HOMEBREW Digest #1036 Fri 18 December 1992

Digest #1035 Digest #1037


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


Contents:
  stike heat vs. mash heat (THOMASR)
  history from rob (THOMASR)
  Beer compatible solder? (Bill Fuhrmann)
  Gummed labels for laserwriters (Bill Fuhrmann)
  How does one begin? (Nir Navot)
  Storing Dried Malt (John Otten)
  Boston's Best Burton Bitter/ Richard (Roy Rudebusch)
  Duval sources (LEONH001)
  NO SUBJECT (PGM01)
  fetal tissue (Peter Karp)
  Flagstaff, AZ homebrewing suppliers (Mark J. Easter)
  Adjuncts, Acid (McHarry)
  Fullers ESB aftertaste  (parsons1)
  iodine (Ed Hitchcock)
  re:Mixing yeasts in one batch? (jim busch)
  please help!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! URGENT!!!!!!!! (Victor Reijs)
  Paralysis and homebrew ("John L. Isenhour")
  Brew pots ("Sadvary, Bill")
  Off flavors - gone but not forgotten (Kevin Krueger)
  Iodine test (Scott James.)
  Iodophor and plastics (korz)
  Acid sparge water; DCI (George J Fix)
  burning the wort (Peter Maxwell)
  sparge pH (Russ Gelinas)
  homebrew paralysis (MCKINNEY)
  Sparging/Cleansers and Plastics/Boiling and Oxidation (Dominic Ryan)
  UNSUBCRIBE TO HOMEBREW ("Craig A. Tanguay")
  Chicago Legacy Red Ale Yeast (John Stepp)
  Mashing Unmalted Wheat (Martin A. Lodahl)
  xmas beer/wierd floaters (CHAZ)
  All grain tips, yeast pitching amount (Jeff Benjamin)
  Sam Adams Wheat Beer? (Joseph Nathan Hall)

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---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 17 Dec 92 10:13:50 MET From: THOMASR at EZRZ1.vmsmail.ethz.ch Subject: stike heat vs. mash heat Hello all, Here is a formula for calculating initial mash temperature sorry about the strange units, but thats what I find easiest: I = (St + RT)/(S + R) +0.5H/(S+R) + F where I is the initial mash heat S is the specific heat of the malt t is the temperature of the malt R is the number of grams of strike water per gram of malt ( ca. mils of H2O / g malt) T strike heat H slaking heat F fudge factor. This is a fudge factor for those of us with less than perfect tuns which cool the strike water when it is put in. eg strike water = A farenheit, after being put in the tun = B farenheit, therefore F=B-A. Here is a table of S and H: malt moisture,% S H 0 0.38 28 1 0.38 24.7 2 0.39 21.5 3 0.40 18.2 4 0.40 15.8 5 0.41 13.5 6 0.41 11.5 7 0.42 10.0 8 0.42 8.5 Usual % moisture for relatively fresh / well kept malt is 3-4 %. tata Rob. Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 92 10:32:46 MET From: THOMASR at EZRZ1.vmsmail.ethz.ch Subject: history from rob Hello all again, Heres the info on the book I mentioned yesterday: The London Practice of Brewing Porter, Brown Stout, Ale, Table beer and various other kinds of malt liquor by Fredrick Accum, Second Ed. 1821 Longman,Hurst,Rees,Orme & Brown, Parernoster Row, London. The book is available for viewing in the Courtold (sp) Institute in London, but there is a copy on Fiche in the Management library (??!!) of UCLA. Here is a Store (keeping ) Porter recipe: 3.3# Brown malt 3.3# amber malt 6.7# pale malt 7.9 oz hops 1st mash 2.5 gall at 156 for 1.75 hr 2nd mash 1.8 gall at 165 for 1.5 hr 3rd mash 1.2 gall at 175 for 0.75 hr Sparge 3.6 gall at 180 for sparging Boil 1st and 2nd with hops for 1.5hr recycle hops and boil with 3rd and sparge for 1hr gives 5 gall (all galls are UK) at 1058 -->1022 fg p.s. brown malt can be approximated by baking pale malt over an oak or beech fire (I'll try finding more explicit instructions, but it's essentially a darkish smoky malt) I'll send more recipes as soon as I have time. tata Rob. Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 92 22:26:37 CST From: fiero at pnet51.orb.mn.org (Bill Fuhrmann) Subject: Beer compatible solder? |From: Ed Hitchcock <ECH at ac.dal.ca> | |I wanted to solder some copper pipes for shuffling wort around between |mash, sparge, boil, chiller and primary. Lead is a no-no, and I |understand tin is not so hot for beer either. Anyone know of a kind |of solder that works on copper pipe that is not harmful to beer? That's it for solder. You could try using an Epoxy adhesive instead of solder. If you use one of the less viscous forms, you may be able to let it "wick" into the joint like solder. Have you considered PVC pipe? The type rated for hot water, of course. Bill Fuhrmann, aka fiero at pnet51.orb.mn.org "You don't know what you've got till it's gone." - Joni Mitchell Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 92 22:30:19 CST From: fiero at pnet51.orb.mn.org (Bill Fuhrmann) Subject: Gummed labels for laserwriters |Lou Casagrande | |My co-brewer and I have been looking for the kind of gummed labels |which must be wet in order to apply them (this is to make their |removal easier) which are also arranged in sheets so that they can be |fed through a laserwriter. Of course, we want to design our own Neither of the Laser Printer specialty vendors that I know of (Paper Direct 1-800-A-PAPERS, Queblo 