HOMEBREW Digest #4931 Wed 18 January 2006


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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
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Contents:
  Re.:  cereal mash/retrogradation ("Sean Richens")
  Do Aroma Hops Add Bitterness? (Dennis Collins)
  re: restarting Barley wine; rehydrating (Greg Brewer)
  Lookin' for yeast advise for Imperial Stout... ("Michael Eyre")
  More Water Questions (CO3) ("Darren")
  What's this infection? ("Greg 'groggy' Lehey")
  Cold conditioning: when, how cool, how long? ("Greg 'groggy' Lehey")
  Re: New HERMS brewing system ("Greg 'groggy' Lehey")
  More HERMS stuff.... (Mark Nesdoly)
  Continuous Culture Methods to Produce Alcohol Tolerant Yeast (Doug Renfrew)
  Re: Questions for a stuck fermentation on a Barley Wine (Terry Felton)
  Water Ph. And citric acid. ("Tony Wilkinson")
  lager yeast starters ("John Bryce")
  Stonefruit Ale (stencil)
  converting a keg to a secondary fermenter ("James Payne")

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---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2006 19:42:15 -0600 From: "Sean Richens" <srichens at mts.net> Subject: Re.: cereal mash/retrogradation Steve Alexander writes: >Malt isn't used to achieve Gelatinization, but to >avoid it's evil doppelganger, Retrogradation.... That's very interesting, I didn't know that. But the reason I add malt to a cereal mash is to decompose the loose starch before I reach boil. If it thickens, I spend 20 minutes dodging boiling polenta bombs. A bit of malt keeps the cereal mash nice and loose right up to the point where gelatinization has obviously been completed. Sean Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2006 14:54:47 -0500 (EST) From: Dennis Collins <dcollins at springmail.com> Subject: Do Aroma Hops Add Bitterness? I've been fiddling with Promash and have found that the Genericsetting for hop bitterness actually adds bitterness for additions made at0 minutes. The others (Tinseth, Rager, Garetz) do not. Interesting....... As I play with this concept in my mind, it would seem logical that near boiling wort (like you would get when you first turn off the burner at 0 minutes) would extract some (albeit a small amount) bitterness from hops added right at flame out depending on how long you steeped them. Certainly not as much bitternessas hops churned in a rolling boil for 20 or 60 minutes, but certainly some bitterness. It stands to reason that this would only apply to styles or recipes that have large additions of hops at 0 minutes. So, for big late aroma additions like in an IPA, or Imperial IPA, are you actually adding perceptible bitterness as well? Which IBU bitterness scale should be used? How would you quantify the bitterness imparted by 0 minute additions? Just a question to ponder...... Dennis Collins Knoxville, TN www.ihomebrewsolutions.com Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2006 08:25:53 -0600 From: Greg Brewer <gbrewer1 at gmail.com> Subject: re: restarting Barley wine; rehydrating Randy Ricchi suggested racking onto a fresh primary slurry to get your barley wine to finish, and I can second that advice. I did the same thing with a stuck imperial IPA I brewed, although I was fairly close to my target FG. After two weeks stuck at 1.030 I racked it onto a fresh slurry and got it down to 1.017 within a week. Still not sure why it stuck, I had repitched the yeast I collected from a previous primary, probably not enough aeration for a high OG recipe. Denny Conn says he doesn't bother with rehydrating US56, which he uses frequently. I'll keep that in mind but I'm going the belt and suspenders route and will rehydrate per the manufacturer's instructions for my first time using US56 (with 81F water, thanks for the correction). Greg Brewer Chicago Return to table of contents
Date: Sat, 14 Jan 2006 09:08:52 -0800 From: "Michael Eyre" <meyre at sbcglobal.net> Subject: Lookin' for yeast advise for Imperial Stout... Hey all, Going to be doing up an Imperial Stout in a few weeks with my partner here, and we're looking for help with the yeast selection. It's going to be targeting a 1.085 O.G. and we'd like to end up near 1.028, so about 67% attenuation or so. Looking for thoughts and experiences from the masses with their luck of yeast on Imp. Stouts in the past and present. We're not too picky on dry or liquid yeasts, but might find the more well-know and used ones of either type easier to obtain. But it's all do-able, so I'd love to hear from your collective wisdom. Thanks! Mike Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2006 14:40:15 -0500 From: "Darren" <swamp at phlo.net> Subject: More Water Questions (CO3) I have read the recent post on water chemistry in earnest. For it has been my endeavor to gain a better understanding (been all-grain for a few years