HOMEBREW Digest #1497 Wed 10 August 1994

Digest #1496 Digest #1498


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


Contents:
  How much head, etc... (Ulick Stafford)
  Mystery Marzen ("Trilling, Michael H")
  RE: 125 Year Old Porter (Bill Ridgely FTS 402-1521)
  NEW hop harrasment.  Ants!  /HBD 1492 KillKillKill (COYOTE)
  Re: agar plate sterilization (Erik Speckman)
  Drying in Mini-Kegs (Chris Strickland)
  sanitizers/which is better? (Victor Franklin)
  Grape Nuts(tm) Pale Ale ("Glenace L. Melton")
  not priming/hop poles w/ pulleys (Alan P Van Dyke)
  Christmas Brew Formula's (Ed Blonski)
  Boilover Made Easy... ("Glen A. Wagnecz, X6616")
  Re: Barrels (David_Arnone)
  woodchuck and pale ale ("Mark J. Wilk")
  Waste Water Management (Al Vaughn)
  pressure cookers ("John L. Isenhour")
  Re: unusual fermentation (& ``funny tasting'' extract) (Seth Kroger)
  Counter Pressure Fillers (Don Rudolph)
  Dry hops/pressure cookers/hydro correction/Anchor Porter? (David Draper)
  Re: Brewing in California ("Mark B. Alston")
  Gas Cylinders (Dave Smucker)
  Re-using yeast ("LYVER,ANDRE,MR")
  Mixxocydin/QUATERNIUM-12 = Good Stuff??? (Jack Skeels)
  Polyclar (GONTAREK)
  Water Bath Cooling (Chris Strickland)
  re--beginner's guide (George Tempel)
  Using Green Beer to Prime (Spencer.W.Thomas)
  Bacteria in tap water (Spencer.W.Thomas)
  Using Green Beer to Prime (Chris Strickland)
  Beer Labels (Dean J Miller)
  WORRY No More (lavist)

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---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 8 Aug 1994 12:05:50 -0500 (EST) From: ulick at ulix.rad.nd.edu (Ulick Stafford) Subject: How much head, etc... I am considerein building a wort chiller. Most likely I will build the oter part from PVC pipe. rather than a hose, and coil tubing insde with baffles so the flow does not channel. However, the outer shell aside, I am quite worried about the inner tube. Therefore I would like to survey the users of counterflow wort chillers with the following questions. 1) How much head? Ideally, I want to use no more than 2 feet, because safety rule number one in my brewery is that a pot of boiling wort is never ever moved. 2) How long? Diameter? 3) Hopback or not? 4) How long does it take? 5) How close does the outlet wort temperature get to the coolin inlet temperature? 6) Can it perform aduquately with summer cold water temperatures? Email or post. (I wonder are editors of Zymurgy drunk the whole time or what? The number of errors that they print in a rather thin magazine that comes out a mere 5 times a year amazes me. And it is so nice that they spend all that money on postcards to tell me that I can buy CP latest book from them for $3 more than the cover price because they like me. I am sure any bookshop around here could get it for me in a couple of days and charge cover price?) __________________________________________________________________________ 'Heineken!?! ... F#$% that s at &* ... | Ulick Stafford, Dept of Chem. Eng. Pabst Blue Ribbon!' | Notre Dame IN 46556 http://ulix.rad.nd.edu/Ulick.html | ulick at darwin.cc.nd.edu Return to table of contents
Date: 8 Aug 1994 10:07:58 -0800 From: "Trilling, Michael H" <mtrilling at msmail4.hac.com> Subject: Mystery Marzen Here's one for all the experts out there... I made a partial-mash Marzen (a la Miller). I even used the recipe out of his book which I am including in this post. Grains: 1lb 2-row malt (I used Bavarian Pilsner), 2.5 lbs Munich Malt, 4 oz 40L crystal malt Malt Extract: 3lbs light DME, 1lb amber DME Bittering Hops: 6 AAUs Perle Finishing Hops: None Yeast: Wyeast Bavarian Priming Sugar: 3/4 cup corn sugar Gravities: 1.056 OG; 1.012 - 1.016 FG Now to my question. When I took the OG it came in at 1.078?!?! How can this be? I took into account temperature, and I even let it sit for 2 days so any suspensions could settle out. I even went so far as to borrow a buddy's hydrometer and got the same reading. What could cause this? What if I got no conversion during my mash and only washed starch into my wort? How does starch come into play with SG readings? What else could be in there causing the reading to be so high? Is the only answer that the brewshop guy measured my ingredients wrong? I would greatly appreciate any insight into this mystery. An unrelated question. I really want to go to all-grain, but I do not think that I can convince my significant other that spending $100+ on a huge brewpot is a 'wise' investment. I currently have a 5 gallon SS pot. My question is does anyone know of an easy way to figure out how much extra grain to add to a recipe in order to get the correct OG and still only end up with about 4.5 gallons of wort? Does it make sense to try and do this? Thanks, Stephen Harrington Manhattan Beach, CA Thanks to Mike Trilling for sending this for me...My mail account is