1-800-523-9080) have anything other than self stick ones, except that Paper Direct has some 3.5" x 4" mailing labels that aren't specified. Either Popular Electronics or Electronics Now has a discussion of a paper with a water soluable adhesive on it. The intent is to print on the adhesive side and then use the adhesive to release the paper after the print is transfered, but it might work backwards. It was in one of the last few issues. Bill Fuhrmann, aka fiero at pnet51.orb.mn.org "You don't know what you've got till it's gone." - Joni Mitchell Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 92 14:01:50 +0200 From: Nir Navot <LCNAVOT at WEIZMANN.WEIZMANN.AC.IL> Subject: How does one begin? We are a couple of beer-loving molecular biologists who would like to try our hands at brewing beer. We know nothing about the actual process, and just a bit about theory behind it. We would welcome any suggestion as to where and how to begin. Thanks much Nir and Barry - ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Nir Navot Department of Cell Biology The Weizmann Institute of Science Rehovot, Israel. Tel 972-8-343225/ Fax 972-8-344125 Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 92 08:03:15 EST From: otten at CS.WM.EDU (John Otten) Subject: Storing Dried Malt John DeCarlo asked about storing Dried Malt. I keep my malt in the original bag (usually a 3 pound bag). After using it I close it tightly with a twist tie, put it in another plastic bag, and put one or two of those anhydrous salt packets (the kind of thing you get with electronic components, and sometimes found in dried food packages- the things that say DO NOT EAT!) which absorb moisture, in with the bag of malt. It seems to work pretty well. If the malt *DOES* become firm with this method, it has always been easy to break into a powder with the fingers, or by kneading the bag. I have not had a malt brick yet. John otten at icase.edu or otten at cs.wm.edu Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 92 07:01:00 -0500 From: roy.rudebusch at travel.com (Roy Rudebusch) Subject: Boston's Best Burton Bitter/ Richard From: roy.rudebusch at travel.com R:>Commonwealth Brewing Company in Boston makes a terrific ale they call R:>"Boston's Best Burton Bitter". It's nice and thick and malty and I R:>can't even find a description of the style anywhere. R:>Can someone who's familiar with this beer R:>give me some pointers on replicating it? Can you give a more complete description of the beer? Like maybe a full taste profile? p.s. your email address didn't work. * OLX 2.2 * Hold a hard drive to your ear. Listen to the C: Return to table of contents
Date: 17 Dec 1992 09:38:27 -0500 (EST) From: LEONH001 at mc.duke.edu Subject: Duval sources Hi All, I'll be going North for Christmas and was wondering if some kind soul would tell me of any good beer sources within a few miles of I-95. We would prefer somewhere around Baltimore. I'm looking for Duval to bring back to NC for a few friends. Thanks! Dave Leonhard leonh001 at mc.duke.edu Return to table of contents
Date: 17 Dec 92 09:47:55 EST From: PGM01%ALBNYDH2.bitnet at UACSC2.ALBANY.EDU Subject: NO SUBJECT In response to questions about the Troy Brew Pub (HBD-1035) I called the Pub and spoke to the Manager and got the low down. The new Pub will be open "in about a month". Its called Brown & Moran Brewing (417 River Street, Troy, New York (518) 273-2337). Although not open the owners are very proud of their establishment and are willing to offer a tour (please call ahead). The place will seat 250 in the main bar area, which is in full view of the 2 story glass enclose brewery. Additional space is provided on the multi-tiered outdoor deck overlooking the Hudson River. They plan to offer Golden and Amber Ale, Porter and a wheat beer. 0000000 |. . .|==) HAPPY HOLIDAYS |.P .| || | .G..| || Paul |. .M |==) |_____| 0=======0 Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 92 10:02:17 EST From: karp at ground.cs.columbia.edu (Peter Karp) Subject: fetal tissue Jed writes: >>... her daughter had heard of some case in California where seven people >>had suffered paralysis because they drank someone's (obviously not too pure) >>homebrew. Sounds pretty exciting - it get's better: they weren't cured >>of this until some smart person injected fetal tissue into their brains! Your prof's daughter is confusing her recreational drugs. There was a case a few years ago of two heroin addicts suffering complete paralysis after using some 'homebrewed' designer heroin. They self-induced a case of Parkinson's and became the immediate object of interest of many researchers in this brain disease. I read recently that they were subjected to fetal tissue injections in the hope of restoring the part of their brain that produces l-dopa. PK Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 92 07:05:15 PST From: Mark J. Easter <easterm at ccmail.orst.edu> Subject: Flagstaff, AZ homebrewing suppliers I'll be moving to Flagstaff after the first of