now). Here in the Bay Area we get a pretty good water quality analysis right in the mail. Though I take to heart the suggestion on home testing, I'd like to frame my question on the reported data. Chlorine 1.97 ppm Chloride 10 ppm Sulfate 23 ppm Alkalinity (CaCO3) 59 ppm Calcium 14 ppm Hardness (CaCO3) 62 ppm Magnesium 5.4 ppm Potassium 1.0 ppm Sodium 12 ppm Total Dissolved Solids 101 ppm pH 8.8 Can (how would) I calculate a carbonate CO3(-2) value (in ppm) for the water based on this profile? (If you have one) What would be a suggestion for additions (assuming general pale ales)? And, note that I'd wish to see my mash efficiency increase if possible (seems to hover around high 60's to very low 70's). Thanks, -Darren - -- +---------------------------------------------+ Return to table of contents
Date: Sun, 15 Jan 2006 11:59:24 +1030 From: "Greg 'groggy' Lehey" <grog at lemis.com> Subject: What's this infection? A couple of weeks I took a jar of saved yeast slurry out of the fridge to pitch a new brew, and I noticed what looked like a slimy white flake on the surface. I made a new starter and left the slurry on the kitchen windowsill for a couple of weeks, during which time the flakes grew. The yeast also emitted a vaguely unpleasant odour, possibly sulphurous, but nothing so bad that you would automatically think that the resultant beer would be bad. I've got some photos up on the web: the originals are at http://www.lemis.com/grog/Thumbnails-20060102.html. The last two photos on that page are not a result of the infection. The way it looks two weeks later are at http://www.lemis.com/grog/Thumbnails-20060115.html. Any ideas what it is? Greg - -- Finger grog at lemis.com for PGP public key. See complete headers for address and phone numbers. Return to table of contents
Date: Sun, 15 Jan 2006 15:12:47 +1030 From: "Greg 'groggy' Lehey" <grog at lemis.com> Subject: Cold conditioning: when, how cool, how long? [second attempt, without identification] I've tried cold conditioning ales a couple of times, and the results suggest that I should continue. So I went out and looked for guidance on the web, and found precious little. It seems that the Germans cold condition all beers, not just bottom fermenters; but even here, apart from the traditional 3 months at 1<insert degree Celsius symbol here> for bottom ferementers, I've found precious little. Hubert Hanghofer showed me round a Wei<insert German double S symbol here>bier brewery in Salzburg a little over a year ago, and IIRC they conditioned in a very similar way to bottom fermenting beers; but my memory may be incorrect, and in any case it's only a single example. So: 1. When do you cold condition bottled beers? Before or after warm conditioning (i.e. bottle fermentation for the carbon dioxide)? 2. What temperature? 3. How long? Greg - -- Finger grog at lemis.com for PGP public key. See complete headers for address and phone numbers. Return to table of contents
Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2006 08:50:02 +1030 From: "Greg 'groggy' Lehey" <grog at lemis.com> Subject: Re: New HERMS brewing system On Thursday, 12 January 2006 at 11:10:55 -0700, Mark Nesdoly wrote: > > I finally have my HERMS complete ... > > Anyway, if you're interested, I can email pictures of the system and > my homemade controller. I can also offer tips for doing the PID - > the coefficients, etc. Let me know via email. Yes, please! Greg - -- Finger grog at lemis.com for PGP public key. See complete headers for address and phone numbers. Return to table of contents
Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2006 10:24:23 -0700 From: Mark Nesdoly <m-nesdoly at shaw.ca> Subject: More HERMS stuff.... Whoa - I've been quite overwhelmed by the requests to see my homemade HERMS. Since there is a lull in posts at the HBD, I figured I'd post all the relevant stuff here. Here's a link to pictures of the system: http://photoshare.shaw.ca/view.php?VEID=19826_LTWJRi1137176785HLwSJl&mesg=1 As far as parts are concerned, the pump is from Beer, Beer & more Beer. I forget the model number, but it seems to me that it may have been H315? The heater elements are 120V 1500W hot water heater elements from home depot. They come with a screw-in mounting bracket that makes it very easy to mount them to the metal pots I use. I did have leakage, but a little aquarium caulking solved that. I use aquarium caulking because it is waterproof and is safe as well (don't have to worry about nasty stuff leaching into the wort/water.) The pots I purchased from a hardware/automotive chain here in Canada called Canadian Tire. They are 64 liter aluminum pots. I forget what they were worth - something like $90 each or so I think. The heat exchanger is a crappy old pot that I was going to throw away. The key for this is to make it small so that there isn't much "thermal mass" in