HOMEBREW Digest #492 Mon 10 September 1990

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


Contents:
  bad head (jay s hersh)
  Homebrew Digest #491 (September 07, 1990) (Stephen Saroff--Applications Scientist at NCSA for TMC)
  Meads and such... (Gary Heston (sci34hub!gary))
  Sanitation Problems/Sodium Bisulphate (Mike Fertsch)
  Re: Head Retention (Mike Charlton)
  Hunter...the sequel (GARY  07-Sep-1990 1659)
  Speed your bottle washing with vortices! (Forrest Cook)
  San Francisco Brewpubs? (Jake Turin)
  Re: Belgium tour (Chuck Cox)
  Beer Tax (Chuck Cox)

Send submissions to homebrew%hpfcmr at hplabs.hp.com Send requests to homebrew-request%hpfcmr at hplabs.hp.com [Please do not send me requests for back issues] Archives are available from netlib at mthvax.cs.miami.edu
---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 06 Sep 90 23:55:05 EDT From: jay s hersh <75140.350 at compuserve.com> Subject: bad head Humans, even squeaky clean ones, have enough oils on their lips to kill a weak head, though strong ones can hold up a little longer. What makes weak/strong heads you ask. Trace minerals in the grains which are metabolized by the yeast yield the necessary substances (a type of protein I believe) which is needed for good head retention. What can you do?? Well while I'm not an all grain expert I know that there are good & bad things that are done during mashing that effect the yield of these trace elements. See Greg Noonans book for more detailed all grain info. As an extract brewer there are 2 things you can use both roughly equivalent. One is called heading agent, the other yeast nutrient. These are trace elements that allow the yeast to build good cell walls and stay very healthy and to make the most of the nutrient reduction cycles that allow them to do whatever exactly it is they do to the proteins present in the mash to convert them to the form necessary for creating good head retention. Sorry if all this doesn't sound incredibly scientific. I've read lots of papers on yeast metabolism and from what I can tell while there are a lot of cause effect realtions that are known a lot of what yeast actually does on an organic chemistry level is still a bit o mystery. In any case the link between good mashing, and trace elements that build healthy yeast, and the resulting good head is known. - Jay H Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 7 Sep 90 09:31:24 CDT From: tmc at ncsa.uiuc.edu (Stephen Saroff--Applications Scientist at NCSA for TMC) Subject: Homebrew Digest #491 (September 07, 1990) Hi-- Don't know if this is the right way to do this, but does anyone know about brewing shops in the Champagne-Urbana IL area (which I extend all the way to Springfield). I need to get equipment and supplies. Also I need a recipe for ginger beer and root beer. SzS - --------------- Stephen Saroff (Thinking Machines) o o TMC Application Scientist for NCSA (_)_____o 405 N Matthews Ave ~~~~~~~~~(_____)~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 5215 Beckman Institute oo oo The Bear who Swims (217) 244 5556 <tmc at ncsa.uiuc.edu> <saroff at think.com> Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 7 Sep 90 09:09 CDT From: gary at sci34hub.sci.com (Gary Heston (sci34hub!gary)) Subject: Meads and such... Greetings. Been reading a lot, but not contributing much. I'm a winemaker, which overlaps with brewing in some areas. There has been a great deal of useful info posted, though, which I appreciate. I'm posting about meads, since I just started two batches (having 5 or 6 carboys is handy :-) ), and I though I'd pass on what I'm up to. In the past, I've made two or three batches of it, without any added spices, etc., so I decided to try that this time. Batch 32: Started 8/30 with one gallon of honey, mixed about 50-50 with water, heated to 170F, allowed to steep for 5 minutes, and cooled. Once all this was in the carboy and cooled to about 90F, I topped it up to the shoulder with water (making the water-honey ratio about 3.75-1 (5 gallon carboys), added yeast nutrient, four sticks of cinnamon, one teaspoon of ground nutmeg, and pitched the yeast. The airlock received a capfull of 10% bleach solution. Fermentation was very active in less than 12 hours (with dry yeast). Since I'd had one prior batch of mead bubble thru the airlock, I let it (as well as #33) sit in the sink overnight to let fermentation stabilize. Batch 33: Started 9/1 with one gallon of honey, mixed about 50-50 with water, heated to 170F, allowed to steep for 5 minutes, and cooled. Due to having a relatively small pot to heat this in, I do this in about three batches. In the first batch, I added four cinnamon sticks, as an experiment to see if heat would extract more flavor. The sticks were broken up before adding. Once all this was in the carboy and cooled to about 90F, I topped it up to the shoulder