HOMEBREW Digest #4499 Sun 14 March 2004


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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
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Contents:
  RE: yeast dormant 2 years .. now working again ("David Houseman")
  metastability (Robin Griller)
  Re Regulator and OPD's (Aaron Gates)
  Re: more on hop tea (Jeff Renner)
  link of the week - Saint Patrick (Bob Devine)
  alpha and beta amylase activity temperature dependence ("Fredrik")
  RE: yeast dormant 2 years .. now working again (Bob Hall)
  Hop Oils (James Kerfoot)
  Rescue a lager ("Tom & Dana Karnowski")

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---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 13 Mar 2004 13:34:21 -0500 From: "David Houseman" <david.houseman at verizon.net> Subject: RE: yeast dormant 2 years .. now working again Ryan, I haven't revived a starter after that long but I have used packages of Wyeast that are 5 to 6 years old and kept refrigerated. There may be only a few cells left alive but with a little care in a small starter I do get them going. Also, when I use Wyeast or Yeast Labs yeasts, I do make starters. Doing so doesn't require the entire package so I will same some in sterile, sealable (capped) test tubes. I've started these after several years as well. Just a few mils of wort to start and keep doubling. Dave Houseman Return to table of contents
Date: Sat, 13 Mar 2004 13:54:02 -0500 From: Robin Griller <rgriller at chass.utoronto.ca> Subject: metastability HI all, I think Steve and I mean something different by stable. Steve's looking for metastability, by which I presume he means permanent unchanging stability, which I would say cannot exist when we are talking about living organisms subject to competition, mutation and all the darwinian stuff that goes with them. Needless to say, that wasn't my term or aim! Indeed I do think that the Bateman's example is one that is reasonably stable; certainly stable enough that, if it could be reproduced at home it would be more than stable enough for us. Given that few of us repitch more than a few times, being stable over sixteen brews would be pretty darned stable. If we have a source of two yeasts that can stay stable over four or five brews, we can just go back to the originals after that right? That being said, I agree with Steve that Bateman's probably has much more control over their brewing process than we have over ours. Still, it might mean that our stability is over fewer, but still sufficient numbers of batches to be worthwhile. We'll only find out through practice, actually doing it. I do know that some homebrewers in Britain have used Bateman's yeast (breweries over there are often quite happy to share their yeast with homebrewers), so perhaps we could get a comment or two from someone who has used it as to stability. The Highgate example is, I think, quite real, rather than advertising. In particular, there is a vanilla character to their mild that disappeared in the test batches they did as I recall. Now I'll have to go try to dig up the source.... It seems to me that given that homebrewers don't need to be repitching endless times with the same culture, any more than commercial breweries do, we could, just like commercial breweries once did, find out what happens by brewing and seeing. The breweries that have/had multi-strain yeasts did often apparently achieve stability over time without knowing what they were doing in a scientific sense, but knowing what they were doing in a practical (i.e. practice) sense--that is they had a multistrain yeast develop into the house strain over time, producing relative stability eventually--, so we have some distinct advantages over them. We could for example experiment with blending the Thames Valley yeasts from Wyeast, which are supposed to be used together commercially if the tales are true. Not a bad place to start. I'm game to give it a go if I ever get the chance to brew more than once every two or three months again... Personally, I'm not sure that the idea of fermenting separately and then blending, an admirable and worthwhile experiment in itself, would produce the same results as fermenting together. There's a difference in what gets fermented by which yeast when, etc., in a single ferment than in two separate ferments, isn't there? Robin Return to table of contents
Date: Sat, 13 Mar 2004 10:56:24 -0800 (PST) From: Aaron Gates <aaronlgates at yahoo.com> Subject: Re Regulator and OPD's That OPD deal COULD BE AN ISSUE Alexander.... I will check it out as I just bought that tank a few weeks ago and noticed the Overflow Protection Device.... I will give this a try this weekend(I work 6 day weeks) and will issue a report on any failures/successes on all attempts to get that flow back. It used to be so loud that the neighbors would look over the fence..... sounded like a jet engine... no more! Thanks, Aaron Date: Fri, 12 Mar 2004 13:26:54 -0500 From: "Alexander Pettit" <hippahoratio at hotmail.com> Subject: RE: Gas Regulator Some folks have suggested a cleaning regimen to resolve the issue - good idea. Here's one other thing to look at: If you are working with a newer propane tank with the overfill protection valve, do you usually disconnect your tank from the regulator between uses or leave it connected? If you leave it connected you may have a similar issue to one I had with my gas grill. I was cooking on the grill and after a while realized that it was not as hot as it should be and found that the gas flow appeared to be very restricted uniformly across all burners. Was I out of gas? Nope. I shut everything down, disconnected the regulator, and waited a few minutes. Hooked everything back up and I was good to go. I don't remember the reasoning behind it all, nor why this sometimes happens with tanks that have OPD valves, but I can see sense to it. Return to table of contents