the heat exchanger itself, yet large enough to accomodate the coil and the heating element. This particular pot takes only 6 liters of water to fill, which translates into not much thermal mass at all. I'll warn you up front: I'm a geek, and I had time on my hands when I first created this system. I'm an electrical engineer, and I actually make my living by building stuff like this. It might be a little intimidating. Pretty much everything that went into this thing was sitting around my workshop as spare parts. The only "critical" thing is the solid state relay. I got it (and all the other electronic components) from DigiKey. The relay's part number is Z178-ND available at www.digikey.com. Some general information first. The temperature sensors are National LM35DH. They are a very small metal package (TO-46) and I placed them inside copper tubes. The tubes then are placed into the heat exchanger, mash tun and lauter tun. I have one more sensor which I intended to place on the outflow of the heat exchanger, but it's a pain to mount it. In hindsight, I could have done without this one. With the sensors mounted in this manner, there is the issue of response speed, which is lower than if they were directly immersed. I didn't want to directly immerse them because I couldn't waterproof them, and I also really don't want lead solder leaching into my beer. However, I notice no issues with temperature lag at all, and I confirmed all temperatures with ordinary thermometers. The temperatures reported by the system were all dead on (no error at all) the readings from the thermometers. Hopefully the thermometers are right.... In order to increase the efficiency of the heat transfer, I mounted stirrers in the heat exchanger and the lauter tun. The motors were from a place called "Princess Auto" here in Canada. Basically a salvage operation. They were small & cheap, and that's why I'm using them. The two elements are 120V 1500W water heater elements from home depot. I elected for 120V because I don't have any spare 220V outlets in the basement here. With these elements, I get pretty much exactly 1F/min temperature rise at full power for a 10 gallon mash. This has not yet been confirmed with an actual mash, but based on the response with only water, it will be true. The element in the heat exchanger was bent over (carefully) by hand to get it to be completely immersed. The coil in the HE is my old immersion wort chiller. It is a 25' roll of 3/8" copper tubing. Now the controller. It takes a temperature reading once per second, which is more than fast enough. The temperature control algorithm was implemented with the help of the great article found here: http://www.embedded.com/2000/0010/0010feat3.htm The heating element in the heat exchanger is driven by a solid state relay (rated for 20A, 240V) because I rapidly turn it on/off for power control. A normal relay wouldn't tolerate this at all. I have 64 power levels, 0 - 63, with level 63 being continuously on. Basically I pulse-width-modulate the heater. I have a little over 16 ms "resolution" with each "on" window. 16 ms x 64 is about a second, pretty much the same as the reading rate. The gains in use in the system are all on the spreadsheet. You'll notice that all the gains are a power of 2: 32, 2048 and 1024. This was done to speed the calculations because I'm using an 8 bit microcontroller to run everything. Since these gains are all factors of 2, they can be calculated simply by shifting left (multiply) or right (divide). These shifts are quick - much quicker than formal multiplies and divides. If you decide to build your own and have a background in programming, I really recommend you go this route too. A word to the wise: careful right-shifting negative numbers. Make sure that the MS bits are set back to 1's - this bit me in the butt. Lastly, I'll exlain the controller screen. Yes, it's animated. The pump spins while it's running, and I actually showed a bubble moving through the pipes, and "rain" sprinkling into the mash tun. However, I had some sort of issue with the s/w behind the animations so I disabled them for now. I might revisit the code to try and find the problem, but not now. I'm tired of this thing. ;-) The vessel on the left is the mash tun. The temperature at the top is the set temperature, and the one at the bottom is the actual temperature. The vessel in the middle is the heat exchanger. The temperature in the middle of the HE is the HE's present temperature. On the pipe leading up and out of the HE is a little line and another temperature. This is the outflow temp I mentioned earlier. Between the HE and the vessel on the right is a number and bar graph. This is the HE element's power level. Beneath the HE is a round object - that's the pump. The line inside the pump rotates when the pump is on. The vessel on the right is the