acting up Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 5 Aug 1994 11:34:00 EST From: Bill Ridgely FTS 402-1521 <RIDGELY at A1.CBER.FDA.GOV> Subject: RE: 125 Year Old Porter In HBD #1493, Todd Boyce asks about the 125 year old porter yeast dredged up from the Thames: >Has anyone else seen this show? Has anyone heard of this beer or story >before now? Can you tell me (if you know) where I could research this >further? I'd love to try a Porter (or brew one) with this strain. Steve Tollefsrud posted about this discovery some time ago. I dug up the original posting and will repost here for the general interest. Bill Ridgely ridgely at a1.cber.fda.gov Repost follows: Date: Fri, 29 Jan 93 11:24:25 +0100 From: steve_T at fleurie.compass.fr (Steven Tollefsrud) Subject: Old Porter Brewed using Salvaged Yeast In response to someone's not so recent interest in this story, I dug around in my dusty archives and found a copy of an article which I clipped out of the Int'l Herald Tribune (Nov. 29, 1991). The story is written by Steven Prokesch of the New York Times Service. It is about the successful efforts of a microbiologist, Dr. Keith Thomas, to cultivate yeasts taken from two bottles of Porter recovered from a ship that sank in the English Channel in 1825. He is now brewing Porter from this yeast with a Porter recipe from the same era taken from the archives of Whitbread. The significance of this beer is that it is an example of what true Porter was like in the early 19th century and how, over time, yeasts have changed through genetic mutation and brew recipes have changed in response to consumer mutation. The name of this brew is Flag Porter and Bottle Green. At the time of the article, only about 4000 gallons per year were being produced. Flag Porter and Bottle Green were being wholesaled by Vinceremos Wines Ltd. and most of it was being sold through restaurants, specialty liquor stores, health food shops, and pubs in the UK, though, according to the article, they were hoping to start exporting to the U.S. in 1992. This is a very interesting story for this forum, and I have not done it justice with the scant details I have included here, but I don't know whether it is legal to transcribe it without permission from the publication or the author. Can anybody advise me on this? I hope that this info has been useful for the person who was asking about it. Steve Tollefsrud Valbonne, France e-mail: steve_T at fleurie.compass.fr Return to table of contents
Date: Mon, 08 Aug 1994 11:19:11 -0600 (MDT) From: COYOTE <SLK6P at cc.usu.edu> Subject: NEW hop harrasment. Ants! /HBD 1492 KillKillKill Yo Ho Ho. Went out this morning to fondle my cones. Found a new source of concern. A friend had a theory that his hops were devoid of spider mites due to the fact that he had big black ants running up and down the vines protecting them. The other day I was pleased to observe some med-sized black ants winding their way around mine. I thought, "good...they'll keep the mites down". This am I went out and found a large congregation of ants on a lower region of the stem. I thought- aha! They must be feasting on some earwigs or something like that. After closer observation I discovered they were: Chewing on my vines! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarghhh (as Charlie Brown would say) There was a location where they had broken the outer skin and a mass of them were greedily sucking the precious juices that SHOULD be pulsing upward to my precious cones. Well, needless to say, ants are no longer welcome on my vines! (I generally don't care for them anyway) I don't know if they help reduce mite populations or not. Perhaps it depends on the type of ants. I just don't know or care. SO: I grapped the hose and sprayer, and soaked em. Blasted the bastards! (not enough to hurt the vine). Question: Can Diazonon pellets applied to the ground around the base of a plant be absorbed by the plant and tranlocated to my precious cones? Or can I safely NUKE the bastards! I have no intention of applying the toxin TO the plant, just the ground around the base. It's been effective at encouraging ants to relocate elsewhere, I just don't want to be making diazanon double bocks this fall! As for other pests: I haven't seen much sign of the mites at the new house (k-nock on head!), but I have had a fair bit of leaf chewing. Exploration at night- via flashlight- has revealed the presence of earwigs (on basil, and most all the other plants in the garden too!) on leaves. They are known leaf niblers. Not a welcome sight, plus they look like something out of a cheap mystery science sci-fi flick, so I don't like 'em! Diazonon is also effective against those buggers. I haven't seen signs of the Jap-Beetles, and my grapes don't show signs of damage (if they truly are MORE attracted to them). My Old hop plants have been