HOMEBREW Digest #4735 Thu 10 March 2005


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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
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Contents:
  Not Oxygenating Wort ("Christian Layke")
  Re: Where is everybody? And a wort oxygenation question... (Robert Jones)
  Night of the Living Ales ("Greg R")
  AHA National Homebrew Competition ("Gary Glass")
  rice and hops ("Janie Curry")

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---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 09:22:37 -0500 From: "Christian Layke" <clayke at wri.org> Subject: Not Oxygenating Wort Dave Burley states: >A better place to build strong yeast is in a stirred starter ( see HBD >archives) with a cotton wool or foam plug ( to let air in but keep bacteria >and wild yeast out) and then when the starter is fermented out throw away >this "beer" by decantation, rinse the yeast with sterile water if you want to >and pitch the pure yeast. This will give a lot of oxygen exposure to the >growing yeast so they will have good cell walls, yet avoid spoiling your beer. I started to use a stir plate recently and have been impressed by the shortened lag times and vigorous fermentation. As a result, I've wondered if it is still necessary to oxygenate the wort, especially for lower-gravity beers. This curiosity has been heightened by references I've read that state that the Belgian and hefeweizen esters I prize are improved if the yeasts do their thing in a low-oxygen wort. On the other hand, commercial breweries must oxygenate their worts in order to keep the yeast healthy for re-pitching. How do they avoid the staling reactions? Dave, can you tell us more about your procedure? How many ml starter do you deem necessary per 5 gallons of 1.050 wort? And do you provide supplemental oxygenation for a barleywine or other high-gravity brew? Thanks, Christian Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 06:36:33 -0800 From: Robert Jones <robert.jones.web at comcast.net> Subject: Re: Where is everybody? And a wort oxygenation question... Dan Stedman asks if there is a consensus on wort aeration upon pitching vs. waiting 12-24 hours. The short answer is that I aerate at pitching time. Yes, maybe your wort had lower than 8-15ppm O2, so the yeast need more, but I just think as a practical matter, aeration at pitching time works, provided you're not using O2 starved yeast from a previous batch. At 12 hours, my beer is actively fermenting, evolving CO2, and scrubbing any remaining O2 out of there. I question how much O2 I'd be able to get back in there using air. If you want to go the bottled O2 route, then try it. I just don't think it's worth the trouble. Also, I wouldn't worry about introducing bacteria through the air while you're aerating. Just make sure your equipment is clean and sanitized. I suppose if you had a lot of grain dust (or other types) floating around in the air, bacteria could be a problem. Maybe keep the vacuum turned off that day. You could have total sanitation by using bottled O2, but again, my observations and experience say the spoon swooshing down and through the bucket technique works. In a similar thread, and to answer another question about racking off the beer at the end of the primary fermentation, I've read many different ideas on when this should be done. (I only brew ales, so these ideas may not apply to lagers.) I used to rack off after the krausen fell back into the beer. This often ends up with a longer ferment, with higher terminal gravities. Those yeast on the bottom are working for you, let them do their job. I wait until my airlock bubbles once every 1.5 minutes. This might be a week, it might be 2 weeks. Then I rack to a secondary. Each beer is different. Like my local homebrew shop proprietor says - fermenting beers are like children that you have to listen to and care for, each with individual needs :-) My beers turn out clean with a good terminal gravity. I think your recipe and sanitation are much bigger issues for flavor than worrying about getting the beer off the sediment in the primary. Robert Portland, OR Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 10:11:20 -0600 From: "Greg R" <gmrbrewer at hotmail.com> Subject: Night of the Living Ales Did anyone else attend this event last Saturday? It was sponsored by the Chicago Beer Society, featuring over 30 cask conditioned ales brewed by mostly local brewpubs and breweries, held at Goose Island where the Real Ale Festival used to be held. CBS did an outstanding job putting this together, with plenty of good food to go with the amazing collection of wonderful self serve real ales. I managed to taste about a dozen, in spite of my intention to try them all. I think I tried about every IPA, and really liked my first ever Imperial Red Ale which I can't remember who brewed. Goose Island and Rock Bottom are both fairly large entities, but both provided some outstanding samples of limited production ales. Although smaller than the RAF, this event was just as enjoyable and exceeded my expectations. No wonder it was sold out weeks in advance! Cheers, Greg Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 12:43:56 -0700 From: "Gary Glass" <gary at brewersassociation.org> Subject: AHA