lauter tun. As with the mash tun, the number at the top is the set temperature, and the number at the bottom is the actual temperature inside the lauter tun. There are a couple of "stands" under the lauter tun - this is the control for the lauter tun's heating element, which is simply on or off - no PID needed here. When it's on, little flames appear on these stands, and yes, the flames are animated too. Hey, I had time on my hands when I first coded this. ;-) Lastly, over on the right is a timer to let you know how long you've been mashing. There's also an alarm so you can get the thing running, set the alarm, and go do something else. A buzzer sounds when it's done counting down. If you want a copy of the spreadsheet I used to calculate what the PID gains should be or a copy of the schematic of the controller, let me know. Return to table of contents
Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2006 23:04:00 -0500 From: Doug Renfrew <renfrew at email.unc.edu> Subject: Continuous Culture Methods to Produce Alcohol Tolerant Yeast The History Channel's show, Modern Marvels, recently did a piece on beer. In the show the interviewed Jim Koch of the Boston Beer Company (Samuel Adam's). He was talking about a some of their "Utopia" series of beers and mentioned that one of them achieved a ABV of ~25% making it the ABV attained through natural fermentation without distillation. He also mentioned that they had been developing the yeast through breading for the last 13 years. I am interested in trying to make a beer of equally high alcohol concentration. To get yeast that can tolerate alcohol concentrations this high, I was thinking of trying to rig up a continuous culture system using some carboys, sterile wort, everclear, and some aquarium pumps. I would, over a period of weeks (longer maybe?) raise the ethanol concentration to the desired level, hopefully selecting for the yeast that can tolerate the ethanol. I figured using one of the alcohol tolerant yeast produced by white labs or wyeast for a starting point. So I had a couple of questions. First off, do people think this will work? Secondly, are there any other recommendations for yeast, or any bacteria for that matter, that are used in beer that can tolerate that concentration of ethanol (ie. are brettanomyces, candida, or kluyveromyces strains more alcohol tolerant than saccharomyces)? Thirdly, Where can I find more information on this topic (brewing texts, food science journals)? Thanks in advance, Doug Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2006 12:40:24 -0500 From: Terry Felton <tdfelton at gmail.com> Subject: Re: Questions for a stuck fermentation on a Barley Wine Steve, I also think you failed to get enough O2 into the wort. But if it's still at 1.085, I don't think you're too late to try again. Hopefully, you still have the small beer in primary. If so, just rack it off to secondary, add some yeast nutrient and aereate the barley wine (yes - it won't hurt), and transfer it onto the yeast cake in the small beer's primary. I bet it'll take off in a few hours. The yeast will just use up the available oxygen for growth. If you've already disposed of the yeast from the small beer, you should make up a new starter, but definitely make it bigger than 1.025. 1.060 would be much better. Once it's going strong, pitch into the re-aereated barley wine. And don't forget the yeast nutrient, either. Hey - relax, etc. It'll work out. Terry Felton Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2006 09:05:40 +1030 From: "Tony Wilkinson" <awilk at bigpond.net.au> Subject: Water Ph. And citric acid. I am a little perplexed with my water Ph, perhaps someone can clarify it for me! My town water supply is relatively hard, CaCO3 total hardness is averaging around 130 mg/L and. I also noted comments made on previous posts suggesting that water filtered through activated carbon should be boiled. As I use such a filtering method and have had some taste problems I have boiled my water and have seen the Ph rise from 7.6 after filtering to 9.4 after the boil. Why has the Ph risen, and should I adjust the Ph down with citric acid or leave it be? I brew all grain pilsners. Tony Wilkinson. Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2006 19:08:37 -0500 From: "John Bryce" <jbryce at vt.edu> Subject: lager yeast starters I am looking for some help on lager starters. I sent out a post on Christmas Eve about my troubles with some starters, but didn't get any replies. Let me ask some general questions about lager starters and then present a review and update to my situation. Any feedback is appreciated. *All questions refer to a 1 liter lager starter made from extra light DME. Assume a white labs homebrew vial pitched into a 2 liter growler (half full). Starter wort density 9.5-11.5 P. Assume I want to decant most or all of the starter's beer as to not dilute my final batch of beer. QUESTIONS: 1. Should activity be visible while the starter ferments? If so, to what extent? I have read that activity is sometimes not visible in a starter like it is in a normal fermentation. Assume no airlock, so I am mostly talking krausen head and/or other visual cues. 2. I have also read that a starter fermentation usually goes much faster than a normal (~7-10 day primary) fermentation due to the large quantity of yeast vs. wort. Is this true? How much time should it take for such a starter fermentation to complete? Half the normal time? A quarter? Any data from anyone who has taken gravities during a starter lager fermentation would be awesome. 3. I prefer to start lager fermentations cold in general. I know there are plenty of brewers (making great beer) who like to/have to pitch lager yeast into wort as high as 70F, but I prefer to pitch at or slightly below actual fermentation temperature, usually 52F. This gives me longer lag times, but less esters. While propagating in my particular starter scenario, is it bad to stick to my cold start rule? I would imagine that a starter at lower temperatures would also exhibit longer lag times and fewer esters, but is it critical to provide a warmer temperature for a starter? By decanting most of the starter's finished beer I will be dumping any fruity beer, which is certainly an argument for just going warmer. If I can get good results cold, I'd prefer to do so. 4. What is a typical lag time for a lager starter? REVIEW OF PROBLEM: I recently made 2 liters of wort from extra light DME to be used as 2 separate 1 liter starters. I had only done this once before, years ago. I heated up my water to maybe 150 F and then started adding and mixing in the DME. I predicted that I would need something like 6 ounces to get to 10-11 P (1.040-1.044 SG). I took a gravity reading after I mixed in the 6 ounces thoroughly and it was low, so I added more DME and re-sampled a few times until I got to about 10.5 P. I boiled it for about 6 minutes, cooled it to 50 F rapidly, and then poured equal parts into 2 separate growlers. This gave me 2 half gallon growlers that were each half full (1 liter). I pitched a white labs vial of lager yeast into one and some lager yeast that I had recently harvested into the other. I shook both of them up to aerate and put them in ambient temp of ~54 F. I saw no visible activity in the harvested yeast starter. I started taking gravity readings after 2 days to see what was going on and I got 7.4 P. The yeast sedimented out and the wort was bright and flat. I moved everything to ambient temperature of mid 60's. Same thing days later. I saw very slight activity (a few large bubbles on the surface) in the starter from the vial on day 2. Gravity was 7.6 P then and days later. There was some carbonation present and there was some yeast in suspension. The carbonation dissipated and the yeast dropped out around day 4. Currently I have only one theory as to what happened: There is a reasonable chance that the yeast (both strains had been stored in the same fridge) froze. It was not frozen when I pitched it, however I had never seen it stick to the vial's walls/bottom that much before. The fridge had been set colder than it should have. The cheap thermometer that I have in there read 30 F when I pulled out the yeast. I guess there is also a remote chance that I screwed up the wort and it ended up being really high gravity, but I think that is a long shot since I took multiple readings with a commercial brewery hydrometer that I know is good and only boiled it for ~6 minutes after my last reading. UPDATE: I repeated the same steps, this time with 2 new vials of lager yeast. This time I added 6.5oz of DME in 2 liters of hot water. I took a pre-boil gravity and got 9P. I added 0.5oz and took another reading. It was 10.1P. I boiled for ~6 minutes, then cooled a sample for a reading. The gravity had shot up to 11.5P! Maybe I shouldn't have been surprised, but I was - I am used to working with much lager quantities of wort and didn't realize how much evaporation could occur in such a short time frame on this scale. I added some more water, did a short boil, and ended up with a starter gravity of 10.5P. At this point I began to think that maybe my previous problem was a combination of yeast with low viability (from the extra cold temperature/possible freeze) and higher gravity starter wort (I never took a post-boil reading last time due to my assumptions that the short boil wouldn't impact it much, but it was probably at least 11.5P based on the above paragraph) This time I also only cooled the starters to about 65F (more like 55F last time), pitched a vial into each one and set them in an ambient temperature of about 55F. I saw a little activity (some large bubbles on the surface, but certainly