HOMEBREW Digest #433 Wed 06 June 1990

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


Contents:
  Colorado Brewpubs (Richard Stern)
  Colorado Springs Homebrew Shops (Rick Myers)
  Red Star (Norm Hardy)
  Infection (Martin A. Lodahl)
  Phenol in mead, Norwich brewery info (BRWJ)
  foxx bottle filler (Marty Albini)
  Re: Homebrew Digest #432 (June 05, 1990)  (jrb)
  beer babble suppression (cckweiss)
  RE: Homebrew Digest #432 (June 05, 1990)  ("Dave Resch DTN:523-2780")
  Help - inefficient sparge (Brian Glendenning)
  Jay Hersh's comments about cider technique (florianb)
  Barleywine Questions and Misc. (John Post)
  Precision Scales (John Polstra)

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---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 5 Jun 90 08:23:33 mdt From: Richard Stern <rstern at hpcslb1.col.hp.com> Subject: Colorado Brewpubs Full-Name: Richard Stern There is a fairly new brewpub in Breckenridge called (surprise, surprise) the 'Breckenridge Brewery and Pub'. It's on Main street in Breck. Nice place. I thought the beers were far better than Wynkoops, but I haven't been to Wynkoops in over a year (and I've heard the beer has improved). A friend tells me that the brewmaster used to be a brewer at one of the Strohs, so he has alot of experience brewing large batches consistantly. As for Major Kelly brewing at the Antlers in Colo Spgs: I wouldn't hold my breath expecting good beer. He's just a homebrewer, and I wasn't very impressed with his homebrew last time I tasted it. Richard Stern Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 5 Jun 90 8:42:31 MDT From: Rick Myers <cos.hp.com!hpctdpe!rcm at hp-lsd> Subject: Colorado Springs Homebrew Shops Full-Name: Rick Myers In Digest #432 Peter Klauser says he has to mail order all his homebrew supplies, since he lives in Colorado Springs, plus he doesn't like the restaurants, etc. and the general 'culture'. Oh well, he can always move. But seriously, C. Springs has three, yes, count 'em, three homebrew shops. The oldest shop is town is Mayjor Kelley. An older couple also have a shop they run out of a spare bedroom (Stoppel), and the newest shop is located in Surplus City (run independently of Surplus City). I do most all my homebrew shopping at Surplus City, as Vivian, who runs it, is very knowledgeable, and is willing to special order anything unusual I need at a reasonable price. I rarely find the need to use mail order - besides, most mail order houses are so far away, the shipping brings the price back up to what it is here in town. - -- Disclaimer: I have no interest in any of the HB shops in town, I only brew here. *===========================================================================* Rick Myers Hewlett-Packard Colorado Telecommunications Division 5070 Centennial Blvd. Colorado Springs, CO 80919 (719) 531-4416 INTERNET: rcm at hpctdpe.hp.com *===========================================================================* Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 1 Jun 90 19:48:55 PDT From: hplabs!polstra!norm (Norm Hardy) Subject: Red Star I recall reading somewhere that all dry yeasts seem to act more like ale yeasts than lager yeasts, that is, even though some are labeled as lager, they don't perform well below 55f. Red Star lager yeast seems much better than it's ale counterpart. Hey, when I started brewing 5 years ago (wow, how time flies!!), the local homebrew shop even then recommended against Red Start ale yeast, and steered me towards Edme or Munton-Fison. Question, does anybody use yeast nutrients in the boil to give the yeast a helping hand before pitching? Seems to work great for me. Norm Return to table of contents
Date: Mon, 4 Jun 90 13:28:18 PDT From: Martin A. Lodahl <hplabs!pbmoss!mal> Subject: Infection Yesterday I was over at a friend's house admiring his latest batch of Pilsner, and he mentioned that he was planning to bottle that evening (why does bottling always seem less of a big deal to others, than to me?) because the batch of brown ale he had in the secondary was beginning to look "weird". It had looked like fermentation was over, but then, when the weather suddenly warmed up, it developed a very thin layer of a greenish foam on the surface, marked by a couple of BIG bubbles (appx. 10 cm across!) that had stood several days without breaking or changing! My first thought was that it's some form of wild yeast. I've certainly never seen anything like it. Does anyone know what this is? I'll report on the flavor of the beer, when I get back from vacation. - Martin = Martin A. Lodahl Pac*Bell Minicomputer Operations Support Staff = = pacbell!pbmoss!mal -or- mal at pbmoss.Pacbell.COM 916.972.4821 = = If it's good for ancient Druids, runnin' nekkid through the wuids, = = Drinkin' strange fermented fluids, it's good enough for me! 8-) = Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 5 Jun 90 10:58 EDT From: BRWJ%VAX5.CIT.CORNELL.EDU