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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
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Contents:
  malt shelf life ("Peter Fantasia")
  re: 3 questions ("Peter Fantasia")
  Lambic Pitching Schedules (Gary M Chumney)
  Re low efficiency ("Peter Fantasia")
  mash efficiency (Jeff & Ellen)
  wort priming ("Dr. Pivo")
  Correction Factors for Water Treatment ("Pete Calinski")
  Using Lemon (Chuck Doucette)


* 
* 2001 AHA NHC - 2001: A Beer Odyssey, Los Angeles, CA
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Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2001 09:33:47 -0400
From: "Peter Fantasia" <fantasiapeter at hotmail.com>
Subject: malt shelf life

Mike, go ahead and use it if it tastes good. Most things I've read say malt
has a shelf life of at lest a year if stored dry and cool.

Cheers,
Pete Fantasia


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Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2001 09:46:17 -0400
From: "Peter Fantasia" <fantasiapeter at hotmail.com>
Subject: re: 3 questions

Jens,
Regarding this film in bottles, I've had this from home cultured belgian
yeast. Let the bottle sit with a Tablespoon of bleach per bottle overnight.
This will do it.

Regarding lager characteristics at ale temps. The German settlers that moved
west to California had a similar problem try wyeast california lager 2112.
It ferments well at higher temps. I've made Oktoberfest with it that was
fantastic.

Regarding freezing yeast. I never liked the idea of adding glycerol to my
wort but I read an article in Zymurgy years ago about freezing yeast. You
use three eighths cup cane sugar to one cup of water and boil 15 min. add
this to equal part of yeast slurry and freeze. My "yeastsicles" last at
least a year or more.
Regards from New "Joisey"
Pete Fantasia


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Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2001 09:36:50 -0400
From: Gary M Chumney <garychumney at juno.com>
Subject: Lambic Pitching Schedules

Lambic Pitching Schedule

To answer your question I had to find the copy of BREW YOUR OWN; July
1997, Vol.3 No. 7 pg. 49.   Let the Chico ale yeast work for two weeks.  
Then pitch the Brettanomyces let that work for two weeks then pitch the
pediococcus and let it work for two weeks before bottling.  All the other
information that I have and the way I have produced Lambic style beers is
to use a culture from the bottles or the mixed Lambic blend.

Also, Used to check on this in a hurry were BREW YOUR OWN; November 2000,
Vol.6, No. 9
Lambic; By Jean-Xavier Guinard, Classic Beer Style Series No. 3,
Copyrighrt 1990

I checked several references in my brewing library, but these seemed to
be the ones that you have the most information relevant to your question.

>Subject: Lambic Pitching Schedules

>Thanks to all those who pointed out that Wyeast sell four separate
cultures 
>for Lambic. Now: what are the experiences in pitching what bug at what
point?

>Keith

>Keith Busby
>Professor of French
>University of Wisconsin-Madison
>Department of French and Italian
>618 Van Hise Hall
>Madison, WI 53706

>(608) 262-3941
>(608) 265-3892 (fax)

Gary Chumney

 -


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Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2001 09:59:20 -0400
From: "Peter Fantasia" <fantasiapeter at hotmail.com>
Subject: Re low efficiency

I always collect 13 gal for an 11 gal batch. I have very acid water here in
the Pine Barrens so I don't worry about oversparging. Also make sure your
grain is crushed enough. You can increase your efficiency dramatically with
a finer grind. Of course too fine will lead to a stuck runoff. Check with
iodine for starch conversion.
Pete


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Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2001 13:17:52 -0400
From: Jeff & Ellen <JeffNGladish at ij.net>
Subject: mash efficiency

In response to Jeffrey Senn and Hop-head, who are having low mash 
efficiency problems, the two best steps I made to improve my mash were 1: 
 buy my own grain mill  and 2:  add acidulated malt to the grain bill.

Unless you have control over crushing the grains, you'll never be able to 
get peak efficiency.

I add about 4 ounces of Wyerman acidulated malt to a 18 pounds of grain in 
the mash of a 10 gallon batch and it lowers the pH to the point that I no 
longer do any other rests than those in the 145 to 158 F range.  It's 
amazing how well this works.

I also tend to spend a lot of time recirculating the mash before I start 
sparging and I sparge rather slowly.  This combined process sometimes takes 
an hour and a half.  Raising the mash temp to 168 or so will also help 
sparge efficiency, if you can do this.  If using a cooler for a mash tun, 
you could add boiling water or do a mini-decoction to raise the temp.

'Hope this helps.

Jeff Gladish, Tampa, Fl



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Date: Sun, 17 Jun 2001 14:52:57 +0200
From: "Dr. Pivo" <dp at pivo.w.se>
Subject: wort priming

I seem to be getting an unusual pile of mail lately.

All of it kind, and much of it helpful (especially on the winemaking
stuff).

