HOMEBREW Digest #560 Thu 03 January 1991

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


Contents:
  Re: FYI (a.e.mossberg)
  My mashing technique (root)
  Re: Brewpub Practices - tangent on aging (Rick Noah Zucker)
  Re: yeast slurry (Dr. Tanner Andrews)
  Re: Patriotic Duty (Dr. Tanner Andrews)
  Textbook of Brewing (Peter Karp)
  Re: Novice -or- Let's write some FYIs! (bob)
  Gravity grief (mcnally)
  Grain brewing references (Mahan_Stephen)
  Chicago, Illinois Water Analysis ("R. J. Pals")
  Lager and FYIs  (dbreiden)
  question... (dbreiden)

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: Fri, 21 Dec 90 16:06:17 GMT From: aem at mthvax.cs.miami.edu (a.e.mossberg) Subject: Re: FYI Note that it is redundant to post the beginners guide to the newsgroup, as well as an incredible waste of network resources. The guide exists, and has existed for a long time in the archives. aem - -- aem at mthvax.cs.miami.edu ....................................................... I have nothing to declare except my genius - Oscar Wilde Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 21 Dec 90 09:01:42 PST From: root at wsl.dec.com Subject: My mashing technique Many thanks to Mike Charlton, who confirms my feelings of inadequacy :-) My worries about my mashing technique are: *) My thermometer may be off. I don't think this is true, but since I want to replace it anyway, It's worth a try. *) I may not let conversion go long enough. Two hours seems like a long time, but I should try for 2.5 sometime, with an extra heat boost to stay above 142 dF. *) My lauter tun may be doing me in. This I doubt; it's a double- bucket affair, made from some heavy-duty stiff plastic 18 qt. food "buckets". There's about 8-10 oz. space below the spigot that of course gets wasted, but I really doubt that that's where all the good stuff is going (it would have to be the consistency of honey!) *) The 2-row is not diastatic enough to convert the wheat and dextrin malts. I am too ignorant of biochemistry to assess this potential problem. When mashing, I go out of protein rest up to about 152 dF (I've been shooting for a fermentable wort). I always stir carefully to avoid overheated zones in the kettle. After I reach the correct initial temperature, I cover the kettle with my insulated box (my wife knew I wast a lost cause when I built that). Temperature drops to the mid 140's in an hour or so, so I stir and boost the heat at that point. Note that if my thermometer's off, this process would be severely affected. My lauter tun is insulated (a recent addition; I used this nifty stuff that's basically two layers of small bubble wrap covered with reflective foil), so there is only moderate heat loss during the sparge. I recycle wort with an intermediate re-heating stage. I have wondered whether I'm waiting too long before ending the recycle and going to the boiler. The final runnings come out pretty damn pale, though. Thanks for the hints! - -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mike McNally mcnally at wsl.dec.com Digital Equipment Corporation Western Software Lab Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 21 Dec 90 15:58:47 -0800 From: noah at cs.washington.edu (Rick Noah Zucker) Subject: Re: Brewpub Practices - tangent on aging I was recently in Toronto for a few days. While there I tried to hit as many brewpubs and try as many micro-brews as I could. At the Rotterdam I went on a tour and spoke with the brewmaster. While talking with him I was surprised to discover that they do not age their beers very long by our standards. He serves the lagers after four weeks, the light ales after one, and something like a porter after two. I commented on how my recent porter, although very good after a month, was phenomenal after three months. He said that as professionals they had far greater experience (easily believed) and that since they could control temperature and pressure, they did not need to age things as long as we would (this was not said condescendingly). Do people out there believe this totally? I'll agree that they may not need to age quite as long as we do at home. However, two weeks from start to finish for a porter? Four weeks for lagers? Doesn't Bud age their lagers for 6-8 weeks? I should note that I was not overly impressed by their beers or that of their sister brewpub in Toronto (the Amsterdam) although it was much better than your mass-market swill. The other brewpub I went to there, Dennisons, was better. It is partially owned by Prince Luitpold of Bavaria. Was he the one on the Beer Hunter? One point to raise about the aging of beer in brewpubs is that they may not have the space. If they were to double the aging time of their beer, they would need twice as many storage tanks, and they may not be able to afford that, or have the space for it. Rick Zucker Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 19 Dec 90 21:24:22 EST From: Dr. Tanner Andrews <tanner at ki4pv.compu.com> Subject: Re: yeast slurry Use the slurry from the secondary; the slurry from the primary may have trub, precipitated hop resins, or other undesirable products in it. - -- ...!{bikini.cis.ufl.edu allegra uunet!cdin-1}!ki4pv!tanner Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 19 Dec 90 22:29:28 EST From: Dr. Tanner Andrews <tanner at ki4pv.compu.com> Subject: Re: Patriotic Duty Well, this time we don't have anyone in the family ``over there'', and perhaps it's just as well, but I noted a shipping suggestion theory; note that no one is actually going to try to send anything across the pond without being sure that it's legal over in Saudi Arabia. Stinking hole. Insert anti-arab prejudice here. Not only might a dark beer look remarkably like a brand-named carbonated beverage if placed in a plastic 1-litre bottle, but the stuff might have a little bit of sediment in the bottom. Of course, no one would pour that sediment into a batch of diluted malt-water, and leave it to sit for a few days, if that were against local regs, and therefore no one would notice that they got a better product than the other guys who were using bread yeast. - -- ...!{bikini.cis.ufl.edu allegra uunet!cdin-1}!ki4pv!tanner Return to table of contents