at CORNELLC.cit.cornell.edu Subject: Phenol in mead, Norwich brewery info Way back in December I brewed a mead from approximately 12 pounds of local (Ithaca, NY) honey according to Papazian's recipe for still mead ("Chief Niwok's" or something like that in Zymurgy about a year ago). I combined the honey with 2 gals of water, added heat to raise the temperature to about 200 degrees and maintained that temp for an hour or two (I don't have my notes here). I then combined this with enough cold, pre-boiled water to make 5 gals. I believe the only other ingredients besides honey and water were acid blend, yeast nutrient, and Red Star Pasteur Champagne yeast. I transfered to the secondary after about a month of primary fermentation and bottled after 6 months. Here's my problem. At both transfer and bottling time I noticed a pronounced odor and flavor of phenol in the mead. When I work with phenol in the lab, it's done under a hood -- the fumes are considered detrimental. Yet when I look at the ingredients for cough drops, I see phenol listed. So what gives? More importantly, will this taste and odor of phenol dissipate with age in my mead, or should I free up some bottles this weekend? I have not had this problem before with mead, although I have had the harshness and dry character others have mentioned when using Red Star Pasteur Champagne yeast. The harshness takes about a year in the bottle to disappear. I should mention that the other meads I've produced all contained 9 pounds or less of honey in a five gallon batch. Are the phenolic by-products a result of fermentation to a higher alcohol level? On a happier note, I will be spending two weeks in Norwich, England in July and would accept any advice on local pubs/breweries to visit in the area or on the way back to London. Is there a standard reference to British real ales and where can I get it? Thanks in advance! Jackie Brown BRWJ at CRNLVAX5.BITNET Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 5 Jun 90 8:50:08 PDT From: Marty Albini <martya at hpsdl39.sdd.hp.com> Subject: foxx bottle filler To whoever (Doug?) who posted a warning to pressure-test the Foxx bottle filler before use: a hearty thank you. You have saved me much unpleasantness, kitchen cleaning, and alimony. Perhaps you can do me a further service. Could anybody who has used this fine device comment on appropriate pressures to operate the thing at? For those of you hopelessly confused by the above, I'll explain. Foxx Equipment sells a bottle filling kit which lets you bulk-carbonate in a soda keg, and fill bottles without foam. It uses counterpressure from your CO2 tank to keep the gas in solution, and has a bleed valve to let you control bottle filling. It's made of standard pipe fittings and valves, and looks like somebody made it in their garage. You could probably duplicate it for less than the purchase price, but that pretty reasonable (~$17, I think). You need a bunch of hoses to hook it up, and they sell a kit which is, unfortunately, incomplete. There are no keg conectors, and if you hook it up to your CO2 tank, you lose the regular pressure line for your keg. My solution involves tee fittings and quick-disconnects, and is pretty easy to figure out, but don't expect to use it out of the box. It also leaks from every joint, until you tighten them up. The valves are have itty-bitty metal handles, the kind that cut your fingers and are hard to turn. Again, easy to fix (just cut some tubing to sleave the valve handle) but annoying. I also had to shorten the filler tube to get it to fit a Heineken bottle. As you can see from the above questions, the instructions included with it are incomplete. On the whole, though, this promises to make priming sugar a thing of the past. My fridge is too small for my 5 gal kegs, and 3 gals are impossible to find used, so I'd have to pay ~$55 to get my brew cold. From now on, my room-temperature brews will be on tap, and the rest go into bottles. - -- ________________________________________________Marty Albini___________ "The above opinions were generated by a trained professional. Do not attempt to duplicate these thought processes at home." phone : (619) 592-4177 UUCP : {hplabs|nosc|hpfcla|ucsd}!hp-sdd!martya Internet : martya at sdd.hp.com (or at nosc.mil, at ucsd.edu) CSNET : martya%hp-sdd at hplabs.csnet US mail : Hewlett-Packard Co., 16399 W. Bernardo Drive, San Diego CA 92127-1899 USA Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 05 Jun 90 10:30:33 PDT From: jrb at cs.pdx.edu Subject: Re: Homebrew Digest #432 (June 05, 1990) Please re-route homebrew digest for James Binkley jrb at zymurgy.wv.tek.com to jrb at jove.cs.pdx.edu thanks Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 5 Jun 90 09:54:35 -0700 From: cckweiss at castor.ucdavis.edu Subject: beer babble suppression As Roseanne Rosanadana might say, A Mr. Jay Hersch of of Compuserve New Jersey writes in to