HOMEBREW Digest #996 Thu 22 October 1992

Digest #995 Digest #997


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


Contents:
  re: boil ALL the water (Jim Grady)
  Growing hops (Greg J. Pryzby)
  Unboiled brew water (The Ice-9-man Cometh)
  Re: Beginner questions ("Spencer W. Thomas")
  reusing yeast (Michael Gildner)
  chiller for fermenter (jim busch)
  Bananabrau revisited (David Pike)
  Crystal vs. Caramel, divers (Joseph Nathan Hall)
  Re: Aluminum Pots, White Spots on SS. (Bill Szymczak)
  Boiler Precipitate Removal ("John Cotterill")
  Re: Beginner Questions (korz)
  Carmelization/clorine/DMS (korz)
  Stuck ferment -- oops. (korz)
  Yeast nutrients,mini-kegs,molasses,stuck fermentations from Micah ("Bob Jones")
  used terms (Victor Reijs)
  lager yeats at higher temp. and stuck fregmentation (Victor Reijs)
  Re: sake (Victor Reijs)
  adjuncts and enzyme sources (Mark Garti  mrgarti at xyplex.com)
  William Mares "Making Beer" (fjdobner)
  Small Batches (Chris Cook, NMOS Quality Engineer - (301)386-7807)
  Al's Special London Ale (korz)
  The Big 1K (dbreiden)

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---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 21 Oct 92 8:04:00 EDT From: Jim Grady <jimg at hpwalq.wal.hp.com> Subject: re: boil ALL the water In #995 Tom Dube asks about Dave Miller's recommendation to boil all the water that gets into the fermentor and writes: > The reason he gives for boiling is the presence of chlorine in tap water. > Does this make sense? Would boiling the tap water increase the > chlorine concentration, or does it really help? The purpose here is to get rid of the chlorine. In his previous book, "The Complete Handbook of Homebrewing," he recommends pre-boiling all water for 15 to 30 minutes to drive off the chlorine. IMHO, it is a function of your water supply. When I lived in Lexington, MA, the water was quite good and I could add it directly to the fermenter and the beers were fine for my untrained palatte. When I moved to North Andover, MA, I could smell the chlorine in the water & the water dept. said the chlorine level was 0.7 ppm - swimming pools range from 1 - 2 ppm. I started boiling the water then; I did not try a batch without boiling the water. I would call your water department. If you have Miller's previous book, he lists all the minerals & gunk to ask about. I found our water department very helpful. - -- Jim Grady |"Talent imitates, genius steals." Internet: jimg at wal.hp.com | Phone: (617) 290-3409 | T. S. Eliot Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 21 Oct 92 7:57:10 EDT From: gjp at virtech.vti.com (Greg J. Pryzby) Subject: Growing hops Due to unfortunate circumstances I have been away from brewing (and the digest) for a year. The good news is that I will be able to start brewing again very soon. The question I have is concerning growing my own hops. I am going to be moving to a place that I think will be great for growing hops. Anyone who is growing their own, I would appreciate some pointers (when, what, how, etc). I will be living on the side of a moutain (I think of it as a hill, but it is listed as a mountain) west of Washington DC, if that makes a difference. - -- Greg Pryzby uunet!virtech!gjp Virtual Technologies, Inc. gjp at vti.com Dulles, Virginia Herbivores ate well cause their food didn't never run. -- Jonathan Fishman ******** Ask me about SENTINEL, The Ultimate Debugging Environment ******** Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1992 8:46:31 -0500 (CDT) From: SMITH at EPVAX.MSFC.NASA.GOV (The Ice-9-man Cometh) Subject: Unboiled brew water >From: dube at GROUCHO.CS.NYU.EDU (Tom Dube) > I have always added >the extra few gallons of water straight from the tap to the >fermenter. > >The reason [Dave] gives for boiling is the presence of chlorine in tap water. >Does this make sense? Would boiling the tap water increase the >chlorine concentration, or does it really help? Boiling tap water will drive off dissolved chlorine gas, which is what most water utilities use to disinfect. It will increase chlorIDE concentration, which is generally not relevant to brewing because neither the original nor the final concentration is very large. I suspect that this problem is what is making my beers unpleasant. All my brews have had the same underlying nasty taste, despite my changing of many variables (including going from dry to Wyeast). At a brewclub meeting, this taste was described as "medicine-y", and according to Dave's book, chlorine residue can cause this problem. One variable I have never changed is that I add my 2-gallon boil to 3 gallons of cold tap water. I intend to boil all my water for the next batch to see if that fixes the problem. Interestingly, none of my meads have had this taste. This I do not understand. I would give a lot to make just ONE good batch of beer, to prove to my friends that homebrew is not intrinsically bad...though I like even my medicine brew better than Bud.... james smith at epvax.msfc.nasa.gov (Internet) "armchair rocket scientist graffiti existentialist deconstruction primitive performance photo-realist" Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 21 Oct 92 10:27:19 EDT From: "Spencer W. Thomas" <Spencer.W.Thomas at med.umich.edu> Subject: Re: Beginner questions J. Fingerle writes: > I used the Munton and Fison Stout Kit (3#5ozs). It calls for > 6 cups (2#3ozs) of spraymalt, which the clerk at the store > said was unnecessary and recommended using 6 cups of the corn sugar > supplied with my kit instead. I did this. First, what is > "spraymalt?" Secondly, everything from Papizon to the NBS catalog > recommends against the use of that much corn sugar. Is this correct > and why? "spraymalt" is dried malt extract. It is sometimes more convenient than the canned stuff, especially since you can measure out arbitrary amounts. Sugar is disrecommended because (1) it adds no body or flavor to the beer, just alchohol, and (2) it can contribute to the development of a "cidery" flavor. In any case, 6 cups of sugar will contribute significantly more alchohol than 6 cups of malt extract. > Also, the instructions on the label said add the softened malt, the > spraymalt, and 1 gallon of boiling water to the primary and stir. > Again the same sources I've been reading almost universally recommend > adding the malt to boiling water and then continuing the boiling > on the stove for some amount of time. What's the difference? Is this > necessary? You don't want the heat turned on while you are adding the extract to the water. If it is, you run a big risk of burning some of the extract, as it immediately falls to the bottom of the pot, and needs vigorous stirring to mix it into the water. If you are using a pre-hopped kit (as it seems you were), you really only need to get the ingredients hot enough to kill nasty micro-organisms. The sugar certainly needs no more boiling. Boiling accomplishes two purposes: (1) it coagulates some proteins in the malt extract, and (2) it extracts bitterness from the hops. Purpose 2 has already been done in the manufacture of your kit, and to some extent so has purpose 1. You will get more crud (technically called "trub", pronounced "troob") if you boil it for a while. This is stuff that could otherwise end up making your beer a little cloudy, and could perhaps contribute some off-flavor notes in the long run. On the other hand, if you are going to boil it, I would add more than 1 gallon of water. Otherwise you run a significant risk of caramelizing some of the sugars, darkening the wort and coarsening the flavor. > bottled on the seventh day. I opened one last night (its been a week) > and it was pretty good. I will, of course, continue to let this batch > age. This is the bottom line, of course. If you're happy with the end product, then you did fine. If, you want to continue to make better and better beer, then some of the points covered above may help you to do that. =Spencer W. Thomas | Info Tech and Networking, B1911 CFOB, 0704 "Genome Informatician" | Univ of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109 Spencer.W.Thomas at med.umich.edu | 313-747-2778, FAX 313-764-4133 Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 21 Oct 92 09:01:24 EDT From: mmlai!lucy!gildner at uunet.UU.NET (Michael Gildner) Subject: reusing yeast Hello, I split a package of Wyeast into two starters about 2 months ago and brewed a batch with the first starter and put the other in the fridge in a sealed bottle. I'm thinking of brewing again and I'm alittle unsure of how to use the refridgerated starter. Should I boil up some malt for the yeast and try to get it bubbling again or are there any better suggestions? Thanks, Mike Gildner gildner at mml.mmc.com Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 21 Oct 92 11:50:28 EDT From: jim busch <busch at daacdev1.stx.com> Subject: chiller for fermenter I am interested in building a chilling unit for my fermenter. Short of installing a glycol unit, does anyone have some ideas on effective chillers? I am considering pumping chilled water through copper lines, either submerged in the fermenter, or wrapped around/jacketed. Any innovative- do-it-yourself concepts out there? Any basic refridge tips I should be aware of? Thanks, Jim Busch busch at daacdev1.stx.com Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 21 Oct 92 8:59:28 PDT From: davep at cirrus.com (David Pike) Subject: Bananabrau revisited bliss at csrd.uiuc.edu (Brian Bliss) writes: > Unlike the first batch, this latest batch does not have the obnox- > ious banana esters. One other difference between the two batches > was that the latest batch had 2 lb raw cane sugar in it. Could the > (relative lack of) simple sugars lead to the production of banana > esters by the yeast? Were all those banana estery batches people > experienced also all-malt brews? Did anybody use an appreciable > amount of sugar in a batch fermented with yeast belgian, and notice > excessive banana esters? If so, what kind of sugar was