National Homebrew Competition Hi Everyone, The American Homebrewers Association's National Homebrew Competition is rapidly approaching. Don't miss your chance to participate in the world's largest beer competition! Last year's competition drew over 4400 entries. Entries due April 4-15. See www.beertown.org/events/nhc/index.html for competition details including Rules & Regs, Entry Forms, Entry Locations, judging information, etc. The first round is judged at ten regional sites around the US and Canada. First, second, and third place winners in each of the 2004 BJCP Categories as well as our "New Entrants" category advance to the second round of the competition held at the AHA National Homebrewers Conference in Baltimore, MD. (Cider categories are all judged in one round at the Cider site in Red Hook, NY.) AHA Homebrewer of the Year, Meadmaker of the Year, Cidermaker of the Year, Ninkasi Award winner (winningest brewer) and Homebrew Club of the Year will be announced at the Grand Banquet and Awards Ceremony at the National Homebrewers Conference. Last year's prize display at the Grand Banquet in Las Vegas stretched over 50 feet! For more information on the AHA National Homebrewers Conference in Baltimore, MD, June 16-18, 2005, see www.ahaconference.org WE NEED JUDGES! This is your chance to judge in the largest and most prestigious homebrew competition in the world. Regional judging will be taking place during the last two weekends in April (check with local sites for exact judging dates) in San Diego, Portland, Seattle, Denver, Houston, St. Paul, MN, Libertyville, IL, Westlake, OH, Rochester, NY, and Regina, SK. Cider judging will be held in Red Hook, NY. For the judging contacts in your region, see www.beertown.org/events/nhc/judging2nd.html. This competition is AHA Sanctioned and registered with the BJCP. Thanks to all of our sponsors and the volunteers around the country who make this great competition possible! Good Luck in the Competition! Gary Glass, Project Coordinator Brewers Association 888-U-CAN-BREW (303) 447-0816 x 121 gary at brewersassociation.org www.beertown.org Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 22:31:34 +0000 From: "Janie Curry" <houndandcalico at hotmail.com> Subject: rice and hops First, thanks to Geoff for the most excellent hop spreadsheet. I've been trying to decide which rhizomes to order and I'd best get to it. Can't put them in the ground till we move into our new house in July, but I'll get them started in pots for now. Also, thanks to all (Lou, John, Chad, Will,Vance, Don and Jeff) who helped out with my question on rice vs. flaked rice and the need for a cereal mash. Don shared a recipe for a pumkin beer and I'm looking forward to this year's harvest. Dan asks if there is another brewing forum out there. I've been wondering the same thing. I guess the bloggs are popular. Hope we can keep this forum alive and well. This Sunday, we did indeed brew. It was nearly 70F outside in Fort Collins, so my brew mate set up out back on the patio. It was the first 10 gallon batch on my friend's system and we both agree that 10 gallons is the way to go...we may even try party gyle next time. We double milled 14.7 pounds of pale malt and 3.7 pounds of 40L crystal. I also crushed 2 pounds of medium grain white rice by running it through the JSP malt mill...worked like a charm. I added 6 quarts of water (3 quarts per pound of rice) along with about half a pound of crushed pale ale malt and held at 152F for about 20 min, then brought to a boil for about half an hour. In the mean time, my fellow brewer doughed in the remaining grains into room temp water and boosted to 152F. I added the boiled rice malt mixture to the mash and nearly overshot the sach rest, but it leveled out at 158F. Mashed out at 170F 90 minutes later and collected about 12 gallons of wort after sparging. The lauter flowed nicely. No stuck sparge. We added 1 ounce of cluster(substitute for 0.67 ounces of chinook) for bittering for 90 minutes, then a half ounce of northern brewer (substitute for 0.67 ounces of chinook) for 30 mins for flavor, then a half ounce at 5 minutes for arroma. I couldn't resist the tempation to add a half pound of brown sugar to the boil so I did (but I did hold back on adding the entire package). We tried whirpooling for the first time and man did that work like magic. All the break formed a big glob right in the middle of the kettle and the hot wort flowed right through the chiller into the fermentors at 74F. I had a package of Saflager dry lager yeast in the fridge so we decied to ferment one 5.5 gallon batch with Saflager and the other with an American Ale Yeast grown a couple of days in advance on a stir plate using a couple of spoonfulls of yeast slurry from a mason jar full of yeast kept in the fridge from the previous batch. The lager was put in a temp controlled fridge at 52F after sitting at 74F for a few hours. The ale was allowed to ferment at room temp. Both are fermenting nicely. My brew mate purchased a refractometer, but after we downed a few beers 3/4 of the way through the session we didn't think to try it out. Matter of fact, we didn't collect any data, not even a hydrometer reading. Todd in Fort Collins Return to table of contents
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