say... > I have been very patient with this but after reading the 100th page > of scores and banter from J. Melby et al regarding the results of > his various tastings I must protest. While I tend to agree with Jay as regards my interest in Mr. Mellby's postings, I'm opposed to censoring the material. I've probably posted my share of items that were not directly related to Q&A on the mechanics of brewing beer. It's the nature of an open forum that some material will be seen as irrelevant by some readers. I can't say I'd miss the Mellby files, but I would very much miss the feeling I have that this Digest is open to general beer related discussion, and not just nuts and bolts informational postings. Besides, I just download the whole Digest to my micro, load up the word processor, and fast forward right through lenghty postings that don't interest me. No fuss, no muss, and no need to protest... BTW, all you Red Star bashers better be right. I'm trying my first batch with a liquid Wyeast culture. If this bag bursts, it's right back to Red Star dry lager yeast and blissful ignorance for me! (Alas, no other dry lager yeasts were available at R&R last Saturday) Also, I'm trying a ginger flavored ale, sort of modeled on the Vagabond Ginger Ale in Papazian's book, except I'm aiming for a drier, more pale ale quality. Any recipe suggestions? My plan is 6 lb. of light extract, 1 lb. of crystal malt, 3 oz. of grated ginger root, 2 oz. of Cascade boiling hops, and I don't know what for finishing. Maybe a nice Cascade tea... I plan to try the Edme dry ale yeast for this one, as Martin Lodahl mentioned that it gave him some *very* dry results. Hmmm, looking at that recipe, it's more like ginger steam beer, isn't it. Oh well. Ken Weiss krweiss at ucdavis.edu cckweiss at castor.ucdavis.edu Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 5 Jun 90 11:53:24 PDT From: "Dave Resch DTN:523-2780" <resch at cookie.enet.dec.com> Subject: RE: Homebrew Digest #432 (June 05, 1990) In Digest #432 Peter Klausler writes: >Brewpubs in Colorado Springs? That's a laugh. There are none. > >No music, theatre, restaurants, vegetarians, or books, either. The major >cultural activities are somewhat more like: > - throwing (partially) empty Coors cans at road signs > - pawnshop browsing > - cutting tops off front-range mountains for strip-mining > - gun fondling > - grafitti > - running red lights (unenforced in the Springs) > - shooting holes in signs which prohibit firearms in Nat'l Forests > - shooting prairie dogs > - blowing up prairie dogs > - littering > - daytime television >Not the most amenable environment for establishing a brewpub, or even a >yuppie fern-bar. (So maybe there's some advantage to the Springs, after all.) WOW, what a flame!!! ...and I thought that I liked living here in Colorado Springs. I won't address Peter's bulleted list because it is inappropriate for this forum; my responses would be as well... Besides, I think Peter's comments show him in the correct light and don't deserve a response! The two comments that I will address, however, relate directly to homebrewing and are blatantly incorrect: > homebrewing is a natural alternative; one must mail-order >supplies and use bottled water, however. There are currently three homebrew supply shops in Colorado Springs: - Stoppel and Associates - Major Kelly's - Surplus City A large variety of equipment, extract brands, whole grains, specialty grains, hops (leaf and pellet) and yeast can be found here... One does NOT have to mail-order supplies. With respect to using bottled water, the Colorado Springs tap water is of very good quality for brewing. I called the Colorado Springs Department of Utilities and got a free detailed water chemistry analysis mailed to me. If anything, the water is too pure, one needs to add certain minerals such as gypsum to get the concetrations of specific ions to the appropriate levels when doing all-grain brewing. The levels of any impurities were extremely low! Dave (Yes, from Colorado Springs!) Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 5 Jun 90 15:23:45 EDT From: Brian Glendenning <brian at radio.astro.utoronto.ca> Subject: Help - inefficient sparge My brewing buddy and myself brewed our second all-grain batch on the weekend. Everything seemed to work OK, but our sparge seemed to be inefficient (again!). We started with 9# Canadian 2-row malt, 1# crystal malt, and 12oz brown sugar but only ended up with an OG of 1.045 (made up to 5 USG). Does anyone have any suggestions? We're using the scheme where we have 2 buckets, one inside the other, with a lot of 1/8" holes drilled in the inner bucket and a drain in the lower bucket. I get the impression from Miller that the grain bed is such an efficient filter that the sparge operation will take more than an hour. In our case the sparge water comes through at such a rate that the sparge is over in 15 or 20 minutes - and that is with the spigot partially closed. Is the problem with the ground grain (the local homebrew shop grinds it and they say they don't have complaints from others)? The water doesn't seem to be running down a crack between the edge of the grain and the buckets edge. Should we just close the spigot off so that the water trickles through? I'm puzzled - any advice will be gratefully received. (What extraction efficiencies do you all get?). Brian - -- Brian Glendenning - Radio astronomy, University of Toronto brian at radio.astro.utoronto.ca utai!radio.astro!brian glendenn at utorphys.bitnet Return to table of contents