the year and I'm wondering if anybody out there knows of a local supplier there for homebrewing supplies. I would prefer to purchase my stuff locally rather than mail order. Please reply to me directly at the EMAIL address below... and thanks for any information anybody can provide. Thanks! Mark Easter Corvallis, Oregon easter at fsl.orst.edu -or- easterm at ccmail.orst.edu Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 92 9:12:49 EST From: mcharry at freedom.otra.com (McHarry) Subject: Adjuncts, Acid My last batch contained 1/3 rice, precooked with part of the mash water. I used a 3# bag of rice and 7# of American 2-row. Conversion was complete in two hours at 150-155 (I mash in a warm oven that tends to inrease the temperature slowly.) It seemed to work fine, but that much rice is a real gunky mess to handle. I did a similar batch with 2 pounds of rice a while back that was a more pleasant project. BTW, with this much malt it doesn't taste light, more of a bigger bitter. My other current sin is in acidifying the sparge water. The water here is about 8.5 out of the tap. I got a bottle of 1N HCL and found that a tablespoon of this toothsome delight will take five gallons to about neutral. After that, watch out! It looks like the tablespoon knocks out all the buffers and after that you are adding straight hydronium ions. Maybe half a teaspoon more will send it to 5.5. The moral is that you probably have to play with your water to see how much it takes to acidfy it--I don't think you can tell from a simple pH measurement. Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 92 10:23:50 -0500 From: parsons1 at husc.harvard.edu Subject: Fullers ESB aftertaste Hi all. I am interested in the aftertaste of Fullers ESB. It seems to me very malty, with a pronounced caramel flavor and some licorice. I think, though, that the aftertaste of Fullers is much more robust than the taste of the beer, which needs perhaps more alcohol or more bitterness or some- thing else. I'd like to try and rework the ESB, and would appreciate the help of anyone who knows how to effect these flavors. Dave Line talks about it, but I think he adds saccharin tablets for sweetness, which is something I will not do. Does anyone know what grains, adjuncts, not-very-attenuative yeast strain etc. are responsible for the aftertaste? Thanks in advance Jed parsons1 at husc.harvard.edu Return to table of contents
Date: 17 Dec 1992 10:51:09 -0400 From: Ed Hitchcock <ECH at ac.dal.ca> Subject: iodine Just a quick comment on Norm's thorough discussion on iodine in today's HBD: Iodine WILL stain paper black. Try it sometime. Ed Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 92 11:18:37 EST From: jim busch <busch at daacdev1.stx.com> Subject: re:Mixing yeasts in one batch? In the last digest: <From: rush at xanadu.llnl.gov (Alan Edwards) <Subject: Re: Mixing yeasts in one batch? <DONT add a new strain of yeast at bottling time! You will run the risk <of exploding bottles. The yeast you add might have a higher attenuation <and start working on sugars that the previous yeast left behind. If you <want to try multiple strains, you should let it ferment out with the new <yeast in a carboy and then bottle as normal. Well, yes and no. This is another case where a little knowledge or lack of, can get you into problems. The risk of exploding bottles can be significant, but in most cases is overemphasized. The important points are: FG of still beer to be krausened, amount of fermentables added at bottling/kegging time, and the quantity of krausen yeast added. If most of the fermentation is complete, and you are adding a brewing yeast, the amount of fermentation in the vessal will be due to the fermentables aded at bottling/kegging time and not from the still beer itself. Just calculate the correct amount of sugars to add, add a very small amount of healthy viable brewers yeast (were not talking litres here) and relax. The real problems arise if a non brewers strain is used and then you will be fermenting the residuals that brewers yeast cannot metabolize. In fact, krausening in this fashion (or with active krausen/wort) is the preferred method when brewing Weizens and high gravity belgium ales/barley wines. With weizens, we often want a lager strain to be in the vessal, with high gravity beers, the fermenting yeast can be in dismal shape to referment in the bottle, and new yeast high in glycogyn reserves is called for. Jim Busch Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 92 17:19:37 +0100 From: Victor Reijs <Victor.Reijs at SURFnet.nl> Subject: please help!