DEVESTATED by spider mites. Murphy's Oil soap is an organic approach, but I haven't heard much more than that mites don't like water. So I guess an underleaf shower could be of help. *** In other news: Here's my vote for the biggest load of crap I've seen in a long time. (glad the administrator is back by now!) HBD # 1492 Resend my buttox! Who/What is OAKQM3 and the other culprits? Has anyone publicly or privately SLAMMED these buggers yet! Flame on Johny Torch! KEEP that CRAPOLA out of the digest!!! *** Pressure Cookers: My 2c. I got a 6 qt number. Problem is it is so short I am limited to very small vessels. It cost me ~$30. But in hindsight I would gladly trade it and the $20 more for a taller one. I am limited to the pint mason jars, and 250 ml ehrlenmeyer flasks. Kinda a hassle. Go ahead and check the cheap outlets for a tall one. It'll be worth your while As for sterilizing plates: You should get pre-sterilized plastic petri plates. They are not- and will not be autoclavable. You could use UV light, or other chemical methods. But also (to add to the difficulty) plexiglass blocks UV. Some plastics will also to a certain degree. SO: maybe you find unsterile ones cheap. Spend a bit more, get presterilized. You can find glass petri plates. They are autoclavable. But are also more of a hassle overall- IMHO. The best way to go: sterilize your wort/agar and THEN pour into presterile plates. As for slants- I go the other route. Make agar/wort, pour into tubes- autoclave, and then cool on a slant. THe trick is to keep the caps loose during autoclaving and cooling or the pressure changes will destroy the tubes. And as we are all so fond of saying YMMV. John - The Coyote - Wyllie SLK6P at cc.usu.edu Return to table of contents
Date: Mon, 8 Aug 1994 10:18:03 -0800 From: especkma at romulus.reed.edu (Erik Speckman) Subject: Re: agar plate sterilization Mark Gugle asks how to sterilize plastic culture dishes. The simple answer is you don't. They should be largely bacteria free, if not outright sterile before you unwrap them. When we prepare agar plates for bacterial cultures in the lab we heat the sterile agar until it is liquid and pour it immdiately into the dishes. This is done in the presence of a lit bunsen burner which cretes a thermal air current that theoretically keeps bacteria from falling into the dishes. We cover the dishes and let them cool. When they have solidified we invert them to keep condensation from falling onto the media and and store them in the fridge until we need them. When we are feeling really anal we use a culture hood. It is a box that opens across the bottom and has plexi glass across the top to look through. It has a bacteriocidal UV lamp in it to provide a sterile environment. The lamp is switched off before use and need only be on 60-90 minutes before and after each session. Your mileage may vary. _____________________________________________________________ Erik Speckman especkma at halcyon.com especkma at reed.edu Return to table of contents
Date: Mon, 8 Aug 94 13:42:35 -0400 From: stricklandc at cocoa12.ksc.nasa.gov (Chris Strickland) Subject: Drying in Mini-Kegs Has anyone tried dry hopping in a mini-key? Just curious about stuffing some hops into the kegs before filling. +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Chris Strickland | Allin1: stricklandc | | Systems Analyst/Statistician | Email : stricklandc at cocoa12.ksc.nasa.gov | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Return to table of contents
Date: Mon, 8 Aug 1994 10:51:33 -0700 (PDT) From: uswnvg!vfrankl at uunet.uu.net (Victor Franklin) Subject: sanitizers/which is better? Hi all! another question...... I am currently using iodine to sanitize my equipment with a quick water rinse after to make sure i don't get any flavor from the iodine in my beer. I hear/read of alot of different types of sanitizers. what is the most effective methods of home sanitation??? -or- what are the most effective/best options out of the many choices? I am currently kegging my beer and have been told not to use bleach to sanitize the corney kegs. is this true? please help me decide. Victor Franklin vfrankl at uswnvg.com ** I don't need a comment, I'm already cute ** Return to table of contents