it? > We just recently made a Belgian Dubbel using this yeast, and 1lb. of Demarara Sugar from the Cellar, with absolutely no banana taste or smell. So maybe the sugar idea has some merit. Lots of phenolics though, true to style. Hard to distiguish it from a Chimay red. Get the Dubbel recipe from Rajotte Belgian Ale book! Dave davep at cirrus.com > Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 21 Oct 92 12:37:35 EDT From: joseph at joebloe.maple-shade.nj.us (Joseph Nathan Hall) Subject: Crystal vs. Caramel, divers I'm still looking for an answer to my "Crystal vs. Caramel" question of a week or so ago. Again, George Fix implies that there is a difference between "crystal malt" and "caramel malt" in his Vienna book, but he doesn't tell us what that difference is. Since I have not seen this distinction made in any other book on brewing I've read, I'd like to know exactly what the difference he recognizes is. ** ) From: dube at GROUCHO.CS.NYU.EDU (Tom Dube) ) But, looking at the "beginners" section of Dave Miller's 'Brewing ) the World's Great Beers', I see that he recommends boiling all ) of the water that ends up in the fermenter. I have always added ) the extra few gallons of water straight from the tap to the ) fermenter. ) ) The reason he gives for boiling is the presence of chlorine in tap water. ) Does this make sense? Would boiling the tap water increase the ) chlorine concentration, or does it really help? Boiling tap water removes chlorine very quickly. Boiling is not necessary. Aeration will remove it. In fact, letting tap water stand in an open pot for a couple of days or so will do it. (I wouldn't recommend this, though!) Chlorine diffuses out of water fairly quickly at room temperature. (It's not a matter of how soluble chlorine is, it's the fact that there isn't any chlorine in the air.) In general, chlorine in tap water will rarely be a problem. Some city water systems, however, have high chlorine levels and/or use chloramines (chlorine + ammonia) to protect water. The type of beer, water hardness, etc., all taken together determine whether you will have a chlorophenol problem in your beer. My suggestion is that if your beer tastes like Listerine, try boiling your tap water. I don't think that chlorophenol problems tend to be subtle. Sodium thiosulfate can be used to remove chlorine (and other halogens) from your tapwater, although I haven't heard this recommended for homebrewing. A carbon filter is also 100% effective, and may remove other impurities as well. ** ) From: Robert Pulliam <pulliam at monty.rand.org> ) [...] Also (and I know that this has ) probably been beaten to death) could someone let me know why no one ) uses Aluminum pots to brew with. Many folks do. In fact I have heard many more people say that they brew successfully using aluminum than I have heard complain about it. Maybe the people who had problems with aluminum are silent about it, I dunno. (Maybe they can't remember. :-) ) The heavy restaurant-grade pots are at least OK for the production of beer. Wine (with a lower starting pH) I don't haven't tried and don't know about. Don't bother trying a cheap aluminum pot. Most "aluminum" is alloyed with one metal or another, and this apparently greatly affects its acid resistance. I would avoid "shiny" aluminum and go for either anodized (black-gray) or the dull silver finish found on other restaurant-grade aluminum pots. The problem you may have with aluminum is a marked metallic taste, resulting from aluminum dissolved by the acid in your wort. Apparently different people have different sensory thresholds for this, so if you brew in aluminum and are unsure about your pot, take some of your brew to several other folks for tasting. In many respects, aluminum is far superior to stainless steel for cooking. In particular, your wort will never stick (under normal conditions) to the bottom of a heavy aluminum pot, since aluminum is an excellent conductor of heat. You will also find that the hop resins, caramelized wort, etc., at the surface of the liquid (the "boiling ring") are much easier to scrub off, usually only requiring a plastic scrubber with a little water and detergent, since they are not burned on. uunet!joebloe!joseph (609) 273-8200 day joseph%joebloe at uunet.uu.net 2102 Ryan's Run East Rt 38 & 41 Maple Shade NJ 08052 - -----My employer isn't paying for this, and my opinions are my own----- Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 21 Oct 92 13:55:42 EDT From: bszymcz%ulysses at relay.nswc.navy.mil (Bill Szymczak) Subject: Re: Aluminum Pots, White Spots on SS. In HBD995 Robert Pulliam asks > but extract will do just fine). Also (and I know that this has > probably been beaten to death) could someone let me know why no one > uses Aluminum pots to brew with. My wife (who, being Italian, cooks a lot of tomato sauce, and also has a minor in chemical engineering) told me that boiling something acidic like tomatoes or wort can cause chemical reactions with the aluminum to occur. That is, the