HOMEBREW Digest #621 Tue 23 April 1991

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


Contents:
  copper tubing (DAVID)
  Counterflow Wort Chillers, blue flakes and oil (Michael Zentner)
  Mason Jars (chris)
  MeV German Alt Yeast ("Andy Wilcox")
  Yeast for Lambics (Mike Sharp)
  Re: Pub Database (Chris Shenton)
  re water purification (Jon Binkley)
  Re: Homebrew Digest #620 (April 22, 1991) (Joe Dalsin)
  weizen yeast (Marty Albini)
  Long Term Physiological Effects of Beer Drinking (larryba)

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---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 22 Apr 1991 9:16:23 EDT From: POORE at SCRI1.SCRI.FSU.EDU (DAVID) Subject: copper tubing Appologies if this has been discussed recently... I just got some old copper tubing and I want to make a chiller. The stuff is pretty old, and has a bit of corrosion. It was originally used as a gas line. I'm looking for advice on how to treat the stuff to get it clean and in shape to touch my beer. Thanks... David Poore poore at gw.scri.fsu.edu Return to table of contents
Date: Mon, 22 Apr 91 08:32:06 -0500 From: zentner at ecn.purdue.edu (Michael Zentner) Subject: Counterflow Wort Chillers, blue flakes and oil Kinney Baughman wrote: > were the comments that the clorox caused little blue flakes to > form inside the copper tubing. I've never worried about the blue > flakes because even though blue, they were sterile, and didn't seem to > affect the taste of my beer in any way. > > Still blue flakes were a recurring comment and I began to consider > doing what Darren did, use boiling water to sterilize my chiller The fact that blue flakes were coming out indicates that there was a layer of blue stuff inside that had formed and was flaking off...not necessarily that all of the corrosion was washed out, though. In industrial applications, this stuff is very important, because fouling reduces drastically, in many cases, the efficiency of heat exchange. I don't suspect it matters much in a home-application, though. I am still pretty sure I wouldn't want it in my beer, for no real scientific reason, just because I'd "know" it was there. > A few digests back, someone pointed out that new copper has oils which > must be removed before first use of a chiller. > ... > tubing. I've always recommended doing a couple of clorox soaks > (1 Tablespoon clorox to 1 gallon of water, for 30 minutes) before using > copper chillers for the first time. Following up or interspersing it > with a couple boiling hot water rinses is a good idea as well. Sorry to keep harping on this subject, but I think it's VERY important. Bleach will have very little effect in dissolving oils. Hot water may "soften" the oil enough that some will float out, but it will not get the thin layer off the edge of the copper. You need one of two things which interact either chemically or physically with oil to remove it: Either something with surfactant properties (soap) or a solvent (alcohol will work). I really tried about everything possible running through my chiller to get this gunk out, and nothing was effective. I ran hot soap solutions through it, propanol, and even pine sol (this worked a little bit). Simply rinsing with this stuff was not effective. It actually required physical agitation to get the oil out...which meant uncoiling the darn thing and fighting with it half a day with stiff wire and cotton balls. The easiest realiable way to know if you have oil in there or not is to actually dip a cotton swab in rubbing alcohol and stick it in, rubbing it around. If it comes out black, thats grease or oil. After you wash it out, test it again, inserting the swab to a different depth, so you don't test the same area you swabbed clean earlier. The other option is to say, "I can't taste it, so who cares?" It just depends on what kind of person you are. Just knowing it was there was too much for me to relax about. Mike "got rid of the greasies" Zentner Return to table of contents
Date: Mon, 22 Apr 91 8:35:15 CDT From: medch!chris at uunet.UU.NET Subject: Mason Jars Just curious, but has anyone out there tried quart Mason Jars rather than bottles? I'm thinking of starting to brew in the near future and like the convenient size of these jars. Besides, theres something about alcohol in mason jars in northern Alabama... - -- # Chris Hudson # Don't try to have the last word, b17a!medch!chris # you might get it. X1375 IW17A5 # Intergraph # -Lazarus Long # Return to table of contents