with water (making the water-honey ratio about 3.75-1 (5 gallon carboys), added yeast nutrient, and pitched the yeast. The airlock received a capfull of 10% bleach solution. Fermentation was very active in less than 12 hours (with dry yeast, again). This batch surged higher than #32, based on the high foam mark. On 9/6, since the fermentation rate of both batches had dropped about 50%, I topped up both batches to the base of the neck with water. This caused the predictable surge of CO2 from turbulence, however the rate settled out again quite a bit higher than it had been. I'm not concerned at all about it coming out too thin, I had one batch that was too thick, when I used too much honey, and it wasn't that enjoyable. Too sweet. Odd notes: The honey used in #32 was a few years old; that in #33 was extracted less than a month ago. The old stuff is MUCH darker, almost chocolate. The new stuff is about the color of a natural manila folder. I lost the habit of taking gravities a long time ago, since I don't try for carbonated beverages; I just let it ferment out an extra month or two. Now, about that yeast..... First, don't bother flaming, because I won't change my mind--others have tried and failed (in rec.food.drink). For all my winemaking since a couple of early batches (which I had problems with, where I'd used real wine yeast), I use Fleishmanns Rapid-Rise baking yeast. It works fine; and at $0.69 for 3 packets, the price is right. You may use whatever you like. Your mileage may vary. Past results do not guarantee future returns. Etc.... I will say that I have a number of friends who can't get enough of what I make, but perhaps I have wierd friends.... :-) I'll let you know, as time passes, how it progresses. Might even track down a few of the people over at InteGraph (ingr.com) and let them review it... Relax. Have a glass of this wine.... now, don't stand up too quickly.... Gary Heston Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 7 Sep 90 12:14 EDT From: Mike Fertsch <FERTSCH at adc1.adc.ray.com> Subject: Sanitation Problems/Sodium Bisulphate Steve no-last-name (sandven at hooey.unm.edu) reports a contamination problem with his brown ale: > The beer is now 5 weeks old and is developing a cloudy "growth" over the > sediments on the bottom of the glasses. [text deleted] I fermented in a > plastic food grade pail with an air lock ( I have since replaced this with > two glass carbouys) and did the entire fermentation in that bucket. My > house has no a/c or cooler and the closet in which the beer was brewed > stayed a fairly constant 83-85 degrees. I used sodium bisulfate (?) to > clean the plastic stuff, and bleached the bottles to clean them. My guess is the sodium bisulfate cleaning didn't sanitize your fermenter sufficiently. I believe sodium bisulfate is used by winemakers to sanitize their equipment and stop fermentation when the wine is "ready". Beer, being not as acidic as wine, is more favorable to microbe growth, and beermaking equipment needs stronger sterilants. I (usually) use non-scented bleach to sanitize all my equipment - fermenters, hoses, bottles, caps, etc. I may be just lucky, but I've had few contamination problems using bleach. When my wallet is full of cash, I use B-Brite, a commercial sterilant. B-Brite is easier to rinse than bleach. I don't want to start any flames, but I think discarding the plastic equipment will improve your beer quality significantly. Mike Fertsch Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 7 Sep 90 15:54:45 CDT From: Mike Charlton <umcharl3 at ccu.UManitoba.CA> Subject: Re: Head Retention Regarding the request for added information about my head retention problem: I primed the beer with light powdered malt extract. I have to admit that this particular beer is only about a month old. I used it because it was the beer that I had on hand that was likely to have the biggest head. The bubbles in the head were quite small (not as small as draught Guinness, but comparible to the bottled (Dublin) version). It was quite a sight to see. As soon as I'd touched it, the bubbles started popping like mad. The beer residue from the bubbles initially stayed on top of the rest of the head so that the head started turning dark brown where I'd touched it. The brown patch grew quickly as it engulfed the rest of the head. What was left over was a small ring of bubbles (one bubble thick) clinging to the edge of the glass :-(. All this took about 2 seconds. Thanks, Mike Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 7 Sep 90 14:10:05 PDT From: GARY 07-Sep-1990 1659 <mason at habs11.enet.dec.com> Subject: Hunter...the sequel After searching half of New England, I finally got Hunter to answer their phone, and found a unit just up the street (one of Murphy's laws, I guess - calling the last number on the list...). It is $47 at Highland Super