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! URGENT!!!!!!!! I receive the last hbd some 10 times!!! (concerning 1034 and 1035). COuld you do something on this!!! All the best, Victor Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 10:37:25 CST From: "John L. Isenhour" <isenhour at lambic.fnal.gov> Subject: Paralysis and homebrew parsons1 at husc.harvard.edu writes: >I have a sort of related question on nasties in beer. Recently, I gave >some homebrew to a professor of mine who is eager to try it, but told me >that her daughter had heard of some case in California where seven people >had suffered paralysis because they drank someone's (obviously not too pure) >homebrew. Sounds pretty exciting - it get's better: they weren't cured >of this until some smart person injected fetal tissue into their brains! This is totally incorrect. There are no known pathogens that can exist in beer. The incident you are refering to concerned homebrewed synthetic narcotics which contained a chemical byproduct which fries dopamine receptors and mimics parkinsons disease. No reason to go into details here, there was a good summary article in "The Sciences" w/i the last year if anyone is interested. - -- John L. Isenhour Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 92 11:50:07 est From: "Sadvary, Bill" <SADVARY at DICKINSON.EDU> Subject: Brew pots I tried submitting this about a week ago, it must've gotten lost. (?) Anyways... I am about to be a homebrewer, as soon as I get all the supplies that I need. I have a enamelware pot, about 5 gal., that would be perfect for brewing. Several years ago I got desperate for container to store used motor oil. Yup, motor oil, probably 5w30, hehe. (Not funny!) The pot is still slimy with the oil and I'm wondering if it's possible to remove all traces of the oil to make this safe for brewing. I don't expect a postive response being that the oil has been soaking into the pores for years now, but I thought I would ask anyways. Has anybody got any ideas? Or, does anybody know of a good, cheap mail order shop for a good brew pot (stainless steel or enamelware)? Any suggestions would be appreciated! -Bill Sadvary sadvary at dickinson.edu If it doesn't work, plug it in! Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 92 11:09:48 CST From: krueger at comm.mot.com (Kevin Krueger) Subject: Off flavors - gone but not forgotten A while back I had posted that I had this weird flavor with all my brews. Many people suggested that I purify my water or boil it because it may be the chlorine content. I have since tried boiling the water used foro brewing and I believe it has helped to eliminate most, if not all, of that flavor I had before. Thanks for the tip. HOWEVER, I was wondering if a "burnt" smell in a beer will pass with time? It is not strong, but it is evident. It is very dark stout and I had heard that (1) stouts are forgiving and (2) errors in beer and greasy Mexican food pass with time. Ciao, Kevin Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 92 09:44:58 MST From: scojam at scojam.Auto-trol.COM (Scott James.) Subject: Iodine test Many people are saying to test a sample of water WITHOUT grains in it. My question is: Will starch disolve in water? I didn't think it would, that is why I test an interior (endosperm?) part of a grain. I guess it must though, if so many people rely on that method of testing...and it works! scott Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 92 11:41 CST From: korz at iepubj.att.com Subject: Iodophor and plastics Steve writes: >The lesson: iodophor is great for glass and stainless, but not suitable >for most plastics. I have a notable exception to report. I used Iodophor in my Italian-made red-white-and-clear plastic bottle rinser. It's the type of device in which you pour the sanitizing solution into the clear bowl, submerge the red part of the red-and-white pump, put a bottle over the white nozzle and pump down on the bottle to squirt solution into the bottle. I used it for a year with Bleach solution and then did a part of ta batch with Iodophor. No staining. I would really prefer to use Peracetic acid because I know that both Chlorine and Iodine are not the best things to dump down the drain. Peracetic acid is made from acetic acid and hydrogen peroxide both of which are much more friendly to mother nature than Cl and I. I'm still in the process of finding a suitable supplier. Al. Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 92 11:59:15 CST From: gjfix at utamat.uta.edu (George J Fix) Subject: Acid sparge water; DCI Russ Wiggleswort is right on target IMHO about the need for care in acidifying sparge water. I have had very unsatisfactory results with both ales and lagers when the pH of the finished wort was below 5.0. My preferred values are 5.3-5.4 for the mash, and 5.1-5.2 for finished wort. The low pHs will increase yield, and hence make us more efficient. Nevertheless, in brewing efficiency and quality are not always in harmony. It is my belief that the drop in pH during the boil is primarily due to the interaction of inorganic minerals (most notably calcium) and malt materials. I have checked this a couple of times by boiling worts with and without hops. I have a very high regard for the AHA and for the really great people on their staff. They are very serious about the recruitment of articles for Zymurgy from a diverse group of homebrewers. I hope