Date: 08 Aug 94 14:19:44 EDT From: "Glenace L. Melton" <71242.2275 at compuserve.com> Subject: Grape Nuts(tm) Pale Ale Grape Nuts contain malted barley, wheat, and salt in unknown proportions. Someone made a suggestion that they could be used in brewing so I tried it, maily as a joke. However, the results were so good, close to an excellent European pale lager, that I have decided to brew it regularly. Eventually I intend to substitute regular malt and wheat, which are cheaper. INGREDIENTS: 4 gal. Las Vegas city water (high in calcium, sodium, magnesium, chloride, and sulphate, about 750 ppm.) for mashing 3 gal. water from reverse osmosis filter system (about 60 ppm. NaCl 2.0 lbs. Grape Nuts(tm) (1) 0.75 lbs. Vienna malt 5.05 lbs. 6-row Midwest malt Total 7.8 lbs. grist 4 tsp. +/- commercial lemon juice (for acidifying) 3 cups Sierra Nevada(tm) Pale Ale yeast starter (2) 10.5 HBU compressed powdered Willamette hops (i.e. 2.1 oz. of 5% AAU hops) 2.5 oz. leaf (plug) Czech Saaz hops 1 Tbs. (heaping) isinglas 1.5 cups Laaglander Extra Pale DME METHOD: Grind grains and Grape Nuts together and dump into mash tun with 4 gals. mash water. I used step-mash procedures: protein rest 45 min. at 122-124 dF; Opt. added small amount of lemon juice (3); saccharification rest 47 min. 147-152 dF; dextrine rest 15 min. at 157-159 dF (4). Don't try to sparge this; strain out the grains and trub with a fine mesh stainless steel sieve and place in the hot (170 dF) sparge water for 20 minutes, then strain again. Combine the mash and sparge solutions and proceed to boil. After 20 min. boiling add 5.5 HBU Willamette hops. After 60 min. add 5.0 HBU Willamette hops (5). Boil for 1 hr. 20 min. total. Restore with water (reverse osmosis) to 6 gals. Cool to about 70 dF, aerate by splashing into a fermenting vat, pitch 3 cups yeast starter, and cover. My O.G. was 1.043 on 5.5 gals. Fermented in a covered vat at 70-73 dF. Rack to secondary carboy in 4 days and add five half-oz. Saaz plugs (2.5 dry weight) plus 0.75 cups Laaglander Extra Pale DME in 1 pint boiled water (to stimulate the yeast to produce CO2). The beer ceased working in 9 days; cleared with 1 heaping Tbs. isinglas, hydrated and dissolved in 1 pint boiled water. After two more days, bottled with 1.1 cup 50-50 dextrose and Laaglander Extra Pale DME dissolved in about 1 pint boiled water for priming, plus 1 cup SNPA yeast starter. Yield was 21 quarts. This cleared in three days after bottling and was already comparable with most better commercial beers. A slight chill haze can be remedied by bottle-lagering at 35 dF for two weeks. ______________________________ NOTES: (1) Use the genuine article, not a "house brand" which may contain oils and other ingredients you do not want in your beer! Disclaimer: I have no connection with whoever makes Grape Nuts(tm) and don't even eat the stuff very often. (2) I used Sierra Nevada(tm) Pale Ale yeast cultivated from a bottle to make a starter; Wyeast 1056, that I have used and is an excellent yeast, is not the same at all, although some people continue to propagate the erroneous statement that it is. (3) If the pH of the mash is a little high at this stage, add a tsp. or two of lemon juice to lower it. (4) The starch test was already negative at the end of the saccharification rest so I doubt if there was much starch left to convert into dextrine. Therefore, I would reduce the protein and saccharification rests by 30% and double the dextrine rest to add body. Head retention was good. (5) I would reduce the bittering hops by about 20%, i.e. from 10.5 to about 8.0. This is purely my personal preference. Even so there was no lingering bitter taste, but a clean, dry finish. Return to table of contents
Date: Monday, 8 August 94 13:50:21 CST From: Alan P Van Dyke <llapv at utxdp.dp.utexas.edu> Subject: not priming/hop poles w/ pulleys Howdy, y'all, In HBD 1494, Chris Stickland wants to know about bottling beer early instead of priming. This is a possibility, & is actually done by some commercial brewers. There is a trick to it, however. You have to know exactly what your final gravity will be, then figure backwards to what gravity you need to bottle at to get the right carbonation. It's easy if you're a commercial brewer, brewing the same thing over & over, & you can trust the numbers. However, almost no (I've learned to never say "all" or "none", there's always the exception) homebrewers can enjoy the luxury of having the same exact beer do the same exact thing. So, we prime. If you have a favorite recipe, however, that you've done over & over, & you get the same gravity readings consistently, try it. Just remember, though, that a small mistake could lead to those nasty little glass grenades. Thanks to The Coyote for posting his pulleyed hop pole instructions. I just bought a house with the perfect spot for hop vines, & I was trying to remember just this weekend who posted the idea of the pulleys & whether it worked. But first I have to do some re-wiring for the ol' brewing fridge... BTW, rumor has it that the psuedo-lambic that won the AHA nationals was an extract. Any truth to that? Happy brewin', Alan of Austin Return to table of contents
