty grains for all of my flavor. (3) Chocolate malt can have a big impact on the flavor and color. 4 ounces will add a very nice hint of chocolate and a tad bit of roastiness. The wheat will do nothing at such a small level and it has to be mashed or you will have free starch in your beer which can be consumed by bacteria but not yeast. (I.e., don't bother.) The 8 ounces of dark crystal is about the max that I would use. To me, dark crystal is too pronounced in the beer, and it doesn't blend well with the other flavors. It also raises the final gravity more than I like. Keep it at 80 degree Lovibond or less. (4) Use table sugar if you like. I would just use more extract myself. (An aside: as far as I've seen, they don't offer "raw" sugar anymore. It is regular sugar with molasses added.) Heck, you can use dark candy sugar if you want. (5) The initial 15 minutes can allow you to get past the foam-over stage before adding the hops. (Hops, especially pellet hops, make the foam-over period a bit more dramatic.) You don't need 15 minutes for that though. (6) Well of course it looks a bit bland. It is a Newcastle clone. Sheesh. If you want to be able to taste what little flavor it has, do like the silly real ale folks and drink it at 55 deg F with very low carbonation. (My beer has enough flavor that I can drink it at 40 deg F and 2 ~ 2.5 volumes of CO2 and still taste all of the wonderful Munich malt and superb hops!) As to differences in bittering hops, you will still get a bit of flavor from the bittering addition, which is reduced depending on the duration of the boil in which they are subjected. I used Cascades in a dunkelweizen (gasp!) because that was all that was in my freezer at the time. But, I had them in for the entire ninety minute boil. Not even a hint of Cascade flavor in the final brew. Brew on! Doug Moyer Salem, VA Star City Brewers Guild: http://hbd.org/starcity "There is a very fine line between 'hobby' and 'mental illness.'" ~ Dave Barry Return to table of contents
Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2001 07:48:12 -0800 (PST) From: Road Frog <road_frog_run at yahoo.com> Subject: Graham's Disapearance Well I'm as sad as anyone with Graham's disappearance. I think there can only be 3 possible explanations. 1) SWMBO, to dreadful to even think of. 2) A salty, head hunting cod, or genital sucking frog. If one of these, at least it was fairly quick. 3) The "Keyboard of the South" has taken all the piss out of him. So next time you tip one up, say a toast to Graham and tip one up in his honor! WTIC, Glyn in TN, with hop shoots up 8"! Wait a minute did Dr. Pivo disappear at the same time? ===== "Everytime that I look in the mirror, All these lines in my face getting clearer." Aerosmith Return to table of contents
Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2001 11:01:45 -0500 From: Dave Burley <Dave_Burley at compuserve.com> Subject: Barrels and oakey doakey beer Brewsters: Jeff's comment about the barrel flavor (I call it a carpenter's floor flavor) overwhelming his first barrelling. and all this discussion on barrels makes we want to comment about barrels in brewing and how to handle the barrel - after a little barrel-in-brewing-history, according to DRB. The instability of alcoholic beverages in barrels has led to the development of various new products to overcome this problem or to make use of it depending on how you look at it. It has driven packaging engineers ( I don't hold with the geek engineering motto "if you can't hack it, pack it" BTW ) to develop greater products. First, let me say that as far as I know, at least in the early part of last century and likely before that, beer was stored and shipped in kegs ( barrels) which had the interior coated with pitch. Hot, molten pitch was applied to the barrel interior, cooled and beer was injected. This allowed the beer to get into and out of the barrel in a relatively uninfected state. Upon return, the barrel was steam cleaned, pitch drained and then repitched and reused. Why go to all this trouble with pitch? To make a barrel which didn't affect the flavor of the beer, as pure wood would and especially infected wood would. Boy, were they glad to get aluminum and SS kegs. Hmmm I wonder how the pitch affected the beer flavor? Was there a Retsina ( pine pitch flavored Greek wine - how the Greeks solved their amphora packaging problem 4000 years ago) equivalent for beer? Now, I know all you romantics who imagine that beer was oaked just like wine are going "Ohhh!!, but the story is so nice" I also know that there is a CAMRA group ( "beer from the wood") who routinely proposes the use of plain barrels. I think it is a lot of baloney