everyone on this network will give serious consideration to submitting one. Having said this I must also say that doing volunteer work for them (via articles or books) can at times be a bit frustrating because of their sloppy way of handling publications. Nevertheless, they are a low budget nonprofit organization that is run on a shoestring. For example, I think most people on this network (except possibly for the grad. students among us!) would be astonished about Charlie P.'s very low salary. Thus, for me, tolerance for the AHA's weak points comes easy. In any case, anyone who wants my HSA article in its original unbutchered form, let me know and I will send it by e-mail. Dennis> I get DCI from one of the chem. labs at my university. Be sure to check out Vol. 2 of deClerck for an alternate version of the ITT anlysis. My version is a "homebrew version" of his, and is based on materials available to me. George Fix Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 11:09:45 -0800 (PST) From: Peter Maxwell <peterm at aoraki.dtc.hp.com> Subject: burning the wort Further to my earlier note about off flavors I'm wondering if I managed to burn the wort. I use my 10 quart stock pot on an electric element and stir almost constantly while bringing to the boil. However, I heat the water up to almost boiling before taking the pot off the element and putting in the malt extract. Is this likely to cause any caramelization? There's no black stuff anywhere but the pot bottom does have darker stuff on it in the pattern of the element. When one makes REAL caramel it doesn't go black, just brown so now I'm wondering. At what temperature does caramelization start to occur? Peter Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 14:17:28 -0500 (EST) From: R_GELINAS at UNHH.UNH.EDU (Russ Gelinas) Subject: sparge pH So, it looks like we've now got sparging options. The "normal" sparging technique of adding water/draining/adding water/draining/etc. has a higher efficiency than the technique of adding all the sparge water at once and then draining. BUT, the first ("step") technique leads to a more acidic sparge, which will extract more tannins from the grains, a bad thing. The second ("batch") technique, while less efficient, should be less acidic. As I use the batch technique, I may have found an explanation for the lack of any sort of tannins in my brews, even when I want them there. Obviously the water plays a large part, but I wonder if certain brews would benefit from different sparging styles. Perhaps a stout should be sparged in steps, but a pilsner should be batch sparged? Russ Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 92 14:11:47 EDT From: MCKINNEY at gwuvm.gwu.edu Subject: homebrew paralysis In HBD #1035 "parsons1 at husc.harvard.edu" wrote about a friends concern over 7 people in Calif. getting paralysis after drinking someone's "homebrew". I can assure you that your friend's daughter only got part of the story. the PBS program NOVA recently did a story about seven people who developed a parkinsons-like paralysis after using what they thought was heroin. It turns out that the stuff was created in a home lab, hence the "homebrew" connotation. Several of these people were treated with human fetal tissue because unlike normal parkinsons patients their disease was not degenerative. The fetel tissue was used to produce dopamine and I belive they had a certain amount of success. All of this happened in the late 80s as I recall. But beer was definitely not involved. Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 92 14:55:02 -0500 From: ryan%phmms0.mms.smithkline.com at smithkline.com (Dominic Ryan) Subject: Sparging/Cleansers and Plastics/Boiling and Oxidation I have some comments from the chemist's perspective that may be of help in a couple of the on-going discussions. This is another long post. I have not posted very frequently but I have had longish ones. If this is a problem for the list I will break up any futur ones. The topics are: Sparging/ Cleansers and Plastics/ Boiling and Oxidation/ a line like the following begins each one. ___Sparging: The process of extracting residual sugars from the grain-bed is closely analogous to a laboratory technique known as column chromatography. In this latter method a mixture of products is separated by running them down a column of solid support materiel. This involves adding such materiel (often silica gel) to a long glass tube with a porous false bottom in it. Under this is a spigot to control the flow. First the column is filled with a solvent and the solvent is allowed to run out until it is at the top of the silica. Then the materiel is added and more solvent allowed to run out until the bolus of materiel is 'loaded' onto the column. This is followed by a little more solvent added in such a way as to minimize disturbing the top of the column. This is run in and and more solvent added until the sample is in the column. After that solvent is added up to the top of the column