Stores in New England. While on the phone with Hunter, we got to chatting about what I was using it for. The result is that their product manager now knows about the AHA, and may contact them about editorial mention, etc. They may also buy a Zymurgy, and contact major homebrew suppliers advertising therein regarding selling the product. BTW - the model number is 42205, and the name has been changed from "Energy Monitor AC" to "AirStat" (they are repositioning some products). Cheers...Gary Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 07 Sep 90 15:22:46 -0600 From: cook at stout.atd.ucar.EDU (Forrest Cook) Subject: Speed your bottle washing with vortices! A friend of mine who works with fluid dynamics showed me an interesting trick that speeds up the draining of bottles considerably. When draining the soap or chlorine out of a bottle, make a few rotary motions with your hand, causing the water to spin inside of the stationary bottle. A nice vortex will form and the air will move up the center as the water moves down the sides. The bottle will drain about twice as fast as it would if it were going glug-glug-glug. I haven't tried the trick with a carboy full of chlorine water, it might be a bit dangerous. P.S. speaking of dangerous, I had a friend who made a giant glass-grenade out of a carboy. He filled the carboy too full and did not strain out the pellet-hops residue. He used a rubber plug with a 5/8" blowoff tube. Apparently, the tube got plugged up with hops residue and the plug was too tight to pop out. The result: his basement was spray-painted with sticky malt solution. Luckily, the only thing hurt was his ego. Forrest Cook cook at stout.atd.ucar.edu WB0RIO {husc6|rutgers|ames|gatech}!ncar!stout!cook Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 7 Sep 90 15:49:54 MDT From: turin at jupiter.nmt.edu (Jake Turin) Subject: San Francisco Brewpubs? Anyone care to recommend a brewpub right in San Franciso? I will be in the city next weekend without wheels, so am looking for a place either right in SF or easily accessible via public transport. I'll be leaving NM next Wednesday (9/12), so a speedy reponse directly to my e-mail address would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance! - Jake Turin New Mexico Tech turin at jupiter.nmt.edu Socorro, NM Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 7 Sep 90 14:57:04 EDT From: harley!chuck at uunet.UU.NET (Chuck Cox) Subject: Re: Belgium tour Todd Koumrian asks about organized beer tours of Belgium... I seem to recall such a tour advertised in Zymurgy a year or so ago. I don't remember many details, but I think Michael Jackson may have been involved. As far as touring Belgium on your own, just do it! Belgium has 3 languages (Flemish, French, & German) so many Belgians have to use English just to communicate with each other. We stayed in Brussels and found a French phrase book plus a little practice was all that was necessary for the few days we were there. Next time I go, I will stay in Brussels for a week and study conversational French before I go. Maybe it's just me, but trying to speak and listen to French while intoxicated is funny as hell (probably due to too much Monty Python as a youth). Opinion: Brussels is what Paris is supposed to be, but without the French. (I have never been to France and am simply showing my ignorance and prejudice) Jackson's Pocket guide lists many pubs & breweries worth visiting, and the locals can help you find more. My partners-in-crime and I are compiling our notes and photos into a slide show about drinking ales and visiting ale breweries in Europe. This may be shown at various club functions, conferences, tastings, etc. If your club asks nicely (and provides a suitable bribe) we could show it to you too. If there is sufficient interest, I could even post some of our notes to the net, but be forewarned: we have notes on over 100 beers, 50 pubs, 6 brewpubs, 5 breweries, plus over 400 slides. If you are willing to pay airfare & room, I will personally conduct a tour any time. All of the above is also true for the UK, the Netherlands and Germany. - Chuck Cox (uunet!bose!synchro!chuck) - Hopped/Up Racing Team - Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 7 Sep 90 17:49:51 EDT From: harley!chuck at uunet.UU.NET (Chuck Cox) Subject: Beer Tax In the latest issue of 'Brewprint' (the Wort Processor's newsletter), an article about 'no-new-taxes' Bush's new beer tax lists a number you can call to get a free anti-beer-tax telegram sent to your representative. The number is 800-321-9035, simply give your name, address & phone number. Don't delay, call now. - Chuck Cox (uunet!bose!synchro!chuck) - Hopped/Up Racing Team - Return to table of contents
End of HOMEBREW Digest #492, 09/10/90 ************************************* -------
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