acid can eat into the aluminum, initially causing pitting, and if boiled long enough can actually compromise the structural integrity of the pot. Even worse, aluminum (carbonate?) or something like that can get into your wort->beer->stomach->bloodstream. Also, in HBD995 John Cotterill asks: >I was looking at my SS boiling kettle yesterday and I noticed the inside >bottom is coated with some hard white crud. .... >Even if its not a real problem, I want to remove it. Does anyone know what >works best for getting rid of the white stuff??? I had the same problem a few days ago. After trying to scrub them off with a bleach solution, B-Brite, and finally with a steel wool soap pad without any luck, I again consulted my wife. She told me to try boiling some white vinegar in the pot, and like magic it worked. It even removed the small specks of rust which I had on the bottom of my SS pot. A few days ago in HBD993 Rob Bradley comments: >Using Wyeast 1056 in my SNPA (a recipe similar to last season's ales) >has knocked about 6 points off the final gravity. I kind of miss the >extra body, and the unexpected FG has thrown my hop/malt balance off. I had a similar, but perhaps more drastic experience with a batch of stout I bottled last Friday. I was using Papazian's Dark Sleep Stout recipe which calls for 6.6 lbs John Bull dark malt extract syrup (unhopped) 1 lb dark DME 1/2 lbs roasted barley 1/2 lb black grain malt 1/2 lb crystal malt 2 oz bullion hops (boiling) When I brewed this batch last year I used one package of dry Edme ale yeast and obtained OG = 1.057 FG = 1.028 This batch was very full bodied, relatively well balanced, and had a pleasant licorice flavor. For my new batch I used the same recipe but used yeast A1 from Dr. Schiller's Yeast Culture Kit, which I believe is the same as WYEAST 1056. For this batch the starting and final gravities were OG = 1.053 FG = 1.014 !!! Considering the amount of unfermentables in the recipe this final gravity must be near some theoretical limit. The difference in starting gravities is due to the fact that this time I was fermenting a little more than 5 gallons (about 5 1/4 gal.) While bottling, I tasted some of the new batch, which needless to say was quite a bit dryer (similar in dryness to Guiness), but was very clean tasting (not clear like Jack's lager). Other factors which may have influenced these results were: 1. The yeast for the new batch was pitched from a 1 liter starter, while the dry yeast used in last year's batch was simply sprinkled on top. 2. The new batch was fermented in glass carboys with primary fermentation lasting 3 days, and secondary another 8 days. The previous batch used single stage fermentation for 13 days in plastic. Bill Szymczak bszymcz at ulysses.nswc.navy.mil Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 21 Oct 92 11:00:37 PDT From: "John Cotterill" <johnc at hprpcd.rose.hp.com> Subject: Boiler Precipitate Removal Full-Name: "John Cotterill" Thanks to all who responded to my questions about removing the white precipitate on the bottom of my boiler. The consensus is that the stuff is calcium carbonate. The following suggestions were given as a means of removal: 1) Vinegar 2) Lime-a-way plus detergent wash 3) Caustic Soda 4) Brillo pad plus elbow grease Thanks again gang. I'll start with the vinegar. JC johnc at hprpcd.rose.hp.com Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 21 Oct 92 12:58 CDT From: iepubj!korz at ihlpa.att.com Subject: Re: Beginner Questions Jimmy writes: >Hello everyone, I hope you don't mind some questions from >a beginner. Not at all. We all started as beginners. >Two weeks ago, I bought my equipment kit and brewed >my first batch. I followed the instructions on the can of malt >but almost everything I've been reading since I brewed tells me >that I should not have followed them. The specifics: > >I used the Munton and Fison Stout Kit (3#5ozs). It calls for >6 cups (2#3ozs) of spraymalt, which the clerk at the store >said was unnecessary and recommended using 6 cups of the corn sugar >supplied with my kit instead. I did this. First, what is >"spraymalt?" Secondly, everything from Papizon to the NBS catalog >recommends against the use of that much corn sugar. Is this correct >and why? I offer that the clerk at your store gave you misinformation. This is unfortunate. One of the great advantages of buying from a store rather than mailorder is, that you've got a person who can advise, taste your beer, advise again, etc. It's too bad that the clerk at the store was not as well informed as they should have been. Onward. Spraymalt is another name for Dried Malt Extract. It is basically the same as Extract Syrup except that *all* the water has been removed. About 20% of the weight of Malt Extract Syrup is water, so it only has 80% of the "strength" of dried malt extract, pound for pound. You're right about the corn sugar. Virtually everyone (except the industrial brewers) agree that all-malt is best and that corn sugar should be left out of