in order to make it easier to to manage and increase the hydrostatic pressure. The column can also be filled with a slurry of silica and solvent much as sparging involved transfering a thick mash to the lauter tun. Often clean sea-sand is added to the top of the column to prevent disturbing the bed. This would be a possibility in sparging to, although I have never tried this, and would substitute for the bowl or lid used now to prevent this problem. Another detail from running a column that I follow is to add the water very slowly until no more color from the grain is leeched up into the sparging water that I add to the top. Once that is reached I fill up the bucket I use with as much water as it will hold. This keeps the sparging at a more constant temperature and eliminates the cooling that results from spraying the sparge water onto the grain bed. If you only maintain an inch or so of water above the grain bed initially there is no disturbing of the bed if you pour it onto a spoon, bowl, lid etc. and the water does not cool, and you are assured much more even distribution that you could get by spraying it on. No matter what you do the liquid will follow whatever channels exist in the bed, so if you spray directly on top of the bed in an effort to distribute the sparge more effectively it will still flow as it would if you had poured in onto a 1" layer of water above the bed. If you have a very wide and short bed this will be aggravated. I have found the most important things for sparging to be (in roughly this order): minimum 12-18" high bed get a narrow enough bucket if required, and a round bucket makes a better column than a square one. 175F sparge water insulate the sparge bucket set bed well don't drain lauter too fast at first, let the grain-bed set uniformly good crush pick your mill... ___Cleansers and Plastics Cleansers fall basically into three categories: caustic: sodium carbonate, (tri-)sodium phosphate, lye (which is sodium hydroxide) and sodium silicate. very good at digesting organic matter like fermentation residues works well on glass, steel, some plastics like HDPE soap: Pure Ivory, which is a sodium salt of a 'fatty acid' an examples of which are lard and vegetable shortening. Both of these latter materiels are converted to soap by treating with lye until you have a non-caustic mix. Very good at removing greasy residues Can be used on pretty much anything oxidizer: Chlorine, Iodine, sulfuric acid, hydrogen peroxide and other organic peroxides (ozone). Best used as a disinfectant on already clean surfaces in the strengths commonly available to the public. **Strong oxidizing agents are quite dangerous, concentrated peroxides can be explosive!** Keep away from rubber and plastics as most will be degraded. Works well on glass and (stainless) steel. Organic matter -fermentation residue for eg.- is cleaned most effectively by caustics, or caustics mixed with some soap. Oxidizers are usually much slower to act unless you can get them very hot as well. This is partly how sulfuric acid works as a drain cleaner. Large amounts of heat are generated when mixed with water and then this will chew up the clog. B-Brite is a mix of sodium carbonate and sodium silicate, which is likely there initially as sodium meta-silicate since that form is more soluble. You could likely formulate your own easily. This is basically dish-washer detergent without the added phosphates and ingredients to improve water condition and sheeting etc. Take a look at a box of dish-washer detergent next time. B-Brite is very caustic as a result and if you use too much it needs to be rinsed a lot, but it is very effective as a cleanser for brewers, and seems to dissolve and rinse better than dish-washer detergent which relies in part upon greater temperature and volume of water. In case you have not tried, B-Bright is also very good at cleaning up the baked on wort on the stove-top. None of the above classes of cleaner will remove residual solvent and plasticisers very well from a bucket that might have contained them. Most plastics are reasonably porous and they will 'dissolve' oils, terpentine, gasoline, you name it, into the plastic only to have it very slowly leech back out over time. When treating a plastic bucket with iodine (or to a lesser extent iodophors, which combine iodine with a surface-active agent and detergent) there will be some iodine deposited in the plastic and some will react with it, staining it permanently. Iodine reacts in this way much more easily that chlorine does (free radical for you chemists) and for this reason there will be less residual chlorine (from a bleach for example) that iodine. Still, it is best to keep them away from most plastics, although I think chlorine is ok on HDPE, which stands for High Density PolyEthylene. This is a very stable crosslinked polymer that does not swell, absorb much of anything, or deform easily with heat. Nor is it supposed to be soft or pliable and therefore never has plasticisers added