Date: Sat, 13 Mar 2004 14:39:29 -0500 From: Jeff Renner <jeffrenner at comcast.net> Subject: Re: more on hop tea In the last HBD I asked about iso-hop extract. Thanks to Michael Owings and Guy of Los Gatos, CA for each suggesting HopTech https://hoptech.com/index2.html. It looks good for what I want: "This extract contains pure iso-alpha acids, which can be added to beer at any stage (post fermentation is best) to add up to 50% of its bitterness. (Not recommended for bittering your beer entirely since there are secondary benefits from wort boiling with hops.) However, our Iso-Alpha extract is useful for correcting an under-bittered beer and also for training yourself to judge bitterness levels. In the book Using Hops (see page 26) a method is presented where you can use the Iso-Alpha extract to estimate the bitterness level of your beer at home. The Iso-Alpha extract can be added at any stage of brewing, but best utilization will occur if added just prior to bottling or to the serving keg. Simply add 1/8th of a teaspoon to 5 gallons of beer for each single IBU you want. Supplied in a 2 oz bottle with a dispensing cap, enough to add 16 IBUs to 30 gallons of beer. ISOAA $5.95" Jeff - -- Jeff Renner in Ann Arbor, Michigan USA, JeffRenner at comcast.net "One never knows, do one?" Fats Waller, American Musician, 1904-1943 Return to table of contents
Date: Sat, 13 Mar 2004 22:20:26 -0700 From: Bob Devine <bob.devine at worldnet.att.net> Subject: link of the week - Saint Patrick Saint Patrick's day is this week on Wednesday, March 17th, the anniversary of his death in 461. Born in England, he was enslaved in Ireland for several years. After escaping and later becoming a bishop, he returned to Ireland to convert the people to Catholicism. Which of course is why folks in North American drink green beer! Today's Saint Patrick celebrations have as much to do with true religous or historical events as does Mardi Gras in New Orleans. Dying things green somehow got associated with this holiday even including dying the Chicago River green!. So instead of a recipe for green beer, here's an article that purports to tell of a secret ingrediant in Guinness (it might be something other than the oft-discussed aspect of sourness or brett): http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml? type=topNews&storyID=466884&section=news Bob Devine still in Santa Fe for a couple more weeks... Return to table of contents
Date: Sun, 14 Mar 2004 11:25:33 +0100 From: "Fredrik" <carlsbergerensis at hotmail.com> Subject: alpha and beta amylase activity temperature dependence Hello, (2nd attempt. got complaints on non-ascii characters? strange) I am trying to optimize my AG methods, so far I've done PG. I was curious if anyone has any info, graphs or something just to estimate the general form of the amylases temperature dependence. I know Steve Alexander wrote very nice posts long time ago about enzyme kinetics talking about the first order kinetics of destruction of enzymes as well as the kinetics in starch breakdown. But there would also be a temperature dependance as to their optimum catalytic activity that is needed for a full modelling. I haven't found any info on this. I wonder what kind of mathematical shape one could assume around the peak optimum? Would some standard distribution like for example Activity(T) = Peak_activity * exp( -k * (T-T_opt)*(T-T_opt) ) be a fair assumption? where T_opt = optimum temp I was hoping someone has a link to some table or graph over amylase activities vs temperature. Then I could extrapolate do the an estimate. Any info is appreciated. /Fredrik Return to table of contents
Date: Sun, 14 Mar 2004 10:31:21 -0500 From: Bob Hall <rallenhall at henry-net.com> Subject: RE: yeast dormant 2 years .. now working again Ryan Furstenau commented on reviving two year old yeast. While cleaning the fridge this winter I came across a smack pack of Wyeast 1007 that had been given to me by a local brew shop after it had expired. That was some time ago, as the expiration date was 9/01. I smacked it and let it lay on the counter for a week or so. No activity, so I tossed it in the trash. A week or so later I emptied the trash and found this balloon of a swollen pack in the bottom of the trash can. I didn't have the nerve to use it, but there obviously enough viable yeasties (and/or other critters) to munch on the nutrient solution several years after expiration. Bob Hall Napoleon, OH Return to table of contents
Date: Sun, 14 Mar 2004 10:28:30 -0600 From: James Kerfoot <jkerfoot at pressenter.com> Subject: Hop Oils Grape and Granary lists 4 flavor and one isomerized hop oils in their 2003 catalog. Might be what Jeff and Domenick were referring to? Return to table of contents
Date: Sun, 14 Mar 2004 21:23:24 -0500 From: "Tom & Dana Karnowski" <karnowsk at esper.com> Subject: Rescue a lager I put a couple of fermenters in the cold-storage unit yesterday for long-term lagering. But I took them out when I realized I was cooling them too fast. They went from about 60 F (diacetyl rest) to 40F in the course of a single day. So I took them out and I am letting them sit at about 60F for a few days. Then I'm going to cool them maybe 5 degrees/day down to 40 F as Al Korzonas suggests in "Homebrewing Vol. I". I would like feedback on this rescue effort. I think the fear of cooling too fast is that it will shock the yeast, but does anyone think my rescue will work? Should I pitch fresh yeast too? How can I tell if the yeast is still working or not? I used White Labs 830 and it was kind of sulfuric during the starter stage but I figured that was a characteristic of the yeast and time will remove it. thanks! Tom Karnowski Knoxville TN Return to table of contents
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