your beer recipes. Some, such as some Belgian beers and some English beers, call for non-malt sugars like Candi sugar and Demerara sugar, but generally, they are a small percentage of the fermentables. Why? Because corn sugar ferments out to a cidery (like apple cider, or even lemonade) flavor. I tasted a homebrewed "beer" in Canada last year that tasted like watered-down apple cider -- you guessed it -- more than 50% of the fermentables were from corn and table sugar! >Also, the instructions on the label said add the softened malt, the >spraymalt, and 1 gallon of boiling water to the primary and stir. >Again the same sources I've been reading almost universally recommend >adding the malt to boiling water and then continuing the boiling >on the stove for some amount of time. What's the difference? Is this >necessary? Munton & Fison (I have been told and have reason to believe based upon my use of M&F) malt extracts require a shorter boil than most malt extracts. Perhaps this is because M&F boils their wort longer before concentrating it into a syrup, but I've gotten very little hot (and cold) break from my M&F Syrup batches. If you are adding boiling hops, you still need a 60 minute boil if you want to get ~30% utilization of your hops. The purposes of the boiling are: 1. to sanitize the wort (the water-extract-hop soup), 2. to isomerize (i.e. make soluble) hop oils from any hops you added to the boil, 3. to coagulate large proteins so they don't cause haze in your finished beer (this is called hot break), and 4. in the case of all-grain beers (beers primarily made from grains rather than from extract), to boil off excess water (i.e. after extracting all the goodies from the grains, you've got 7 gallons of wort, but you want to make a 5 gallon batch). >In any event, the beer seems OK so far. Bubbling through the lock >began at about 48 hours, reached its peak activity at about 80 hours >and stopped by the fifth day. After checking with the hydrometer, I >bottled on the seventh day. I opened one last night (its been a week) >and it was pretty good. I will, of course, continue to let this batch >age. You did not mention any priming sugar. Some recipes, and I don't know if M&F recommends this, suggest that you bottle when the gravity drops to a particular level and then relies on the remaining sugars to carbonate the beer. This is not the most reliable method of carbonation. I suggest that you let the beer ferment out completely (I wait till the airlock bubbles less than 1 bubble per 2 minutes, but that's probably excessive), siphon the beer into a sanitized food-grade bucket, add priming sugar (boil 1/2 to 3/4 CUP of sugar in two cups of water), stir gently to mix and then bottle. Al. Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 21 Oct 92 13:35 CDT From: iepubj!korz at ihlpa.att.com Subject: Carmelization/clorine/DMS Mark asks: >what is carmelization? Chemically, I can't tell you, but empirically, it is the darkening (toasting) of sugars. >how does it happen? The heat you add to the mash kettle, decoction kettle or boil kettle causes it. >what do you do not to get it? Don't add too much heat and stir, stir, stir! >do you ever want it? if so why? Some styles of beer (Lambics, for example) rely on some caramelization for flavor -- it tastes like..., well..., caramel! An HBD poster a few years ago suggested using gravy browning to add caramel flavor and color. You can also get it from using darker Crystal malts (also called Caramel malts!). You can use it to your advantage (not in Pilsners :^) but it's a bit tricky. I suggest using Crystal malts -- they are much more repeatable. and then later: >what is DMS? how is related to brewing? DMS is dimethylsulfide. It smells like cooked sweet corn or (some say) cooked cabbage. In most styles of beer, it is undesirable even in small quanitities and undesirable in all in larger quantities. It comes primarily from the malt itself and can come from bacterial infection. One reason for boiling that I forgot to mention in my earlier post is that boiling drives off DMS. DMS is created from it's precursor, which is inherently in the malt (some malts have more than others of this pre-cursor, S-methyl methionine) during kilning, mashing, boiling and cooling. However, most of it is boiled off during the boil or scrubbed out by CO2 during the ferment. From the time you turn off the heat in the boil, till you cool below 140F, more DMS is being created. The two things you can do to minimize the creation of DMS in your final product, is to maintain good sanitation and cool the wort from 212F down to below 140F as quickly as possible (with a wort chiller of some kind). Also, Tom asks, why boil your tapwater: >The reason he [Miller] gives for boiling is the presence of chlorine in >tap water. Does this make sense? Would boiling the tap water increase the >chlorine concentration, or does it really help? Chlorine is quite volatile and will boil off, so boiling decreases the concentration of Cl. Another reason to boil all your water is to kill any bacteria that may be in it. Another reason for doing a full boil is because a lower gravity boil will increase your hop utilization -- something you must compensate for when trying to duplicate a full-boil recipe while using a partial boil. I suggest everyone should have a copy of the Hops Special Issue of Zymurgy -- turned to Jackie Rager's article on hop utilization every time they formulate a recipe. I do. Al. Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 21 Oct 92 13:45 CDT From: iepubj!korz at ihlpa.att.com Subject: Stuck ferment -- oops. Yesterday, I wrote: >GREG PYLE believes that he has a stuck ferment because his 15 gallon >batch has stopped at 1.020: > > [stuff deleted] >>I have been told that if you multiply a recipe by more than two, stuck >>fermentation is unavoidable because the centre of the carboy has a much higher >>temperature than the sides of the carboy thereby damaging active yeast. Is >>there anyone who knows how to avoid these problems for brewing batches over 5 >>gallons? I forgot to address what I wanted to address! I don't believe "the centre of the carboy has a much higher temperature than the sides of the carboy thereby damaging active yeast." A few degrees higher won't harm yeast, but I don't think there's even a several degree difference. Consider that the warmer wort would rise and draw cooler wort in from the bottom -- if indeed the centre is warmer than the sides, that's GOOD, I would say. In such a case, the center would indeed rise and draw cool wort from the bottom and thus sides, and therefore create convection currents -- this would rouse a flocculent yeast. However, I don't think the temp differences are big enough to do this. Al. Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 21 Oct 92 11:55:34 PST From: "Bob Jones" <bjones at novax.llnl.gov> Subject: Yeast nutrients,mini-kegs,molasses,stuck fermentations from Micah Sorry, I haven't been responding much lately, I did see that post with the nutirent questions but later forgot all about it. Also there have been several E messages about this to me I 'll post an answer. Most definitly do not use that yeast nutrient with the urea base. These are really cheap nutrients and they are based in the idea that yeast can directly metabolize ammonia in the presence of nitrogen, hence urea! Unfortunately it doesn't smell or taste good IMHO. (some may be accustomed to this taste) In the past this has been a huge problem for mead makers resulting in several year aging times for the urine smell to go away. This is not viable for beer with its lesser shelf life. I have actually met mead makers and hbers who thought that the ammonia smell was supposed to be in the flavour profile of their meads and even liked it. I use Diffco's nitrogen base nutrient for yeast. I've noticed that others on the HBD use this as well, perhaps a posting would help find a source in your own local. >This past weekend I acquired a 2 1/2 gallon mini-keg called a "Reynolds >Tapper." It has a built-in tap (labeled "Falstaff" which I assume is some >cheap Yankee beer :) and is barrel-shaped, meant to lie on its side, cask- >style. It is filled from one end, and the sealing cap has some funky >valves and a gas cylinder in it. It looks like the idea is, you fill this >with beer, stopper it, and charge the cylinder with enough CO2 to dispense >the brew. Neato. A few years ago one of the guys from the club got one of these little kegs and brought it to me to figure out. What I ended up doing was altering the CO2 cylinder in it to be refilled by the owners CO2 set up on his draft system. This was done by removing the exsisting "bicycle" type valve and drilling it out to accept an 1\8 NPT (pipe thread) this was then adapted to an pin lock fitting purchased from FOXX Equipment. The resultant little keg proved quite useful for outdoor activities. >I'd like to prime with molasses. Papazian suggests 1 cup/5 gallon batch. >Unfortunately, he doesn't specify the type of molasses. As many of you have >guessed, the beer is Yorkshire's Old Peculiar and the list of fermentables >includes 2#s dark brown sugar. >I have 12oz. of Brer Rabbit dark `full flavor' molasses I'd like to use. The >question is, how much? If your making an Old peculiar copy I suggest that you use Lyles black treacle instead. It will give the proper flavour profile. Use no more than 6 ounces, 3 should be enough as it is very strong flavoured by not especialy fermentable. Lyles treacle syrup is a common item in British import shops. >Subject: Stuck fermentation? >I have acquired 2 15 gallon carboys for brewing beer. I have used them for >three batches now and I have had problems with each one. Each time I have >brewed in them, I simply took a 5 gal recipe and multiplied all of the >ingredients by 3. After the secondary fermentation, the specific gravity >would be about 1.020. This would normally mean stuck fermentation. I can >usually get the fermentation going again if I stir up the bottom vigorously. >I