in the absence of facts which prove a raw barrel was used to hold fresh beer for more than the shortest term consumption. Not that in the early days it wasn't done, but that was when consumption of a barrel of beer took place in a few days from the time of fermentation and before infection imparted too strong a flavor. A few days in a large barrel likely did not oak flavor the beer at all when you consider the volume/surface ratio of a 30 or 50 gallon barrel. Apart from raising the alcohol content as in Russian Imperial Stout and hop content in India Pale Ale, reducing infection for longer term storage and transportation required an innovation such as coating the inside of the barrel with pitch to gain some sort of stability for shipping further than the pub down the road ( which was the only case in early days). Note that aging of beer in unlined oak casks did take place for up to a year but to produce "Stale" beer which was infected by the barrel on purpose to produce a lactic acid flavor used in blending the original porter style. Point is, putting your beer in a wooden cask and expecting all sorts of wonderful oakey flavors likely won't happen ( and didn't happen in the good old, bad old days either, I contend) at least more than once. Infection will set in and you will be well on your way to producing p-Lamic after p-Lambic, since the barrel represents a wonderful source of infection - or beneficial organisms depending on your point of view. This barrel, once infected, can never be dis-infected ( too many nooks and crannies) and I suspect it comes already fully contaminated, when you consider the source. Fact is, wine is higher in alcohol and organisms, which would spoil beer in a cask, may also spoil wine, but just more slowly, depending on alcohol content, temperature, etc., during the time of consumption. Bottles were invented because barrels were not even a good long term storage area for wines ( let alone beers) without a lot of attention. Most wines shipped in barrels to Britain from areas other than France spoiled and led to the development of Sherry and Port with their higher alcohol content when Britain and France were at war and French wines were cut off from the Brits. So what to do if you want an oak flavored beer, anyway? 1) Buy some lightly toasted oak chips from your wine hobby store, pressure cook them at 15 psig dry in a bowl suspended above the water for 15 minutes to kill all sorts of infective organisms and treat your next beer with 4 to 8 ounces of chips per 5 gallons in a cheesecloth bag weighed down with marbles. Investment is low. Risk is low. Chances of success is high. Try it, you may like it. Let your friends believe you have a cellar full of beer laden oak caks waiting to be sampled some day. 2) If you insist on trying an oak cask ( I suggest 5 gallons) and don't want that carpenter's floor flavor, get a lightly toasted oak cask, soak it with a cup of washing soda ( sodium carbonate) in a barrel full of water for 1/2 hour, rinse with citric acid solution, rinse with water and soak it in acidified metabisulfite solution until the dripping stops ( maybe a week). BTW never allow the bottom stave to support any weight or the barrel will permanenty leak. Build a cradle for the cask supporting it from the lower staves and resting on the bands. Never use bleach or any chlorine containing sterilant or you will spoil the barrel. Rinse with very hot water and put in your beer. Leave it there, tasting and topping it up with fresh beer until you get the right flavor. Remember that the oak flavor will dissipate with time , so over oak if you plan to bottle it. Rack and bottle, clean the barrel with hot water. Unless you put a new beer in the cask, store the cask filled with acid metabisulfite and top it up with concentrated metabisulfite from time to time, like once a month. Mmm Mmm Mmm, the thought of an oakey, amber and cream bitter. Ahhh. Well, we can pretend it is the way it used to be can't we? And maybe it was, sometimes? Keep on Brewin' Dave Burley Return to table of contents
Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2001 09:59:57 -0600 From: "John Campbell" <johncampbell at home.com> Subject: my oak barrel story My experience with oak barrels has been good, but I do not use new barrels as I find the cost prohibitive. I get my barrels from a whiskey distillery for $55.00 US for a 55 gallon barrel. For folks that have no distillery near them, they can contact one about getting some barrels shipped. Even with shipping, it is bound to be cheaper than a new barrel. This particular distillery regularly ships large quantities of these barrels overseas at a cost of $45.00 US, per barrel as the customers buy a large number of barrels.The distillery stores their whisky at 120 proof for four year minimum. With this level of alcohol, I did not concern myself with the idea that there may have been any micro organisms alive that would require me to clean or treat the barrel with anything other than water. I get the barrel and soak it with water overnight to leach some of the whiskey from the barrel. (If you want to make the effort, you could probably put a gallon of water in the barrel and roll it around in the sun for a day or two and come away with something that tastes quite like aged whiskey, but I haven't tried this) My last project was a barrel of Cyser. The end result was so tasty, that in six weeks time, passing out two ounce samples, we consumed 26 gallons of the nectar. (Next year there will be two barrels, one for cider, one for cyser) Any way, the next project is to fill this same barrel with a Chimay Grand Reserve clone. I will let you know how it turns out. I find that using a used barrel, you get a good oak flavor with out being over powering, and can control the oak taste by frequent tasting. Remember that the oak flavor will mellow and attenuate as the product ages and the flavors will become more blended. I shoot for a little stronger flavor than I would like that is still some what balanced. A truly subjective thing, as any beer judge can attest.. The results so impressed other members of our club that we now have several members that have barrels, and I have dubbed them "The Cult of the Oak Barrel". and fellow Cysermen. Many amateur wine makers use used whiskey barrels for their wine, but I can think of no better use than aging beer and cyser. If I recall correctly, I remember a story here on the hbd about a club that filled two barrels with barley wine, which should be well on its way to being ready to bottle. Should be in the archives. I will let you know when I get the whole "Story of the Cyser Barrel" posted on our web site http://www.musiccitybrewers.com Until then, Keep on brewing and Hail the Brewers! Cyserman Return to table of contents
Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2001 11:52:48 -0500 From: "Joseph Marsh" <josephmarsh62 at hotmail.com> Subject: flamethrowers What with all the hoopla about burners I thought I'd put my two cents in. I've got a Morron turkey fryer that works quite well. I don't know the btu rating since it's not listed on the box but I get 5 gals of water up to 170 in about 15 mins. Last Wednesday I brewed a 5 gal. batch with a 115 min. boil using 2 lbs of propane including cleanup. It helps that I reuse my chiller water for cleanup but the biggest difference in gas usage I've seen comes from using a wind screen. I brew outdoors with a converted 15.5 gal. keg. I have a heat blanket that I use to insulate my mash tun which gets reused as the wind screen around the burner. That and the keg rim keep the heat in contact with the keg longer for more efficiency. Hope this helps, Joe Return to table of contents
Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2001 09:18:34 -0800 From: "Fred Waltman" <himself at FredWaltman.com> Subject: Amsterdam Beer Drinking Steve asks about Amsterdam drinking places: Here are my favorites, mostly within walking distance of Centraal Station: In De Wildeman, Nieuwezijdskolk 5. 18 taps, 150+ bottles, nonsmoking room. The best place to go for good beer in Amsterdam. It is a bit hard to find, being on an alley between Niewendijk and Nieuwezijds Vorburgwahl. I find it by walking up Nieuwenzijds Vorburgwahl from the train station until I see this ghastly out of place modern building, on a little square. There is a Sofitel hotel there and the Cok City Hotel accross the street. Down the alley a little ways is In De Wildeman. Cafe Belgique, Gravenstraat 2. 8 beers on tap, 40+ bottles. Cafe Gollem, Raamsteeg 4. 8 Beers on tap, 200+ in bottles. Very small, but worth the visit. Maximiliaan, Kloveniersburgwal 6-8. Brewpub on the edge of the Red Light district. Brews what we would call "Belgian style"beers. De Beiaard, Spui 30. 16 beers on tap, 20+ in bottles. Nice little bar with lots of taps. They usually have a (sweet) lambic on tap. Selection is not so interesting as in the past. Het Elfde Gebod, Zeedijk 5. Beers on tap 5, in bottles 50+. The name means "The Eleventh Commandment" (which must be "Thou shall drink beer.") 't Loosje, Nieuwmarkt 32-34. Beers on tap: 6; in bottles: 15+. Right down the street from Maximillans on the edge of the Red Light District. 't IJ, A short bus ride from the main station. This is Amsterdam's best microbrewery. The tap room is well worth the visit if you have the time. De Bierkoning. Palaisstraat 125. The best beer store in town. Just about every Dutch and Belgian beer available, with many other European countries represented. There also is a fairly new place at Herrengracht 90 that only serves Dutch beers. The name is something like "t'Arendtsnest" but I'm sure I'm spelling it wrong. I have only been there a couple of times, but had good beers there. Email me if you would like more detailed directions (and Cologne info) Fred Waltman Culver City Home Brewing Supply (Los Angeles Area) fred at Brewsupply.com see: www.StickeWarriors.com/amsterdam.html for this info and a map. Return to table of contents
Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2001 12:11:39 -0800 From: "res0a8pl" <res0a8pl at verizon.net> Subject: flatulence and pitching yeast This thread is interesting, but what I want to know is; if I fart while pitching my yeast will I infect my beer? Bill Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 04:25:36 -0500 From: mchahn at earthlink.net Subject: Sabco Little Squirt Anybody ever use this keg washing device? How did you hook it up? Please email me off-list. TIA. Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 04:32:40 -0500 From: mchahn at earthlink.net Subject: Keg Carbonation Anybody have a quick 'n' easy way to carbonate in kegs (both 1/2 bbl. and 5-gal sankes). Please email me off-list. TIA Return to table of contents
Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2001 18:22:58 -0500 (EST) From: Frank Tutzauer <comfrank at acsu.buffalo.edu> Subject: ProMash and Refractometers Hey, I just wanted to say thanks for Louis' most helpful answer regarding refractometers. Basically, my thinking was correct, but the effects aren't severe enough to worry about. A couple of comments on the discussion so far: First, regarding my brewhouse coefficient of 1.00 based on an average of samples ranging from .95 to 1.15, Louis suggested that the low coefficients, particularly those below .98, sounded flaky, and he suggested thermometer and hydrometer calibration. I haven't actually calibrated my thermometers, but they all read within a degree of each other, so what the hell. The possibility of hydrometer inaccuracy is well taken though. (Of course since these OG readings were taken at the end of a brew session where much homebrew was consumed, perhaps it's not the calibration of the hydrometer that's the problem, but the calibration of the brewer!) I recently measured out various quantities of sugar into water to concoct samples of different gravities, and then checked them against my refractometer and hydrometers. The refractometer measured the sugar concentrations pretty much spot on, but the hydrometers were *way* off. SWMBO's hydrometer (yes, SWMBO has her own hydrometer), measured approximately 5 points higher than it should have on all samples. My hydrometer was very accurate for low gravities, but became increasingly inaccurate as the gravity of the sample went up. When measuring a 1.045 sample, for example, I was reading 4 points low, by 1.075 it was 8 points low, and on a 1.100 sample the hydrometer read a whopping 11 points low. Now, I have been using this hydrometer for nearly 10 years, and getting along fine, but if I go back and check my logs watcha wanna bet I get higher efficiencies than expected on low gravity brews and worse efficiencies for high gravity brews. For the data I cited the other day, I used hydrometer readings corrected on the basis of my sugar water experiment. If I recompute using the uncorrected figures, I get brewhouse coefficients that are completely unrealistic--1.26, for example. I plan on trying all of this again after I buy the Williams' Brewing lab hydrometer. In terms of refractometer corrections depending on both temperature and gravity, I was right in principle, but the effect is small. Looking more closely at my correction chart, I see that in normal brewing gravities, if one ignores gravity and adjusts for temperature only, then it makes no difference most of the time, so I'll use the chart if I've got it in front of me and the adjustment screw if I don't. Once again, thanks for the thoughts, and Jeffrey I'll send in some numbers for the data collection effort once I've gotten my new hydrometer. --frank Return to table of contents
Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2001 23:56:49 -0000 From: "Wilf Phoenix" <wilf.phoenix at btinternet.com> Subject: HOMEBREWERS IN UK Enjoy reading problems and practices - in the digest -from all over the "civilised" BEER BREWING WORLD but not many from England why not? - WILF PHOENIX - MANCHESTER UK Return to table of contents
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