Date: 05 Jun 90 12:40:27 PDT (Tue) From: florianb%tekred.cna.tek.com at RELAY.CS.NET Subject: Jay Hersh's comments about cider technique In # 432, Jay tells how he chills the cider to remove yeast, thus eliminating or reducing the dryness. Can you please go into this further? 1 Do you keep it chilled until drinking? If not, 2 Does it resume fermentation after bottling? The reason I ask is that it seems with my cider that it ferments out all the way at room T. Thus one has to be careful with bottling until there is very little sugar left. Thanx to Doug Robers for following up on the wet T-shirt method of temp control.I'm going to try it in my loft also. While Jay's on the subject of irrelevant data, may I say two things? 1 I apologize for the dream sequence. 2 I don't see a need here for discussion of brewpub data. As Jay mentioned, it is a forum for homebrewing, and I can't see much about brewpubs that have to do with homebrewing. Unless there's a point about brewpubs that is relevant to homebrewing, could we please move these discussions to rec.food.drink? A tabloid of such low SNR is where swillpub discussion belongs anyway.\ Florian the complainer. Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 5 Jun 1990 15:42:18 PDT From: post%vaxt.llnl.gov at lll-winken.llnl.gov (John Post) Subject: Barleywine Questions and Misc. This is my first post, so please excuse the formatting... Some comments on recent topics... 1) Red Star yeast is indeed no bueno (IMHO), unless you like that crappy taste. I used a dry yeast last time called IronMaster...Has anyone else tried it? Favorable, or no? 2) What have people done to sucessfully brew all-grain barleywines? Specifically, grain quantities, sparging techniques, and recipes would be appreciated. 3) Has anybody actually built a small brewery as depicted in Bill Owen's book? Does a water heater burner have enough thermal output capacity to heat 12-13 gallons of wort to boil in a relatively short time period? Thanks in advance. It's been great to read the Digest for a couple of months now. Has any thought been given to making it into a regular newsgroup? john - -------------------------------------------------------------------------- | post@ vaxt.llnl.gov |"...It's only MY opinion...Not their's..."| | post@ lis.llnl.gov |"The Most Important Thing Is To Be There' | | | ...Dr. Milton Drandell, Cal Poly SLO | |John Post, Lawrence Livermore| ....I'm Relaxing...I'm Not Worrying.... | |National Labs (415) 423-9981 |.......Just Wish I Had A HomeBrew...... | - -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 5 Jun 90 14:49:42 PDT From: hplabs!polstra!jdp (John Polstra) Subject: Precision Scales Does anybody have any ideas about where to obtain a precise but inexpensive scale? I've recently gotten interested in treating my brewing water with chemicals (gypsum, chalk, etc.) to make it more appropriate for whatever style of beer I happen to be brewing. (Darryl Richman: this was inspired by your recent Zymurgy article, thank you.) I've worked out what I need to add, but the quantities are very small (often less than 0.5 gram of additive per gallon of water). So, to do this right I need a scale with a precision of around a tenth of a gram. (Well, OK, I could make do with precision of one gram.) I have been told that inexpensive triple-beam balance scales are sold for the purpose of measuring small amounts of other, er, chemicals. The local source for such scales was described to me as "Big Nicky," whose place of business is "usually on the corner of First and Pine," and whose business hours are "after dark." (I gather that Big Nicky also sells, er, chemicals that can be measured with such scales.) However, I decided to Just Say No to this idea after hearing that Big Nicky refuses to back up his products with a guarantee of customer satisfaction. Can somebody suggest a different source? By "inexpensive" I suppose I mean "substantially less than the price of a laboratory balance scale." - John Polstra jdp at polstra.uucp Polstra & Co., Inc. practic!polstra!jdp at uunet.uu.net Seattle, Washington USA ...{uunet,sun,pyramid}!practic!polstra!jdp (206) 932-6482 Return to table of contents
End of HOMEBREW Digest #433, 06/06/90 ************************************* -------
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