to it. For that reason it is a very good substance for food grade plastic. ___Boiling and oxidation On a final note, some have questioned why hot wort is not oxidized when boiling. When you boil any liquid you are by definition bringing the liquid into equilibrium with its gaseous phase. This will drive off all dissolved gasses in the liquid and then provide an atmosphere of steam above the work. This blanket of steam seems to be enough to protect the wort from such oxidation. The degassing of the wort during the boil is the reason air needs to be redissolved in order for yeast to undergo the aerobic reproductive phase. If you deliberately introduced oxygen into the boiling wort with a bubbler then you would definitely get more oxidation than with hot wort sitting around later. M. Dominic Ryan SmithKline Beecham Pharmaceuticals (215)-270-6529 internet: ryan%phmms0.mms at smithkline.com Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 3:52 pm EST (20:52:12 UT) From: "Craig A. Tanguay" <TANG5781%FREDONIA.bitnet at CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU> Subject: UNSUBCRIBE TO HOMEBREW UNSUBCRIBE TO HOMEBREW ASAP CRAIG A. TANGUAY Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 92 16:43:14 -0500 From: jxs58 at po.CWRU.Edu (John Stepp) Subject: Chicago Legacy Red Ale Yeast T'sup? I cultured the yeast from a bottle of Chicago Legacy Red Ale and used it in my latest extract batch of red ale (OG: 1.044). I pitched 10 days ago, and it's been fermenting steadily ever since at ~65-70 F, with no sign of slowing down. It's now at at a bubble/10 sec. I took a gravity reading this morning: 1.033. My question is has anyone out there ever used this yeast, and if so, does it take longer to ferment out than other yeasts? I brewed a porter with Anchor Porter yeast the same day and that is ready to bottle. The smell out of the fermenter lock is yeasty (that's good). Wadda-ya-think? DS - -- Dave Stepp Dept. of Molecular Biology and Microbiology Case Western Reserve University Cleveland, OH Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 92 15:00:26 PST From: Martin A. Lodahl <pbmoss!malodah at PacBell.COM> Subject: Mashing Unmalted Wheat In HOMEBREW Digest #1034, Markku Koivula asked: > I have one question concerning belgian beers that use wheat > in addition to barley malt. Michael Jackson says that they > use (if I remember right) 40 or 50 % unmalted wheat. Now I > wonder how do they mash it. Papazian recommends not to use > more than 20 % unmalted grain, because otherwise there are not > enough enzymes. Do they add enzymes, or do they have malts > that have very much enzymes? Or is there some other explanation? > Looong mashing time or something like that? I can only address what the lambik brewers do, as those are the only Belgian breweries I've personally visited. By Royal decree, a lambik grain bill must contain at least 30% unmalted wheat, and 35% to 40% is a more common figure. The malt used is a well-modified 2-row, but I have no reason to believe that its enzyme content is at all extraordinary. Though at least one producer uses an infusion mash, most do either one or two decoctions, and as these decoctions are the only actual cooking that the wheat gets, I really doubt that much of the starch is soluble. I know that in my experiments with unmalted wheat the actual value of the extract has always been quite low. A pretty standard mash time is about 2.5 hours, and the resulting wort contains quite a bit of unconverted starch, but in a lambik this really isn't much of a problem, as _something_ in that microbiological witches' brew will eat it up in the year or two it sits in the barrel. Hope this helps. = Martin A. Lodahl Pacific*Bell Systems Analyst = = malodah at pbmoss.Pacbell.COM Sacramento, CA 916.972.4821 = = If it's good for ancient Druids, runnin' nekkid through the wuids, = = Drinkin' strange fermented fluids, it's good enough for me! 8-) = Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 92 18:47:27 -0500 From: andrecp at esvax.dnet.dupont.com (CHAZ) Subject: xmas beer/wierd floaters Just another data point on this thread (sorry, I forgot who asked the question originally). I too brewed a brown xmas ale, with about the same spices as listed. I also had a strange whitish material floating at the top of the bottle, and sort of sticking to the neck. In adition, there were little chunky things floating around everywhere! This brew had another problem, which was that I primed with honey, and I used way too much (like about 1.5-2 cups) so that I was a little worried about explosion. I ended up putting all the bottles in the fridge about 3 weeks after bottling (it was at this time that the floaters were at their peak). Anyway, the good news is that a after a few days in the fridge, this brew cleared nicely, and it tastes fine (except for being a bit over carbonated!). So, Don't...