not a krausen head) in one of the starters and none in the other. After 2 days, I took a gravity readings and got 6.4P and 6.2P. Both samples were carbonated and had yeast in suspension. pH was 4.48 and 4.3, within range, but I equate such numbers to a fermentation much closer to completion - below 4P. The next day was brew day and to my disappointment the new samples showed only a slight decrease in gravity (0.1P). I went ahead and brewed a 5 gal batch of wort and split it equally into 2 separate FVs. For each starter, I decanted about half of the starter wort, swirled the rest (~a half of liter) to suspend the sedimented yeast, and pitched into the 2.5 gal of wort. The wort had been chilled to my fermentation temperature of 52F. Lag time was ~18 hours and ~20 hours and both beers fermented out completely in 9 days. The beer is clean and good and the fermentation was normal other than being just slightly on the sluggish side. Why are my starters stalling out around 6-7P, or am I just not being patient enough? Or am I making them wrong? I would normally be OK with/prefer pitching an active starter into new wort, however on this small scale I don't want to dilute my wort that much (~5%) with wort from a DME starter, and I'm not all that certain that the starters were actually active since they seem to have stalled out again. I don't want to just decant the whole thing and pitch only sedimented yeast if the fermentation is incomplete because then I am selecting yeast that doesn't fully attenuate. -John Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2006 20:14:17 -0500 From: stencil <etcs.ret at verizon.net> Subject: Stonefruit Ale preamble: This came to be through an embarrassment of riches. Last August I asked the produce manager of the local supermarket, What happens to the unsaleable fruit? and in answer received two large boxes of cosmetically challenged stonefruit - peaches, nectarines, pluots, apricots, and plums, in approximate order of mass; price: four pints of Dos Hiccups hiberno-viennexican ale. The fruit, unsorted, were chilled to ca. 35F, then blanched, peeled, pitted, bagged, and frozen. 20 lb went into a melomel which shows great promise, 5 went into this recipe, 15+ lb remain. The fruit came out of the freezer on brewday-3 and was thawed at 38F. On brewday 5 campden tablets were added to the bag. On brewday+2 the fruit and its juice were transferred to a 5-gal paint strainer bag and tossed in the fermenter, along with 1/4tsp pectinase. The juice in the bag was at 12.4P. The base beer incorporated various leftover grains, thrown in just for the halibut.. recipe: Weyermann's Pilsener Malt, 7lb Munton's Wheat Malt, 1lb 3oz Weyermann CaraHell, 8oz Dingemann's Special B, 6oz Mixed stonefruit flesh, 5lb Norhern Brewer 8.4%AA FWH, 1oz Perle 4.5%AA Finishing, 1/2oz Wyeast 1728 Scottish Ale, 1pt starter fleeted up from dregs of bottle of Dos Hiccups Brew water 3-1/2gal alkalinity 92ppm, Ca hardness 60ppm, both as CaCO3 pH 7.3, brought to 7.0 w/ phosphoric acid Sparge water 6gal as above, pH brought to 5.8 w/ phosphoric acid Doughed-in at 57F w/ 6qt, set overnight Mashed-in w/ 6pt boiling, set at 95F 30min tweaked pH w/ 1tsp CaCl2, pH5.6 Infused w/ 6pt boiling, set at 122F 30min Direct heat to 145F set 15min Direct heat to 158F set 30min Direct heat to 168F USW... Runnings 7gal 10P Boil 80min, finishing hops at -15min Pitched to 5.5gal OG1052, ferm at 62F Brewday+2, added 5lb fruit pulp ca. SG1050 Brewday+16 removed fruit; resting at 57F Brewday+34 SG1004. Primed w/ 5oz corn sugar; bottled 42 grolsch pints; conditioning at 65F Brewday+40 Clear, amber, excellent head, no distinct aroma, mouthfeel crisp, malty flavor, tart, no "fruity" character, no hops aroma or flavor, mild bitterness, distinct clove note in aftertaste. Refreshing. Clove aroma was noticeable while cleaning fermenter. A little worried about that clove smack; it's not that it's unpleasant, just that it's unexpected and out of place. Will try to keep the beer out of circulation till the first warm Spring day, like maybe July. stencil sends [535.2mi, 86.4deg] AR Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2006 21:29:53 -0500 From: "James Payne" <james at houseofpayne.us> Subject: converting a keg to a secondary fermenter To the Esteemed Brewing Masses, I've recently acquired a pin lock corny keg that I would like to convert to a secondary fermenter, so I can more easily dry hop as well as provide myself a secondary fermenter that is more robust than a glass carboy. Does anyone have any suggestions as to the best and/or easiest way to do so? Do I need to modify the beer out valve? ...the gas in valve? ...drill out the pressure relief and insert an airlock? ...???? Any suggestions will be much appreciated. Many thanks, James Return to table of contents
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