have been told that if you multiply a recipe by more than two, stuck >fermentation is unavoidable because the centre of the carboy has a much higher >temperature than the sides of the carboy thereby damaging active yeast. Is >there anyone who knows how to avoid these problems for brewing batches over 5 >gallons? I have been brewing 15 gallon batches for several years and find them easier than fives. I am guessing that the problem is that you didn't at least triple the amount of yeast that you pitched when you tripled the other ingredients. This story about the vessel size is a crock of #% at #%, if it where true AB in Fairfeild would be in trouble, their fermenters are 1600 barrel each (1600*31=gallons). So I say use lots of yeast. Ten percent pitching rate works great for me. micah 10/20/92 Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 21 Oct 92 20:22:24 +0100 From: Victor Reijs <Victor.Reijs at SURFnet.nl> Subject: used terms Hello all of you, Because I am coming from Euroep, I have sometimes some problems with your wordinngs;-). Could somebody help me with the following: grist quart 2#s dark brown sugar DMS wyeat 2112 I known that these could be basic items for you, but I have never heard about them. Thanks for your explanations. All the best, Victor Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 21 Oct 92 20:36:55 +0100 From: Victor Reijs <Victor.Reijs at SURFnet.nl> Subject: lager yeats at higher temp. and stuck fregmentation Hello all of you, I think that it will not be a problem to use lager yeast at room temperature. All the wine/beer yeast belong to the same family and these work between 5 to 30 degree Centigrade. Yeast will go dead above 40 degrees Celsius. The lager yeats is only a yeast which will also fregment at low temperatures, while normal yeast will not do it (like wine yeast). What yeast needs at the beginning of its live is oxigen. With out that it can not multiply. So if you are making a lot of beer, be aware that the water you are using has enough oxigen in it (water which has been cooked will have a low oxigen content, so stir this water heavily!). Another reason why a fregmentation can stop is that there is no sugar any more. There are beer which will stop at 1020 (depending on the type of ingredients and type of producing the malt. I do not expect that yeast will go dead in the middle of a barrel, because of the temperature. THe water will always circulate (due to the temperature and due to the formation of CO2). But if you think it is the temperature, measure it;-) All the best, Victor - ------- End of Forwarded Message Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 21 Oct 92 20:40:52 +0100 From: Victor Reijs <Victor.Reijs at SURFnet.nl> Subject: Re: sake Hello Will, This is not a recipe but it is perhaps addition information! If possible you can by at Japanes or Indian shops stuff which is called 'koji' or 'ragie' (these are the words we are using in Holland). This is a kind of yeast which is able to fregment the strach of the rice. After booling the rice for an hour and cooling it down one can put the 'koji' in the rice+water. After some 4 days it will taste sweet and then the fregmentation will start. If you get good results, please let us know. All the best, Victor Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 21 Oct 92 16:15:15 EDT From: garti at mrg.xyplex.com (Mark Garti mrgarti at xyplex.com) Subject: adjuncts and enzyme sources i want to do a mini mash of some adjuncts to convert their starches to sugars. if these adjuncts don't have their own enzymes i realize that they must come from another source. this other source can be chemical or from a malt. are these enzymes depleted by the reaction they are catayzing? is temp the only enzyme destruction mechanism? can 1-2 pounds of adjuncts be converted with the enzymes from 1/2 pound of malt or wheat? do you need to use roughly equivalent amounts? do adjuncts such as crystal or choclate, whose starches are mostly converted or destroyed benefit at all by being included in this mini mash? ie do any starches remain and would inclusion reduce help in the reduction of haze? Thanks Mark mrgarti at xyplex.com Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 21 Oct 92 16:12 CDT From: fjdobner at ihlpb.att.com Subject: William Mares "Making Beer" A book entitled "Making Beer" by Willian Mares was issued this year. A very nice easy reading book. As opposed to the many "how to" books that enable us to improve/learn in hombrewing, Mr. Mares takes it one step further and adds some great personal stories of the hows and whys he got into homebrewing. His stories begin though when the market for basic homebrewing implements was very thin and so were the offerings. I especially liked his replacement line for Mr Papazians "Relax. Don't Worry. Have a Homebrew" nostrum. Mr. Mares line is "Pay Attention. Worry Intelligently. And Have a Homebrew When You're Done." Words I can at least partially relate, except for that last bit. I will probably