(oh, you know). c Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 92 19:58:04 MST From: Jeff Benjamin <benji at hpfcbug.fc.hp.com> Subject: All grain tips, yeast pitching amount Frank Tutzauer <COMFRANK at ubvmsb.cc.buffalo.edu> asks: > 1. I've pretty much decided to go Gott-cooler-with-slotted-pipes. My > question is: Do I need a false bottom and/or grain bag? My brain says, > "No, man, that's what the pipes are for," but my gut feeling is it would be > pretty wierd to dump the mash straight on the pipes, plus a grain bag would > help in clean up. So do I listen to my brain or my guts? Your brain wins. I've been using a copper manifold in a ten-gallon stock pot for some time, and I just dump the grains in right on top of it. The sparge has never stuck. Just make sure that the slots in the tubing aren't too wide (I cut my slots with a hacksaw) and that they face downward. It's amazing, it sucks up every last drop of wort. > 2. Instead of a copper manifold, what about PVC? Somebody in the > latest-minus-one Zymurgy mentioned using PVC, but gave no details. I've > never heard of anyone else doing it either, but it seems it would be > easier to put together and take care of. Whaddya think? Probably would work the same as copper, assuming it's food-grade PVC (is there more than one kind?) and that any sealant you use is also food-grade. There's also been some discussion lately on how much yeast to pitch (someone specifically asked about the amount in WYeast packages). I thought I'd post (without permission) some information I got from Jeff Lebesch, the man behind New Belgium Brewing here in Fort Collins, Colorado. "Most references recommend a minimum pitching rate of 10 million yeast cells per milli-liter of wort, plus another 1 million cells/ml for every 0.004 gravity increase above 1.040. ...The 10...15 million cells/ml rate is easily achieved by adding 5 ml of thick yeast slurry per liter of wort. For ales, sometimes you can go as low as 3 ml/l, and for low temperature lager fermentations 10 ml/l is suggested. "During a healthy fermentation, the yeast cell count increases to a peak of approximately 60 million cells/ml. Then it seems to me, that given the 10M cells/ml minimum pitching rate, the maximum wort volume increase should be six-fold.... However, many references suggest that a 10-fold increase is acceptable. "...If 600 ml of starter culture is pitched into 18 l of wort (about 5 gallons), that is a 30-fold wort volume increase. In most situations, this is drastic underpitching. The only way it will work is if the yeast is at its peak activity and viability... plus wort conditions are optimal. "OK, let's culture another generation, by adding the 600ml culture to 3 liters of wort, and adding that to the 18 liters. Now each generation has had a wort volume increase of less than 6.... But, adding 15% of a cheap culture wort to your prized wort will ruin it. One solution is that the culture wort must be of the same composition as the beer.... This is common in breweries where the same beer is brewed every day.... The other solution is to let the 3 liter culture ferment to completion, then refrigerate... then pour off the top beer, and collect the yeast slurry." So to summarize, most homebrewers probably underpitch to some extent. The amount of yeast in a WYeast package is ridiculously small, but with careful sanitation and technique, you *can* start a beer with the yeast straight out of a single package. The downside will be a long lag time, since it will take the yeast quite a while to build up a sufficient population. The best method I've found to get sufficient pitching rates is to simply save the yeast slurry from the bottom of my secondaries. I just put it in a sanitized bottle in the fridge, with an airlock. Not only is it cost effective, but there's almost no lag time. With that much yeast, it doesn't really matter how well you've aerated; it goes nuts right away. Gentlemen (and ladies), start your yeasties! - -- Jeff Benjamin benji at hpfcla.fc.hp.com Hewlett Packard Co. Fort Collins, Colorado "Midnight shakes the memory as a madman shakes a dead geranium." - T.S. Eliot Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 92 23:09:41 EDT From: joseph at joebloe.maple-shade.nj.us (Joseph Nathan Hall) Subject: Sam Adams Wheat Beer? ) Recommendation seconded, but you forgot to mention the weak-insipid-no- ) detectable-phenolic-character-wheat-beer, the way-too-hoppy-for-the-style- ) Octoberfest, and the altbierNOT!-Boston ale. I'll have to try another Sam Adams Wheat Beer. The last one I had was quite a while ago, just after they introduced the brew. It was *very* clovey and phenolic, to the point where I thought it was basically undrinkable. What gives? Meanwhile, is it true that BBC brews from liquid Breiss extract? ======================================================================= 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 Copyright 1992 by Joseph N. Hall. Permission granted to copy and redistribute freely over USENET and by email. Commercial use prohibited. Return to table of contents
End of HOMEBREW Digest #1036, 12/18/92