Date: Mon, 22 Apr 91 10:24:44 -0400 From: "Andy Wilcox" <andy at eng.ufl.edu> Subject: MeV German Alt Yeast Has anybody brewed with this yeast before? Here's my situation. I started the yeast in a two-quart malt solution. From this, sterile agar slants were innoculated. The original starter was then used to brew a batch of beer. This fermentation was slow to get going, but then produced a slab of light brown material covering the top of the glass fermenter. There is a strange odor to this brew - not "bad", per se, but strange. It's improving significantly with lagering (1 month now). Now, the slants. They were my first. Not knowing what a healthy slant should look like, I assumed these were good. The were not "pure creamy white" as described in the Leistad book, but more like light creamy tan. (One of the slants did become infected with some green goo. I *knew* that wasn't right :-) From this slant, I made a 100ml starter, and then pitched this in 1000ml and then 2000ml. This was pitched in wort. This fermentation is behaving exactly the same as the original, except it started much faster. Is this "normal" behavior for this yeast? I'm dissapointed that it seems to need so much aging. I *really* like the german Alt style, and would like to have it mature sooner. -Andy Return to table of contents
Date: Mon, 22 Apr 91 11:01:30 EDT From: msharp at hawk.ulowell.edu (Mike Sharp) Subject: Yeast for Lambics Hello all, I have just added cultures of Brettanomyces Bruxellensis and Pediococcus Cerevisiae to my culture collection. These are the two main yeasts which give Belgian Lambics their distinct characteristics. Both of these cultures are from a 'reputable lab' which wishes to remain anon. These are pure cultures, not sludge from the bottom of a bottle. If there is sufficient interest, I will make them available in liquid cultures. What I need to know is if there is sufficient interest. If you're interested in obtaining subcultures or just getting on my mailing list please contact me at msharp at cs.ulowell.edu or (508)441-2220. (if your e-mail bounces try msharp at hawk.ulowell.edu) I'll be using the mailing list to keep net-folks up to date on the availability of special yeasts & bacterias as well as equipment and techniques for making pseudo-lambics. FYI, I can probably start subculturing in about a month or by special arrangement prior to that. (I'm running some test batches at the moment) --Mike Sharp >> This is NOT another april fools joke! I _really_ do have these. << Return to table of contents
Date: Mon, 22 Apr 91 11:49:32 EDT From: Chris Shenton <chris at asylum.gsfc.nasa.gov> Subject: Re: Pub Database Regarding the databasing of brew pubs and local breweries, I like it, but it's been done in a convenient paperback. Micheal Jackson's Pocket Guide to Beer. I just bought his latest version (``Revised, Updated, and Expanded'') the other night when I saw him speak. Excellent book. Of course it can't change as rapidly as electronic media, but it is thorough. Return to table of contents
Date: Mon, 22 Apr 91 10:05:50 -0600 From: Jon Binkley <binkley at beagle.Colorado.EDU> Subject: re water purification Some thoughts on a couple of water purification messages in HBD #620: Dan Graham said: >As was obvious, I have decided on the carbon block unit with the >ultraviolet light sterilizer. I wonder what would happen if I modified the >unit to use just the UV light and passed the wort by it on its way to the >fermenter ... hmmm ... I don't think this would be a good idea. We all know what certain wavelengths of light can do to hop components; while I've never heard of UV being implicated, it wouldn't suprise me if there's something in your complex soup that could get re-combobulated into something nasty smelling/tasting after getting hit by UV. Randy Tidd sez: >In my supermarket I see both distilled and "spring" water for sale for >somewhere between $0.69 and $0.99 a gallon -- not too bad. I assume >the spring water would have some stuff in it (i.e. minerals) but that >the distilled water would have virtually none. What minerals, if >any, would I have to add to this water? I've seen a lot of recipes >that call for Burton water salts or gypsum. What results can I expect >if I use only pure water, malt, yeast and hops? You'd probably be okay using spring water, but you might run into problems with using only distilled. Yeast require a bunch of bizarre minerals at very low concentrations which wouldn't be in distilled water, and wouldn't be added with gypsum or burton salts. However... >I do mostly extract brewing... So what I said is probably moot. The trace minerals extract adds back are probably sufficient, and would probably allow you to get by using distilled water plus burton salts. Jon Binkley binkley at boulder.colorado.edu Return to table of contents