have more to say about the book after I have finished. Frank Dobner Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 21 Oct 92 17:30:31 -0400 From: cook at uars.DNET.NASA.GOV (Chris Cook, NMOS Quality Engineer - (301)386-7807) Subject: Small Batches When I wrote about trying 1-gallon, experimental beer batches, I didn't think I would get the number of responses that I did. I know you're heard it before, but I still have to thank all the people who have emailed be with suggestions and support. I really didn't expect the personal attention. One question that many people asked was why I wasn't simply joining or forming a larger group of homebrewers and trading recipes. Five of us could brew 5 batches and trade. This would be much less work than five individual experimenters making 25 little batches. Unfortunately, that's not my answer. Too much pride, I think. Who among us, if they were going to share their beer with, say, four other skilled and knowledgeable beermakers, would brew a simple, possibly bad, experiment? Even shared, a batch is too much work to waste on questionable, experimental stuff. I know, I know, I (and my four friends) should have the emotional fortitude to be able to avoid this 'Blockbuster' mentality. I can't speak for my friends, but I don't. I simply wouldn't experiment as monotonously as I need to. Could you and 4 friends make 5 simple ales (five gallons each) with 1/2#, 1#, 2#, and 4# of Caravienne, along with a control batch, just to see how the malt affects the taste? How about batches mashed at 149, 152, 155, and 158? I don't mean you any harm, but if you and your friends have that kind of stamina, I think you should consider hanging around with a different crowd. Besides, everyone does this differently, and the noise from these little differences could easily overshadow the experiment. I know that my methods aren't perfect, or even right, but at least they're consistent. Even if the five of us started with the same ingredients and directions, I'm pretty sure the differences would embarrass us all. Some of the small-batch suggestions are very interesting. One person gave directions for doing the mash in the microwave. Fantastic! Who could pass up trying that? There were several variations on the 'coffee-can(s) taped together' lauter tun, although (given the small thermal mass) I'm going to try to modify a 1 or 2 gallon thermos. The one question still hanging in my mind is about Hop utilization rates. I've gotten contradictory suggestions about hop bitterness. Obviously there's been some research on scaling up from the common 5- gallon batches to pilot brewery scale; I seem to remember that huge breweries don't have to use anywhere near the hops rates we use. Anyone got some quick hints? I'm still waiting for the Belgian malts to arrive, so I haven't started yet. Once I get moving, I'll be able to tell you more detail on the mechanics. Chris Cook Cook at uars.dnet.nasa.gov Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 21 Oct 92 17:05 CDT From: iepubj!korz at ihlpa.att.com Subject: Al's Special London Ale Due to numerous requests, I am posting my best yet recipe for a clone of Young's Special London Ale. Here it is: Al's Special London Ale 6.6 lb M&F Unhopped Light Malt Extract 1 lb 10 oz Laaglander Light Dried Malt Extract 1 lb Crushed 2-row british Crystal Malt ~40L 1/2 tsp Burton Water Salts 5.5 gal Chicago Tapwater 2.1 oz Northern Brewer Pellets (6.2%AA) (60 min boil) 1/4 tsp Irish Moss (15 min) 0.5 oz East Kent Goldings (whole) (5 min boil) 0.5 gal Boiled Chicago Tapwater (added after boil to adjust OG) 8 oz Starter from Wyeast #1028 1 oz East Kent Goldings (whole) (dryhop last 7 days before bottling) 1/2 cup Corn sugar for priming Procedure particulars: Steeped crushed crystal malt in a grain bag while the liquor + Burton Water Salts went from tapwater temperature up to 165F. Removed grain bag and let "wort" drain out of it. After boiling down to 5 gal, OG was 1071, so I added the additional 1/2 gallon of boiled water (not a big deal, but hop utilization would have been different with a 6 gallon boil). By the way, Chicago water is quite soft -- I suspect distilled would be close enough. Fermentation in glass, with blowoff, at 68F. Dryhops simply stuffed into the primary after fermentation ended, seven days before bottling. OG=1064 FG=1022 (yes a bit heavy, but yummy) Comments: Closest attempt yet to Young's Special London Ale. Could use a bit more diacetyl. At the 1992 AHA National Conference, Charlie said: "Great London Ale!" Al. Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 21 Oct 92 19:12:24 -0500 From: dbreiden at dsuvax.dsu.edu Subject: The Big 1K I know I'm 4 issues early, but if there are any big parties planned for the 1,000th issue of the Digest, I'd love to attend! So if any bashes are planned near Pierre, SD, let me know. *sigh* something tells me I'll simply have to lift a pint in relative isolation .... - --Danny Return to table of contents
End of HOMEBREW Digest #996, 10/22/92