Date: Sat, 22 Dec 90 12:03:28 EST From: Peter Karp <karp at cs.columbia.edu> Subject: Textbook of Brewing I have been looking for this out-of-print book on brewing. If you have any info about tracking a copy of this two volume set please reply to me by e-mail. Textbook of Brewing vol 1 & 2 Jean de Clerck Chapman & Hall LTD London 1957 Thanks for any tips. Return to table of contents
Date: Thu Dec 27 13:31:28 1990 From: bob%semantic%uunet.UU.NET at hplb.hpl.hp.com Subject: Re: Novice -or- Let's write some FYIs! Ok folks, Here we go. This is exactly what I was talking about: > > Date: Thu, 20 Dec 90 21:16:24 -0500 (EST) > From: Jared Timothy Leinbach <jl2k+ at andrew.cmu.edu> > Subject: Novice > > We are three friends in the New York City area who would like to try brewing > our own beer at home. We have no previous experience and are looking for > simple recipes, publications, suppliers, and general information on this > subject. Thank you in advance for any pointers/info. We are specifically > looking for NYC-area suppliers, etc. > This is the perfect opportunity to write a couple of FYIs. "Publications for the beginner" is a good one. "NYC-area suppliers" is also good. "General beginner information" has already been written by Rob Gardner. Anybody want to take a stab at listing some of the basic beginner publications and a small narrative on each? I will if no one else out there feels qualified. How about someone from NYC to start a listing of suppliers? Let's do it! - -- Robert A. Gorman (Bob) bob at rsi.com Watertown MA US -- - -- Relational Semantics, Inc. uunet!semantic!bob +1 617 926 0979 -- Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 02 Jan 91 09:36:48 PST From: mcnally at wsl.dec.com Subject: Gravity grief I'm starting to believe that my problems with low starting gravity (see some previous messages from me) may have something to do with my sparge technique or hardware (or both). From my general feelings about how the world works, it seems that one problem might be that my grain bed is *too* deep when I have a lot of grain. I realize that there's risk of compromising the cleanness of the sparge (i.e., I might get more draff), but perhaps the problem is that the sparge water's capacity to dissolve the sugars is exhausted before it gets through the 18 inches of grain. Perhaps I could try a double lauter tun approach, and split the mash between them. Hmmm... I also found that the settling space below the tap level in my tun is bigger than I had thought; tilting the tun might get me a couple points. What are commercial lauter tun geometries? Dave Miller mentions that commercial breweries apply the sparge water to the grain bed very carefully to avoid disturbing it. That only really makes sense if the bed is shallow. Maybe I'll look around for fatter buckets from which to make a lauter tun, and use the fat one for heavy recipes. - -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mike McNally mcnally at wsl.dec.com Digital Equipment Corporation Western Software Lab Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 2 Jan 91 24:04:00 CST From: Mahan_Stephen at lanmail.ncsc.navy.mil Subject: Grain brewing references I am preparing to enter the world of All-Grain-Brewing. I already have Papazian's "TCJOHB" and would appreciate it if any of you experienced brewers could suggest informative references for the "WHY, WHAT, HOW and WHEN" of this science. Thank you in advance. J.B. Montgomery (John is sharing my subscription as he does not yet have a LAN connection here. I will forward all individual replies to him.) steve mahan_stephen at lanmail.ncsc.navy.mil Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 2 Jan 91 09:46:27 CST From: "R. J. Pals" <uunet!inland.com!pals at uunet.UU.NET> Subject: Chicago, Illinois Water Analysis I saw the post on the water quality for Burlington, Ontario a while back and that prompted me to get the Chicago analysis. The two are really quite similar, especially numbers that may be imporatant to home brewers (hardness, pH, etc.). I assume that Burlington gets its water from Lake Ontario (Chicago is of course Lake Michigan water), so maybe this analysis is typical for all Great Lakes water(?). Chicago, Illinois Drinking Water Quality Composite Samples for November 2, 1990 All results are in mG/L (parts per million) unless otherwise noted Organic Nitrogen 0.19 Calcium 36.1 Nitrate + Nitrite 0.16 Sodium 6.1 Ammonia-Nitrogen < 0.01 Aluminum (uG/L) 341 Potassium 1.5 Iron (uG/L) < 10 Turbidity 0.30 pH 8.2 Sulfate 26.3 Total Phosphate 0.011 Fluoride 0.91 Magnesium 10.8 Chloride 10.4 Lead (uG/L) 4.0 Alkalinity (total) 93.0 Total Dissolved Solids (Residue) 173.0 Hardness 134.0 Copper (uG/L) 3.0 Potassium 1.5 Radioactivity (Beta, pCi/L) 2.9 Randy Pals Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 02 Jan 91 15:14:34 -0500 From: dbreiden at mentor.cc.purdue.edu Subject: Lager and FYIs Mike Schremp asked about starting lagers. The one lager that my brew partner and I made went very well. We just started it like any old beer--which for us means room temp (~65-68 deg F.) and putting it in a fridge after it got going. It went pretty well. Ended up being one of our best batches. The comments on FYIs sounds really great. I don't understand the details on creation or use or the ramifications on adminstering & such. But the basic idea sounds super for the novice--and for the advanced!! This raises a question I'd forgotten about. I've tried to get stuff from the archives but have failed. Could someone post or e-mail me a little primer on how to retrieve old stuff?? Many Thanks. - --Danny Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 02 Jan 91 15:19:56 -0500 From: dbreiden at mentor.cc.purdue.edu Subject: question... How come brewers don't have to include the ingredients on their products? If Oscar Meyer is required to proclaim the ther world all the nasties included in making there bologna, why don't the makers of Olympia beer have to tell us what kind of adjucnts are included--Bud is kind enough to admit that rice or corn or something is added. Just a question. - --Danny Return to table of contents
End of HOMEBREW Digest #560, 01/03/91 ************************************* -------
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