HOMEBREW Digest #5471 Thu 18 December 2008


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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
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Contents:
  Re: priming ("Greg 'groggy' Lehey")
  Re: Priming sugar ("Bill Pierce")
  Gruit recipe (Ted Manahan)
  One Step vs. Straight-A (Rick) Theiner" <rickdude@tds.net>
  Using a coolship to get enough HSA (Matt)
  Re: priming (Robert Tower)

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---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2008 15:31:32 +1100 From: "Greg 'groggy' Lehey" <grog at lemis.com> Subject: Re: priming On Wednesday, 17 December 2008 at 13:25:36 +0000, Fred Scheer wrote: > HI All: > > I'm preparing a paper for the MBAA on > priming for Bottle conditioned beers. > Now, I would like to know how much priming > sugar, what type is used by Homebrewers, > Pub Brewers. > I would appreciate any input. I used to use 6 g of pure cane sugar for 750 ml. I'm kegging now, but if I went back, I might back off a little in the quantity. Greg - -- Finger grog at Freebsd.org for PGP public key. See complete headers for address and phone numbers. Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2008 09:23:37 -0500 From: "Bill Pierce" <BillPierce at aol.com> Subject: Re: Priming sugar In HBD #5470 Fred Scheer asks about homebrew priming. I have been priming almost all of my beers, even those that are kegged, for several years now. I believe that the action of the live yeast on the priming sugar helps to scavenge oxygen from the head space and serves to retard oxidation and staling of the beer. I measure the priming sugar by weight based on the volume of the beer and its original fermentation temperature, using a rather complex formula originally presented by Michael L. Hall in "Brew by the Numbers" in the Summer 1995 issue of Zymurgy (I have incorporated the formula into my brewing spreadsheet): Priming sugar weight in grams = 15.195 * Volume of beer in US gallons * (Desired carbonation level in volumes of CO2 - 3.0378 + (0.050062 * Fermentation temperature of beer in degrees F) - (0.00026555 * Fermentation temperature of beer in degrees F^2)) The formula is based on the assumption that one molecule of glucose is fermented by the yeast into two molecules of ethanol and two molecules of carbon dioxide. It also assumes that the priming sugar is completely fermentable. It includes the equilibrium volumes of CO2 already in solution based on the original fermentation temperature. I stress that measuring priming sugar by weight is much more accurate than by volume. Thanks to the formula and a digital scale accurate to the nearest 2 grams, I am able to achieve precise levels of carbonation in my beers. I also now use white table sugar (cane or beet) for priming rather than corn sugar. A couple of years ago I ran out of corn sugar at a critical time and was forced to improvise. I find no difference in flavor as far as I can tell. To be strictly accurate, I adjust the amount of sugar in Hall's formula, which is calculated for corn sugar. After some research I found that the extract potential of corn sugar is 1.042, based on the fact that it is approximately 9 percent water. The corn sugar used by brewers and bakers is dextrose monohydrate, that is, with one water molecule bound to each molecule of glucose. The chemical weight of glucose (C6 H12 O6) is 180 grams per mole based on the atomic weights, and for water (H2 O) it is 18 grams per mole. Therefore the weight of dextrose monohydrate is 198 (180 + 18) grams per mole, and it is 9.09 percent (18/198) water by weight. I confirmed this with an experiment in which I weighed 119.9 grams of corn sugar with my laboratory balance and added distilled water at 20 degrees C until the volume was 1 liter (measured to the nearest 2 ml, the accuracy of the graduated cylinder I was using). The weight and volume I used are merely scaled from the 1 pound and 1 US gallon used in calculating the extract potential. The measured specific gravity using my reasonably accurate hydrometer was 1.042. The extract potential of sucrose is 1.04621, used as a reference value for gravity and alcohol calculations in brewing. Therefore I prime with 90.9 percent (42 gravity points divided by 46.21 points), or 91 percent in round numbers, as much white table sugar by weight as the corn sugar calculated by the formula. Brew on! Bill Pierce Cellar Door Homebrewery Burlington, Ontario Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2008 09:43:48 -0700 From: Ted Manahan <ted_manahan at hotmail.com> Subject: Gruit recipe My gruit recipe is at http://fossilCreekBrewing.com/Recipies/20080217_Smokey_Walls_Gruit_Ale.html This is not a "balanced" recipe. It is quite smokey and sweet - just the way I like it. You can use a couple lapsang souchong tea bags for additional smoke aroma. Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2008 11:24:04 -0600 From: "Eric (Rick) Theiner" <rickdude at tds.net> Subject: One Step vs. Straight-A Hi Bill, I'm the guy that makes One Step and Straight-A and I saw your post, so I figured I'd shoot you an answer... Straight-A was developed primarily to clean nasty, grimy beer bottles. The history is that I was getting bottles from my local beer distributor who used returnable "bar bottles." They'd sell a case for 4 bucks in these awesome waxed cardboard cases (some of which I'm still using 18 years later), so it was a deal. The problem was that those bottles were NAAAASTY!! I tried B-Brite and was unhappy with it for a number of reasons, but then it occurred to me, "hey, I'm a chemist who works in cleaners, why don't I make something better?" Straight-A resulted from that and it found a pretty good following through the mid to late 90's primarily through word of mouth. I don't market it as a sanitizer, although B-Brite was being sold that way at the time (don't know if it still is) and I put in more peroxide generating material in my version, so if anyone uses B-Brite for that reason, you can rest assured that Straight-A has the same content in terms of active oxygen. Everyone goes on about PBW, but Straight-A is essentially the same thing in a cheaper container without the phosphates (I'm still trying to do the environmentally friendly thing). One Step was originally intended to be a final rinse type of product. I cannot legally call it a sanitizer because the cost involved in doing that (registering with the EPA, etc.) is cost prohibitive for me. HOWEVER, one of my associates has successfully convinced the manufacturer of the active ingredient (i.e. the guys that have the big bucks) to register it as an algeacide/fungicide for use in water treatment and agricultural use. We have not been able to get them to do the same for hard surface sanitizing, but this might give you an idea regarding the capacity of sanitizing for this type of product. If anyone is interested, they can check out the EPA review document here-- http://www.epa.gov/pesticides/biopesticides/ingredients/tech_docs/ brad_128860.pdf Anyway, the point is that I wanted to make One Step a single step sanitizer to compete with iodophors (Star San was not available then). It is also a reasonably good cleaner, but the tough stuff is Straight-A. And a big caveat is that you cannot clean and sanitize the same surface at the same time. So you should always pre-clean a surface prior to sanitizing (regardless of the product). I hope this answers your questions, but feel free to contact me if you have any more. Rick Theiner LOGIC, Inc. Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2008 09:37:20 -0800 (PST) From: Matt <baumssl27 at yahoo.com> Subject: Using a coolship to get enough HSA I just came across an abstract of a very old paper: Briant, L. "[Wort] Coolers - Use and Abuse of." J. Fed. Inst. Brewing, 1904, 10, 286-289. The paper is on open wort coolers (coolships) about which Briant surprisingly notes that "One of the most important objects of the cooler is to enable the wort to combine at high temperature (180-190F) with a suitable quantity of oxygen." Unfortunately in this abstract he doesn't explain why the HSA was desired. Any ideas? Matt Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2008 10:42:09 -0800 From: Robert Tower <roberttower at sbcglobal.net> Subject: Re: priming Fred Scheer is writing a paper on bottle conditioning for the MBAA and wants to know how we all do it. I am a homebrewer and I use sucrose, generally cane sugar but sometimes beet sugar. I use it at the rate of 5 oz. per 5 gallons of beer (142 g to 19 L) to get medium carbonation. Every now and then this bothers me as this amount is rather high compared to conventional homebrew wisdom which is to add 4 oz. (113 g) to 5 gallons. But in my use, it takes 5 oz. to achieve "normal" carbonation levels. At 5 oz. my beers are not excessively gassy by any means. Recently I brewed a mild ale which typically has a low to low-medium level of carbonation. For this I primed with 4 oz. in 5 gallons and I got something in the middle of "low-medium". In the past I've experimented with levels as low as 3 oz. (85 g) per 5 gallons but even after 4 weeks or more of conditioning at room temperature or higher the carbonation level was unacceptably low. When I brew Bavarian-style hefeweizen I bottle it in thick walled 500 mL bottles (the kind intended for reuse) that I've saved from German/Russian/Eastern European commercial beers over the years. I prime at the rate of 7 oz. (198 g) per 5 gallons. The results are aggressively effervescent but still nothing like champagne levels. If I find myself running low on thick walled bottles then I lower the priming to 6 oz, (170 g). Bob Tower / Los Angeles, CA Return to table of contents
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