Amongst this, has come a whole HEAP of questions.  The ones that are
repeated I thought I would answer publicly.

One is about wort primng, what it is, and if there is advantages over
using corn sugar or table sugar.

As to the last part, I suppose each will have to decide for
themselves.... but I like it.

A simple reasoning, is that I make wort that my yeast seem to enjoy....
I've never had a stuck ferment, and I like my beer, so it must have
"everything they need" in it.

I might mention that I make protein "fat" worts (use malt with a
Kohlback between 38-41, and am not unknown to boost that with some raw
barley), and I definately let them have all the cold break to work with
too.

Since I am already making something that seems to be the "complete" meal
for yeast, I can't see  why I should "tease" them with some simple
sugars, and leave out the other good stuff.

I simply sanitise a container ( I like used 2 litre plastic ice-cream
cartons) and fill it with some of the wort that I'm feeding into the
fermenter straight out of the cooler, and then go pop that plastic box
with snap on lid in the freezer.

At a later date, when I might want to make a starter, or make a
"krauzen", or prime something, I pull one back out of the freezer.  If I
plan ahead (rarely) I put it on the kitchen table the day before I need
it, if I'm behind on my planning, I stick it in the micro and thaw it.

After a while, you'll "know" how much you need for a certain job,  but
if you're first trying this, here is a "ball park" way to convert from
"dry" measurements.

When you've got your wort and yeast mixed up, pour a bit into a
hydrometer, and let this park itself in your kitchen as well.  At room
temps it should rip through the fermentation pretty fast and tell you
where your beer is going to end up ( it can also give you some clues
about "adjustments" you might want to do to the "real ferment).

Take your starting gravity and subtract your finishing gravity (this is
what is called the "gravity drop"), and divide this number by four.

That should tell you how much fermentable stuff you've got in your wort.

For example, the hydrometer in your kitchen started at 1050 and finished
at 1010. That's a drop of 40, divided by 4 that would be ten.

That m,eans the "wort cicle" you put in the freezer is equivalent to
being 10 percent by weight of glucose... or each liter is 100 grams of
usable stuff (If you are locked into "cups", "ounces", "quarts" and
other ice age remnants, you'll just have to do some converting.... or
wake up to a new age).

So if you've got 2 literes of the stuff frozen, that would be the same
as weighing up 200 gms of "corn sugar" (well maybe not EXACTLY, but
close enough for beer making).

As I mentioned, you do this enough times, you'll know what kind of worts
you make and how much you need for a specific task, and can skip the
math and the hydrometer in the kitchen.

This all may seem overly simple to those who already know it, but I seem
to have gotten enough questions, that apparently not everyone does......
and I can't see why people should need to go out and buy an inferior
product for yeast nutrition (simple sugars of any sort) when they are
already making a much better one all the time.

You "might" just turn out making better beers as well.

Dr. Pivo



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Date: Sun, 17 Jun 2001 19:56:09 -0400
From: "Pete Calinski" <pjcalinski at adelphia.net>
Subject: Correction Factors for Water Treatment

A few weeks ago, I raised the concern about some of the salts we use to
treat our brewing water because they can combine with water from the air.
This water can increase the weight of the substance which results in an
error in the water treatment.  It seems that my concern WAS warranted.  In
some cases, the effect can result in the addition of less than half the
quantity of the salt that is needed.

This effects those of us that estimate the quantity of various ions needed
to transform a given water into a desired water.  It is of no concern to
those that "just adds a teaspoon of gypsum" to brew the beer they like.


The correction factors for each of the common salts are as follows.

Gypsum             1.26
Epsom Salts        2.05
Canning Salt       1.00
Baking Soda        1.00
Calcium Chloride   1.32 to 1.97 and higher
Chalk              1.00

This means that, if you use a program such as Brewwater or ProMash to
compute the amount of the above salts to add, you need to increase the
weight resulting from that computation by the factor above.  For example, if
you need 5 grams of MgSO4, you need to add (5 x 2.05) 10.25 grams of Epsom
Salts.


The method I used to derive these correction factors can be found at:

http://hbd.org/pcalinsk/Correction.htm









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Date: Sun, 17 Jun 2001 18:46:23 -0700 (PDT)
From: Chuck Doucette <cdoucette61 at yahoo.com>
Subject: Using Lemon

Hello,

I'm very new to the craft of Homebrewing (2 months and
going onto my third batch of brew) and have a question
about the use of Lemon or Orange in a recipe. The
question is this: How much do I use for a five gallon
batch and do I use the fruit itself, or should I use
the peel? I have not been able to find anything that
answers the quantity question, though I have seen
reference to the use of Orange peel. Please be gentle
with me since, as I said, I am very new to this.

Thanks.

Chuck Doucette
O'Fallon, IL. (Near St. Louis, MO.)



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