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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
		Digest Janitor: pbabcock at hbd.org


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Contents:
  Aerating starters (Fred Johnson)
  Re: March Pump 809 issues (Kent Fletcher)
  beer can house ("Peter A. Ensminger")
  RE: Pumping sparge water ("Ronald La Borde")
  Competition Announcement: 9th Annual B.E.E.R. Brew-off ("mbobiak")
  Christian Oxygenation ("Doug Moyer")
  Diacetyl rest ("Doug Moyer")


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JANITORs on duty: Pat Babcock (pbabcock at hbd dot org), Jason Henning,
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Date: Sat, 19 Mar 2005 08:41:17 -0500
From: Fred Johnson <FLJohnson at portbridge.com>
Subject: Aerating starters

Brian thinks Jeff and others like myself who filter the air we pump 
into our starters are overly protective. In response to John who said:

> I don't understand why you would filter your starter air but aerate 
> the wort with whatever air happens to be in your little corner of the 
> world at the time.

Brian responds:

> Those of us who use a stir plate bring plain old air into our starters.
> Methinks Jeff is just a little overprotective of his babies, and we
> shall just quietly snicker at his paranoia. ;-)

To which I reply:

There is a big difference between aeration by passive air exchange and 
aeration by actively, continuously pumping air into the culture 
container over long periods (days) of time. If the starter is "aerated" 
by simple diffusion in a semi-closed container (which cannot provide 
the air the yeast need for a truly aerobic culture), there is little 
risk of contamination. However, when pumping air into the starter 
container without filtering the air, whether one pumps it directly into 
the medium or into the headspace of the container, the amount of 
bacteria, mold, and wild yeast entering that container could be several 
orders of magnitude greater than by simple diffusion. Jeff's filtering 
the pumped air is not the result of his paranoia. He does it out of 
common sense.

Fred L Johnson
Apex, North Carolina, USA



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Date: Sat, 19 Mar 2005 10:06:38 -0800 (PST)
From: Kent Fletcher <fletcherhomebrew at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: March Pump 809 issues

Jeff is having difficulties with his March 809 pump.
Jeff, your biggest problem is that you have the
version with the 1600 rpm motor.  The version of this
pump that most brewers use (if they use this model) is
the 809HS, with 3400 rpm, 1/25 hp motor.  If possible,
you might see if the seller would exchange it for the
HS.  About the only parts shared are the bronze
volute, O-ring and screws, the impeller and drive
components are all different, so you can't just swap
motors.

If you're stuck with this one, you can get rid of your
priiming headaches by introducing your strike water
THROUGH the pump.  Connect your supply to the pump
OUTLET, with all valves open, and fill the MLT.  This
will not only flood the pump volute, it will also
purge any trapped air from your pick-up tube in the MLT.


		


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Date: Sat, 19 Mar 2005 13:16:47 -0500
From: "Peter A. Ensminger" <ensmingr at twcny.rr.com>
Subject: beer can house

Good news for lovers of the avant garde ... The Beer Can House in 
Houston will be restored with a  $125,000 grant from the Houston 
Endowment. The full story (w photo) is here: <  
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/7234314/  >. Have any Texan HBD'ers seen this place?

Cheerio!
Peter A. Ensminger
Syracuse, NY





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Date: Sat, 19 Mar 2005 14:54:34 -0600
From: "Ronald La Borde" <pivoron at cox.net>
Subject: RE: Pumping sparge water

It seems several people have been having problems with air bubbles in
the HLT flow to mash tun.
This is not normal, something is wrong here, and my guess is air
entering somehow through fittings, or bulkheads.

Let me say that on my system, I can pump HLT water to the mash tun
with no air. But, first I completely flush any air out of the system.
Before I start to brew, I circulate water from the HLT through the
heat exchange coil and sparge manifold into the mash tun. I might put
a gallon or so into the mash tun. Then I circulate and heat up the
mash tun to get it warmed up and happy. At this time I can check for
any air bubbles and if any are found, I flush them out by opening the
valves fully and let me tell you, there's no problem with water flow.
I mean, it's enough water to take a shower in. It rushes by and
flushes any air out. Once flushed, the system has no more air and
stays free of air - unless there's a leak of some kind.

So what I am saying is that you make sure the system is clean and
purged before the grains ever smell the water. If anything is wrong,
fix it before starting the brew.

As a side note, I like to collect rain water from the house gutter
downspout for my plants. I put a shallow bucket under the downspout
and place my magnetic coupled aquarium pump into the bucket. The pump
feeds a 50 foot garden hose to a large water holding tank elsewhere.
The hose is flat on the ground and rises up about two feet into the
vessel. When I engage the pump, flow is strong, steady and plenty
fast. This little pump is much smaller than the pumps used for brewing
and still it can really move water. So.....do not accept the idea of
the pumps being unable to pump much water.

If you do not flush air out of the system, all sorts of strange things
will happen, and the pumps seem to not be able to do anything. I think
the secret is flushing.  Another way to flush is to blast water
backwards into the outlet port of the pump until all air is removed.

Ron
=====
Ronald J. La Borde -- Metairie, LA
New Orleans is the suburb of Metairie, LA
www.hbd.org/rlaborde




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Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2005 03:29:20 GMT
From: "mbobiak" <mbobiak at ic.sunysb.edu>
Subject: Competition Announcement: 9th Annual B.E.E.R. Brew-off

Brewer's East End Revival (BEER), Long Island's only homebrew club, will
be hosting our 9th annual Brew-Off on May 14, 2005.  We will accept all
homebrewed beers, ciders and meads for this competition and judging will
be based on the 2004 BJCP guidelines.
We are also calling for judges and a limited number of stewards to help
us with the competition.
Details are available at our website www.hbd.org/beer or by contating
Matt Bobiak: mbobiak AT ic.sunysb.edu or Steve Wynhurst: wynhurst AT
optonline.net


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Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2005 14:59:27 -0500
From: "Doug Moyer" <shyzaboy at yahoo.com>
Subject: Christian Oxygenation

Christian sez:
===================================
I'll going to experiment with not oxygenating my next two batches, a
hefeweizen and a weizenbock.  I'm going to just pitch a well-aerated starter
with the hefe.  For the weizenbock, I'll do the same and then repitch after
4 or 5 days with another starter.  I'll post my results.
===================================

Not good enough. You need to split your batch and aerate the wort on the
"control" and not on the experimental batch. Otherwise you have no idea how
the experiment affected your results.

Then, do a triangle test on the two beers, at various times after
kegging/bottling.


Brew on!

Doug Moyer
Troutville, VA

Star City Brewers Guild: http://www.starcitybrewers.org

Shyzabrau Homebrewery: http://users.adelphia.net/~shyzaboy/homebrewery.html



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Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2005 15:02:42 -0500
From: "Doug Moyer" <shyzaboy at yahoo.com>
Subject: Diacetyl rest

Leo gets indignant:

====================================
A.J. responded to a dicetyl question:


>Probably the best way to increase diacetyl without ruining the beer
>otherwise is to use a diacetyl producing strain and skip the diacetyl
>rest.

It's my understanding that the purpose of a diacetyl rest is to REDUCE
diacetyl.
====================================

Yes, and that is exactly what he is talking about. If you SKIP the diacetyl
rest, then you can increase the amount of diacetyl that makes it into the
final beer. In response to the poster that wanted more diacetyl.



Brew on!

Doug Moyer
Troutville, VA

Star City Brewers Guild: http://www.starcitybrewers.org

Shzabrau Homebrewery: http://users.adelphia.net/~shyzaboy/homebrewery.html



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