Date: Mon, 08 Aug 94 14:38:09 CDT From: Ed Blonski <S851001 at UMSLVMA.UMSL.EDU> Subject: Christmas Brew Formula's Greetings. I'm a newbie, so be gentle. I'm looking for any and all formulas for a Christmas Brew. (I use the word 'formula' because I was raised in a Bakery and we never had 'recipes'. Go figure!) E-mail would be great, no sense taking up bandwith, etc. Also, I live in St. Louis and I too do not by A-B products. Especially at Busch Stadium. I can't see paying $3.50 for a can of beer under any circumstances. But also for the reason that I have somewhat of a loyalty to Miller as a commercial product. I went to school in Milwaukee and Miller has a great and informative brewery tour. I do like their line of Special Reserve products better than their regular products but anything beats A-B products. Why is A-B the best? IMHO its all advertising. Luckily in St. Louis we have an alternative. The St. Louis Brewery. Dave Miller is the Brewmaster and they have some great beers. His Cask Ale is probably the best I've ever tasted. Anyway...send those Christmas Brew formulas along. Thanks! ______________________________________________________________________ Better people - better food - and better beer Why move around the world when Eden was so near? ______________________________________________________________________ Return to table of contents
Date: Mon, 8 Aug 94 16:15:16 EDT From: "Glen A. Wagnecz, X6616" <wagnecz at PICA.ARMY.MIL> Subject: Boilover Made Easy... Splash!!! Sizzle!!! Phewww!!! Those telltale signs that the batch has decided to leave the nest early...These are some things that come to mind: (Not necessarily in order of occurrence or level of frustration...) 1. Telephone rings and I get into some half hour conversation with someone I haven't talked to in a while and forgot about the boil... 2. Was doing something related to the next step (sterilizing fermenters weighing hops, etc.) and forgot about the boil... 3. I'm cleaning up where the cat puked after he ate some of the hops that I was weighing out for the finish in #2 above and forgot about the boil... 4. Decotions. Decotions get me all the time. I've outlawed all decotions in my house with the exception of weizzen batches. However, when I do do one, its upstairs, away from the main operations in the basement... 5. The cup runneth over. I've got a SS Half barrel for a fermentor, and if I push it, it will hold 15.5 gallons, with an inch to spare. But don't look at it wrong, rock it, or otherwise say the word "worry"! 6. Wheat again. Attack of the grey crud from Hell!!! 7. Turned up the heat when I meant to turn it down. My jet engine keg melter has a valve that closes by turning counterclockwise rather clockwise (like the rest of the civilized world...). All it takes is a quick 150K BTU blast to push that 15.5 gallons from #5 the last inch. 8. Disbelief. A watched keg never boils(over). (Bullsh#t). 9. Was doing something unrelated to brewing, like breaking 1/4-20 taps off in the pig roaster mounts (arggg!!) I was working on. 10. DIDN'T RELAX, DIDN'T HAVE A HOMEBREW, WORRIED... CU Ltr- Glen Return to table of contents
Date: Mon, 8 Aug 94 16:15:38 EDT From: David_Arnone at Warren.MentorG.com Subject: Re: Barrels > Date: Fri, 5 Aug 94 08:02:14 EST > From: John DeCarlo <jdecarlo at homebrew.mitre.org> > Subject: Re: Barrels > > I must admit to knowing virtually nothing about the subject, but I judged at > the BUZZ OFF a month or so ago in the Specialty Beer (oh no!) category. One > entry was a "whisky beer" brewed in an old whisky barrel. I must admit that I > don't know the ingredients used, but the result tasted absolutely nothing like > beer and a *lot* like whisky. > > In other words, I would be wary of used whisky barrels for any other use. > Ah yes, I would be wary of using a used whiskey barrel for making beer but a used whiskey barrel provides an excellent mechanism for maiking a port wine, especially the first year. Port wine generally uses muscat grape which is white and some red grape like Zinfandel mto provide a rose color. The whiskey from the barrel forifies the wine perfectly. Dave Arnone dja at warren.mentorg.com Return to table of contents
Date: Mon, 8 Aug 1994 17:00:32 -0400 (EDT) From: "Mark J. Wilk" <mw5w+ at andrew.cmu.edu> Subject: woodchuck and pale ale Has anyone tried mixing a woodchuck cider and a pale ale? I believe that I read about this in barley corn some time ago, but I can't be sure. At any rate, I mixed a Saranac Pale Ale and Woodchuck, and it was phenomenal! The sweetness of the cider offset the bitter of the pale ale nicely. Let me know if anyone has any similar findings. Mark Return to table of contents
Date: Mon, 8 Aug 1994 03:33:00 GMT From: al.vaughn at castles.com (Al Vaughn) Subject: Waste Water Management Tom Wurtz remarked about wasting water while using his wort chiller. I live in California where we have had several dry years and I found that if I connect my garden hose to the outflowing end of the chiller, I can connect the other end to a lawn sprinkler and water the lawn a little while I chill my wort. In the summer my water is about 65 to 70F from the kitchen tap. By running the garden hose into the kitchen (my wife typically needs to be gone to do this without too much flack) I can water my lawn for about 15 to 20 minutes. At least it's not going down the drain and I can have some homebrew while I cut my lawn! Allyn Vaughn * OLX 2.1 TD * (A)bort (R)etry (H)ave a Homebrew! Return to table of contents
