HOMEBREW Digest #616 Tue 16 April 1991

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


Contents:
  Evanston, Boulder (Dick Dunn)
  Wort Chiller Caveat... (Mike Zentner)
  Hops and stuff ("N. Zentena")
  steam beer (Russ Gelinas)
  Barley wine from mash (Bill Crick)
  Re:  St. Florian (florianb)
  Re: Lab Chems in Home Brew (Jon Binkley)
  Can I forfeit the deposit and use the Busch keg? (boubez)
  EBC, EBU (Ken Johnson)
  Florida Brewpubs (C.R. Saikley)
  Looking for mail order places... (mbharrington)
  EWU and the area ("John E. Lenz")
  Claening copper (Bill Crick)
  lab grade chemicals (lg562)

Send submissions to homebrew%hpfcmi at hplabs.hp.com Send requests to homebrew-request%hpfcmi at hplabs.hp.com [Please do not send me requests for back issues] Archives are available from netlib at mthvax.cs.miami.edu
---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 15 Apr 91 01:33:25 MDT (Mon) From: ico.isc.com!rcd at raven.eklektix.com (Dick Dunn) Subject: Evanston, Boulder Don't you folks in Evanston feel too bad...it *is* possible to recover from being a dry town. The notes said that Evanston had been dry 'til '71, right? Boulder was dry until '65, I believe (that's +/- a year), and now look--it's the Center of the Universe for homebrewing (well, c'mon, what would you call the home of Beer'n'Steer and the AHA?:-), and has two breweries, which is reasonable for a town of 10^5. People still take the occasional cheap shot, but you can always overlook that when there's good fresh local ale! - --- Dick Dunn rcd at raven.eklektix.com -or- raven!rcd Return to table of contents
Date: Mon, 15 Apr 91 09:59:54 -0500 From: zentner at ecn.purdue.edu (Mike Zentner) Subject: Wort Chiller Caveat... If you consider building a wort chiller, be careful about the oils inside your copper tubing. I noticed little silvery flecks coming out of mine after running boiling water through it. These were actually little bits of grease. I took a cotton swab, soaked in rubbing alcohol, and rubbed the inside of the tubing....yuck! Black gunk! So I uncoiled the thing, snaked stiff wire through, and pulled a string with cotton balls tied onto the ends soaked in soap, rinsed it, and then pulled rubbing alcohol soaked cotton through. Cold water may not loosen this grease, but hot water did so enough to let me know it was there, but not enough so as to clean it out. Does anyone else notice this problem, and/or found an easier way to fix it? Mike Zentner zentner at ecn.purdue.edu Return to table of contents
Date: Mon, 15 Apr 1991 09:56:25 -0400 From: "N. Zentena" <zen at utcs.utoronto.ca> Subject: Hops and stuff Hi, I'm looking at ordering some hop rhizomes and would like some information. The types that are available to me are: Cascade Hallertauer Williamette Tettnanger Nugget I was thinking of ordering Hallertauer,Tettnanger and Nugget. The thing is I've never seen or used Nugget. So could someone give me an idea what it is like?[I'm basically looking at has a high alpha bittering hop]. Since I'm supposed to have my order in my the middle of next week I would appreciate email responses. The second question I have concerns priming. I don't use corn sugar so I would like to prime with normal white table sugar. Does anybody know how they relate in terms of amounts to add?[I've used the fact that cane sugar is supposedly 45degrees extract/lb versus 35/lb for corn sugar but this gave me flat beer :-(] Since priming is normally my only sugar addition I'm not worried about it affecting the taste. Thanks Nick Return to table of contents
Date: Mon, 15 Apr 1991 10:56:00 EDT From: R_GELINAS at UNHH.UNH.EDU (Russ Gelinas) Subject: steam beer For the next few months, my brew-room will naturally stay at 60 degF, a little cold for an ale, and too warm for a lager. So how about a steam beer? Anyone got a recipe for an Anchor Steam-like beer? Russ r_gelinas%unhh.unh.edu at mitvma.mit.edu Return to table of contents
Date: Mon, 15 Apr 1991 09:03:31 -0400 From: hplabs!bnr-vpa!bnr-rsc!crick (Bill Crick) Subject: Barley wine from mash I tried to post this last week, but it bounced? In my post of the other day about all grain barley wine, I suggested using the first run runoff to get a high gravity 1/2 batch. In that article, I presented it as if I meant to use no sparge water. This of course would probably compact the filter bed, and wreck it. This is not what I meant to say. What I meant was recycle the wort until the runoff is clear, to set the bed, and then add sparge water slowly to the top, as you runoff the high gravity wort. By knowing how much wort is in the bed to start, measuring runoff gravity, or watching for a color change, you can predict/detect when you hav ranoff all the initial wort, and are starting to get the sparge water coming through. This is when you will get a fairly sudden drop in the gravity of the runoff, and should consider your barley wine wort complete, and save the rest of the runoff for the lower gravity, or extract beer. Hope this makes more sense?? Bill Crick Brewius, Ergo Summer! Return to table of contents