Date: Mon, 22 Apr 91 13:55:40 EDT From: John Mireley <mireley at horus.cem.msu.edu> Greetings. As a newcomer to the art/scinece of homebrewing I have several questions concerning glass ware. I recently purchased, at a garage sale, the glassware of a fellow that made wine. I got two five gallon carboys and a half dozen glass jars. The glass jars and one of the carboys seem to have been made by the same company as they all have the same sort of pattern on their bottoms. All but one of the jars is three or so gallons. The odd jar looks like it will hold five gallons. All have a threaded wide mouth and a wire/wood handle. The bottoms have a random patern of lines that look like the paterns in cracked mud. I would guess the they are there to increase the strength of the bottoms. They are marked on the bottom with an "I" in a diamond and an oval. What were these jars made for? All the jars and the carboy have, what appear to be small curved cracks in the bottoms. The 5 gallon jar has a small crack in the side. Do these cracks represent a problem? Could the 5 gallon jar be used if I wrapped the jar with, say a fiberglass, tape? Can a wort that has been pitched and does not start fermenting be reboiled and repitched? I bottled my first batch of beer a week ago. We ran out of beer Saturday and money on Friday so my wife wanted to start drinking the green beer. I objected but she insisted. She says she likes it better than anything that we have been buying. Are there recipes that are desinged not to be carbonated? When using hopped extract, I have 6lbs of M&F amber, do the producers assume that you will be mixing it with some amount of unhopped extract or other sugar source? Can I just use all six pounds to make a batch or will it be to heavily hopped? John Mireley Return to table of contents
Date: Mon, 22 Apr 91 13:08:24 CST From: Joe Dalsin <joed at cbs.cbs.umn.edu> Subject: Re: Homebrew Digest #620 (April 22, 1991) In message <9104220700.AA11210 at hpfcmi.HP.COM> homebrew-request@ hpfcmi.fc.hp.com writes: > Please remove my name from the list. Thank you. joe-d at molbio.cbs.umn.edu > ///////////////////////////////// // Joe Dalsin // // CBS - Networking Services // // University of Minnesota // ///////////////////////////////// Return to table of contents
Date: Mon, 22 Apr 91 16:02:35 PDT From: Marty Albini <martya at sdd.hp.com> Subject: weizen yeast Found it! Saccarimides Delbruckii can be ordered from: Brewhaus, of Knoxville, TN. Their number is (615) 523-4615. It is, by the way, apparently MeV #033. Still looking for MeV's address, BTW. Thanks to all who aided in the search, whose names are omitted to avoid having to spell from memory. l owe you a beer! - -- ____________________________________________Marty Albini___________ "Thank god for long-necked bottles, the angel's remedy."--Tom Petty phone : (619) 592-4177 UUCP : {hplabs|nosc|hpfcla|ucsd}!hp-sdd!martya Internet : martya at sdd.hp.com US mail : Hewlett-Packard Co., 16399 W. Bernardo Drive, San Diego CA 92127-1899 USA Return to table of contents
Date: Mon Apr 22 15:34:13 1991 From: microsoft!larryba at uunet.UU.NET Subject: Long Term Physiological Effects of Beer Drinking Does anyone have any hard information regarding long term physiological and/or psychological affects of drinking (home brew) beer at the rate of 5-6 pints a week? What about 8-10 pints a week? What about abstinence and binging? I consider 6 pints/week to be moderate. My wife, who works as a statistitian in the medical community, typically considers more than three bottles of beer a week "problem" drinking for classification purposes. I take popular medical recommendations with a large grain of salt. They seem to change every six months. So the current fad of near abstinence is pretty suspect. Info, or pointers to info, names of researchers, etc would be helpful. Larry Barello Microsoft Return to table of contents
End of HOMEBREW Digest #621, 04/23/91 ************************************* -------
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