Date: Mon, 08 Aug 1994 16:59:54 CST From: "John L. Isenhour" <isenhour at lambic.fnal.gov> Subject: pressure cookers jdecarlo at mitre.org John write: (I decide to post too, for general info.) > Does anyone have any advice on what type of pressure cooker to buy for yeast >propagation type activity? I occasionally see them on sale for $19.95 or less >and wonder if those are too small or too cheaply made to be useful for >sterilization. You can use any pressure cooker to sterilize things. I really dont like the cheap gasket ones though. I really like the All American brand. They are in a totally different league. They have no gaskets, but a series of giant wing nut like things, you batten down the hatch and it does not leak any. It has a guage, and a very nice blow off valve, it will gently hiss away any extra pressure (more if you have the heat way overcranked) so it wont cause your agar or starter liquid to boil out. I have 2 of them, I got the small standard one over 10 years ago and it shows no signs of use except when I have loaned it to friends. I have a big one now that you can put a gallon (cider) jug of starter liquid in (Not quite with the glass airlock on, I put the airlock and stopper wrapped in foil next to the glass and keep foil over the jug lid). These are expensive when new, but they are available at used restaurant supply places and I would suggest checking there. At least take a look at one to get an idea of what the different grades are like before you get a cheapo one. Get Steamed, -john - -- John Isenhour renaissance scientist and AHA/HWBTA National Beer Judge home: john at hopduvel.chi.il.us work: isenhour at lambic.fnal.gov Return to table of contents
Date: Mon, 8 Aug 1994 15:18:22 -0800 (PDT) From: skroger at cibola.aero.calpoly.edu (Seth Kroger) Subject: Re: unusual fermentation (& ``funny tasting'' extract) I'm a newbie homebrewer currently on my third batch. I've used Edme dry yeast on both the first and third batches, and noticed the same behavoir (fermentation goes strong for ~1day then just about stops). I don't have a hydrometer, so I don't know what the gravities are/were. For the first batch, I bottled it after two weeks. It turned out mildly carbonated, but the yeast aparently ``woke up'' after two months. On the final bottles, the dimple in the cap popped out, and the beer was way over carbonated. It didn't gush on opening, but it was like pouring foam. Now, I have a question about my third batch, currently in the fermenter. When I tasted the liquid extract I used, it didn't seem to taste right. It didn't have the `normal' heavy malt sweetness of the previous extracts I've used. It had sort of a tang, almost a slight orange flavor to it. Is this a bad sign? (I got a 7lb bucket of some cheap light bulk extract to try it out. Is this a case of getting what you pay for?) - -- |======================================================================| | Seth Kroger "If God made us in His image we | | skroger at oboe.aix.calpoly.edu have certainly returned the | | Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo compliment." -Voltaire | Return to table of contents
Date: 08 Aug 94 18:39:11 EDT From: Don Rudolph <76076.612 at compuserve.com> Subject: Counter Pressure Fillers For those of us who don't have a nice counter-pressure filler (CPF) setup like Dion's, maybe he and others could answer a few questions. I recently bought a CPF and ran into a couple of problems. 1. What pressure setting should I use for filling? Dion (#1493) mentioned 30 psi, I can't imagine filling at that pressure with my setup. What effect does raising/lowering the pressure have? 2. I ran into a severe foaming problem. How can I eliminate or reduce foaming? 3. If I want say 2.0 volumes of CO2 in my bottled product, how many volumes of CO2 should be in the bright beer to compensate for CO2 losses? What other factors are involved? 