Date: Mon, 15 Apr 91 12:46:10 PDT From: florianb at chip.cna.tek.com Subject: Re: St. Florian Kris Weiss (love that name!) asks: >Now wait a second here. Is this the same Florian that contributes to this >journal? Is Florian the Dreamer also Florian the Holy?? I dunno -- the guy >always struck me as some kind of troublemaker... I was named after my uncle Florian, who was in turn named after St. Florian. St. Florian is the Bavarian Patron Saint of the Fire Brigade. A couple of years ago i was in an outdoor shop in Munich (one of the biggest sport shops in the world). It was converted from an old grand house, you know, the kind with the square cedar beams that are about 500 years old. In this house were examples of the old lamp stands that were built into the wall. This is a concave notch cut out of the wall where they put a candle in the old days. The concave acted like a parabolic mirror, to reflect the light out into the room. In these concave areas, they used to paint a picture and write something witty, for orneriness. One of the areas had a painting of St. Florian hovering in the clouds above a burning building (probably a brewery), and had an inscription written in Bayerish which translated something like, "Dear St. Florian, protect this house...burn another..." Florian is an extremely Bayerish name. In the middle of Garmish- Partenkirchen is a town square called "Floriansplatz". This is, many Germans argue, the most beautiful place in all of Germany. I was there in 1986 on a perfectly clear blue day. With the Zugspitze in the background, I had a beer in "Florianstuberl", in direct earshot of the Floriansplatz fountain. The beer was so perfect, it was like no beer I have ever tasted since. Pity that we home brewers can't duplicate it exactly. The stuff that memories are made of. Florian, the not-so-holy. Return to table of contents
Date: Mon, 15 Apr 91 14:18:02 -0600 From: Jon Binkley <binkley at beagle.Colorado.EDU> Subject: Re: Lab Chems in Home Brew In HBD #615 Dan Graham writes: >In perusing my new Carolina Biological catalog, I have found some chemicals >that would be useful in tayloring the mineral profile of my water. My >question ot any lab types out there: Can I assume that a reagent grade >chemical will be safe to use in my beer, (providing that the chemical is >not poisonous in the first place). >How about the same question for what they call "lab grade"? The *ONLY* grades suitable are USP (suitable for use as pharmaceuticals) and FCC (suitable for use as foods). I glanced at an old Carolina catalog after I read Dan's message: anything that's USP or FCC is clearly labled as such. For example, they have many grades of Calcium Chloride. The one Dan should buy is labled Reagent *AND* USP. If it just says Reagent, or just says Lab grade, STAY AWAY FROM IT. This is really something you don't want to mess around with- non USP/FCC grade stuff is frequently purified with some truely nasty stuff. Some off the shelf Calcium Chloride in our lab had heavy metals measureing in the parts per million range- the FDA limit is somewhere in the low parts per BILLION. Let's be CAREFUL out there! Jon Binkley binkley at boulder.colorado.edu Return to table of contents
Date: Mon, 15 Apr 91 17:32:40 EDT From: boubez at bass.rutgers.edu Subject: Can I forfeit the deposit and use the Busch keg? As the Subject line indicates, one of my roommates had a party and got one of those nifty large Busch kegs with the hand-pump. He had to leave a $40 deposit for it. This got me wondering.... I know this has been discussed in the past, but I don't remember when, so I'm asking again. I'd appreciate either direct answers, or references to previous issues in the HBD archives. So, getting to the question, Can I use this keg for kegging my beer? If so, are there any modifications, special instructions, etc... I figure that $40 is not too bad to pay for a kegging system. Any comments/ Thanks in advance. toufic R 2 4 |_|_| Toufic Boubez | | | boubez at caip.rutgers.edu 1 3 5 CAIP Center, Rutgers University Return to table of contents
Date: Mon, 15 Apr 91 14:37:05 PDT From: kjohnson at argon.berkeley.edu (Ken Johnson) Subject: EBC, EBU I've been reading my newly purchased copy of New World Guide to Beer and was wondering if anybody knows a conversion from Jackson's bittering units to aau per 5 gal batch. Also, does anyone have the color scale handy? kj Return to table of contents
Date: Mon, 15 Apr 91 18:19:06 PDT From: grumpy!cr at uunet.UU.NET (C.R. Saikley) Subject: Florida Brewpubs There was a recent request for info on brewpubs in Florida. So once again I dug into the archives, expecting the brewpub scene in Florida to be similar to its neighboring states'. WOW - Was I surprised!!! Florida is blessed with 12 brewpubs (ahhh, the joyous decadence of Spring Break). It ranks third behind California and Oregon in total number of brewpubs, and is tied for fourth in number of microbreweries and brewpubs combined. Here's what I found: Clearwater - Hops Grill and Bar #1 Ft. Meyers - Kidder's Ale House Ft. Lauderdale - River Walk Brewery Gainesville - Mill Bakery, Brewery and Eatery #1 - Market Street Pub Miami - Florida Brewing Co. Pensacola - McGuire's Irish Pub and Brewery Sarasota - Sarasota Brewing Co. Tallahassee - Mill Bakery, Brewery and Eatery #2 Tampa - Hops Grill and Bar #2 - Tampa Bay Brewing Co. Winter Park - Mill Bakery, Brewery and Eatery #3 Interested parties can email me for addresses. If anyone knows of new openings or closures :--<, please let me know. Cheers, CR uunet!grumpy!cr Return to table of contents
Date: Mon, 15 Apr 91 19:44:10 PDT From: mbharrington at UCSD.EDU Subject: Looking for mail order places... My local homebrew store isn't that local, and the selection and prices are pretty poor. People have mentioned ordering through the mail. I'd be interested in finding out the numbers/addresses of some places. Much thanks! - --Matt Return to table of contents
Date: Mon, 15 Apr 91 22:43:54 EDT From: "John E. Lenz" <JELJ at CORNELLA.cit.cornell.edu> Subject: EWU and the area Rob Bradley (bradley at math.nwu.edu) slipped in a shot at Eastern Washington U. in #615. Well Rob, having moved from WSU (in Pullman, WA) just a year and a half ago I can tell you that there are be worse places to be employed than Cheney. Pullman for one, though it does have a good pub called Rico's. Cheney is close to Spokane, where Jim's Homebrew Supply is located. In my limited experience with homebrew shops this is quite a good establishment. Tom (the current owner) stocks quite a wide variety of extracts, grains, hops, yeasts, and wine stuff, as well as all the usual brewing equipment. His prices are quite competitive and he is a good guy, always willing to talk homebrew and give advice when asked for it. In addition he has a liquor license and stocks an incredible selection of micro and import brews. I noticed recently that he is advertising as a mail order supplier now and would encourage those of you who are looking for such to contact him for a catalog. By the way, he is the sponsor of the Rauchbier catagory for the AHA national competition. If anyone needs the address he has an ad in the 1990 special Hops issue of Zymurgy, or you can e-mail directly to me and I will supply the information. Ein Prosit, Dr. John Return to table of contents
Date: Mon, 15 Apr 1991 18:03:57 -0400 From: hplabs!bnr-vpa!bnr-rsc!crick (Bill Crick) Subject: Claening copper This talk of pots to span two elements made me think of a copper "boiler" I have in the basement that would span two burners, and should hold 10- 15 gallons. The only problem is that it is fairly oxidized from about 20 years of sitting in basements. Any idaes on an easy way to clean it? I seem to remember you could remove the axide off of copper with an acid, but forget which one? Nitric? Muriatic? any ideas? Thanks Bill Crick Brewius, Oxide, Sum! Return to table of contents
Date: Mon, 15 Apr 91 22:24:15 PDT From: lg562 at koshland.pnl.gov Subject: lab grade chemicals Date: 12 Apr 91 13:49:00 EDT >From: "DRCV06::GRAHAM" <graham%drcv06.decnet at drcvax.af.mil> In perusing my new Carolina Biological catalog, I have found some chemicals that would be useful in tayloring the mineral profile of my water. My question ot any lab types out there: Can I assume that a reagent grade chemical will be safe to use in my beer, (providing that the chemical is not poisonous in the first place). STOP! I would suggest not using lab grade or reagent grade chemicals. Although they may be pure, you don't know what the trace elements are. If you can, select pharmaceutical grade or USP-grade. Lab/reagent/ACS grades are good for lab work where one is not consuming them. A prime example is 100% ethanol. This stuff is pure, but to get it to 100%, they use benzene (or something like that), so there is a trace of benzene left in the ethanol. (It turns out that 95% ethanol is safer, since simple distillation will get you to 95% from ethanol-water mixtures.) Michael Bass Molecular Science Research Center, K2-18 Battelle - Pacific Northwest Laboratory Richland, Washington 99352 lg562 at pnl.gov Return to table of contents
End of HOMEBREW Digest #616, 04/16/91 ************************************* -------
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