4. What would be the top range of CO2 volumes that are feasible to achieve with a CPF? 5. What is the shelf life of an unfiltered CPF bottle of brew vs. a bottle-conditioned one? If Dion or anyone else responds, I would be happy to repost the summarized results. Thanks. Don Rudolph Seattle, WA 76076.612 at CompuServe.COM Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 9 Aug 1994 08:20:54 +1000 (EST) From: David Draper <David.Draper at mq.edu.au> Subject: Dry hops/pressure cookers/hydro correction/Anchor Porter? Dear Friends, for once I am not just asking questions! Several comments on some articles in HBD 1495, and then one question. Jack Dickerson asks about better ways to sink his dry-hops. In my view, it doesn't make a particle of difference whether the hops are floating on the surface or sitting on the bottom, especially when they are in a hop bag. The volatile aromatics you desire from dry-hopping dissolve into the beer via diffusion, and this process is totally independent of whether the hop/beer interface is above or below the hops. That is, the "random walk" nature of the diffusion process is irrespective of gravitational fields. As long as the hops stay in the beer for long enough, say a week or more, there is ample opportunity for the dry hops to do their thing. So Jack, just toss 'em in any old way you want. John DeCarlo asks about what type of pressure cooker to buy for yeast culturing use. Never in my wildest dreams thought I'd be offering advice to John <grin> but I'd say that if you are going to be plating out strains that are probably not pure, so that you need to worry about extraneous critters, then p/c's are probably a good idea. If you are working only with yeast from *pure* sources, like Wyeast packs or slants, IMHO a p/c is not necessary, and 20 mins of steaming in your covered brewkettle is plenty of sterilization. In either case, in my experience (admittedly not that large, my yeast herd is just 5 strains so far) buggered-up yeast colonies are quite easy to pick out with the naked eye, so I (so far) have not bothered with a pressure cooker. Tim Ihde asks about how most folks take samples during the sparge/brew process, and about corrections for temperatures greater than 120F. What I do is take a sample once everything is in the brewpot, on the way to boiling temperature (whether it is an extract- or mash-based brew) and then measure the gravity (for partial-mash brews, I also measure before adding the extract syrup). I cool only if I need to get down to the T range where my hydrometer corrections apply. Tim says he had to extrapolate up to higher T from the data he had. Here is the correction table from Dave Line's Big Book of Brewing, both for general use and to solicit people's opinions on whether this has changed much in the years since BBB's publication. Does this still hold up, and if not, why not? The Line method is to use "hydrometer units", i.e. a gravity of 1.045 is 45 units. Then the factors given below are used to multiply the hydro units. Example: a wort at 120F measures 1.038. This is 38 hydro units; the factor is 1.52; 1.52*38 = 57.8 (call it 58) so the actual gravity is 1.058. BTW this is all assuming a hydrometer calibrated to read water with a gravity of 1.000 at 60F, so there is no correction at 60F. T, F Corr'n factor T, F Corr'n factor 50 0.98 120 1.52 70 1.02 130 1.70 80 1.05 140 1.92 90 1.11 150 2.15 100 1.22 160 2.42 110 1.36 170 2.75 It's clear from this that the correction is strongly non-linear, so extrapolating above 120F if your data don't go any higher needs to be done with care. A simple test (so simple I have never done it!) would be to take a sample at the hot end of the range, do the correction, then cool it to the mid- and low-end of the range and see if those corrections result in the same gravity. OK, finally my question: anyone know if Anchor uses the same yeast for their Porter as they do for the illustrious Steam beer? I'm going to make a Porter using Wyeast 2112 (it is perfect for the 15-18C temps in my apartment these days) and would appreciate any comments on what I might expect from this. Cheers, Dave in Sydney - -- ****************************************************************************** David S. Draper, School of Earth Sciences, Macquarie University, NSW 2109 Sydney, Australia. email: david.draper at mq.edu.au fax: +61-2-850-8428 ....I'm not from here, I just live here.... Return to table of contents
Date: Mon, 8 Aug 94 18:17:37 MDT From: "Mark B. Alston" <c-amb at math.utah.edu> Subject: Re: Brewing in California Just want to point out that having Brewpubs and supply shops does not ensure that home brewing is legal. Utah is a case in point. We have 5 brewpubs and micros, with three more on the way, and many supply shops; however, home brewing is as illegal as ever. In fact, I had quite a scare when two cops parked across the street while I was heating my strike water outside the garage. They didn't seem to pay me any attention. I guess that they were looking for something else, but boy way I nervous. I had 10+ gallons of brew in my fridge with the taps in nearly plain view. Anyhow, shops and brewpubs do not equal legal homebrewing. Chow, Mark Alston (Rebel brewer in zion) Return to table of contents
Date: Mon, 08 Aug 1994 19:37:46 -0500 (CDT) From: Dave Smucker <TWF99 at ISUVAX.IASTATE.EDU> Subject: Gas Cylinders In HBD 1495 Kelly Jones <k-jones at ee.utah.edu> asks about gas cylinders. They are regulated by the DOT (Federal Dept. of Transportation) and are covered by ANSI standards. The American National Standards Institure has set forth the standard that cylinder contents will be marked by means of the chemical or trade name of the gas marked on the cylinder not by a color code. I don't think many welding supply houses will but CO2 into non CO2 cylinders because of the DOT regulations and the liability they may incure in a non standard cylinder. You may find a fire protection or service company that will, but I think even that is unlikely. By the way that is a good place to purchase smaller size cylinders in the 5 to 10 pound size. I use a 50 pound cylinder purchased from my welding supply house for about $ 90.00. It lasts for ever, about a year, and I use it for lots of things. One big drawback is that it weighs in at about 200 pounds, is more than 5 feet tall and damn hard to take to a party. Dave Smucker Return to table of contents
Date: Mon, 08 Aug 94 23:36:51 EDT From: "LYVER,ANDRE,MR" <XNLC at MUSICB.MCGILL.CA> Subject: Re-using yeast Dear fellow homebrewers, I have a "newbie" question: I've heard of re-using the yeast that settles to the bottom of the fermentor, however what should I store it in and at what temperature? I've tried it once and it turned out to be quite an *explosive* situation!! Is it really worth it? Andre Lyver "I homebrew, therefore I am" xnlc at musicb.mcgill.ca Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 9 Aug 94 00:16 EST From: Jack Skeels <0004310587 at mcimail.com> Subject: Mixxocydin/QUATERNIUM-12 = Good Stuff??? Has anybody heard of a hand cleaner called Mixxocydin (TM)? It is intended for the medical and scientific communities, and has the active ingredient called QUATERNIUM-12. My thoughts/questions were: 1) Would this be effective against Lactobacillus? 2) Could Quaernium-12 (which I was told is made from grapefruit seed) be a decent sanitizer? Jack Skeels JSKEELS at MCIMAIL.COM Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 9 Aug 1994 7:28:38 -0400 (EDT) From: GONTAREK at FCRFV1.NCIFCRF.GOV Subject: Polyclar Greetings to all in homebrew-land! I have a question regarding the use of polyclar as a clarifying agent. A few weeks ago I brewed an all-grain golden ale, and dry-hopped it for about a week with one ounce of Cascade whole leaf hops. It still looked a little cloudy, so I decided to use a bit of polyclar to clear it up a bit. In the past, all I did was to sprinkle a couple of tablespoons of polyclar powder on top of the fermented beer in the secondary. This worked well. But alas, I recently purchased Dave Miller's book, which said to hydrate the polyclar in about a cup of beer from the secondary. So, I did this, and had a helluva time getting the polyclar into solution. Anyway, I finally got it into solution and poured it into the secondary. Three days later, it still was not clear. I decided to bottle it anyway. Almost two weeks later, the beer is *very* cloudy, almost white in the bottle. It is carbonated perfectly, and even tastes great. I pride myself in that I have never had an infection, and I am nearly certain that this beer is not infected. What did I do wrong? A bad batch of polyclar? Will this eventually settle out? Should I relax, don't worry, and serve cloudy homebrew to my friends? Any thoughts, private or otherwise, would be appreciated. TIA Rick Gontarek Owner/Brewer, The Major Groove Picobrewery Baltimore, MD gontarek at ncifcrf.gov Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 9 Aug 94 08:45:19 -0400 From: stricklandc at cocoa12.ksc.nasa.gov (Chris Strickland) Subject: Water Bath Cooling Someone mentioned keeping a carboy in a water bath at 80 degrees and wanted it to be cooler. I don't have a water bath, (which would be easier), but I just wrap a wet towel around my carboy. I wet it twice a day, and it keeps the carboy at 65-68 F, though my house is cooled at 78-80 F. The evaporation cooling effect works well. I was talking to my dad about this and he said when he was in the military, they'd take canvas bags full of water and hang them up when in the desert. Though it was near 100 outside, the water in the bags was cool and refreshing. Same effect of the evaporation cooling. +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Chris Strickland | Allin1: stricklandc | | Systems Analyst/Statistician | Email : stricklandc at cocoa12.ksc.nasa.gov | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 09 Aug 1994 09:48:49 +0000 (U) From: George Tempel <tempel at MONMOUTH-ETDL1.ARMY.MIL> Subject: re--beginner's guide re--beginner's guide I'd like to publicly thank Richard Webb for his 3 part post on all grain brewing...it is useful and very readable. I have recommended it to friends who don't brew but like my homebrew and ask howzitdone? I've one question, however--rich writes: >The important points to remember are 1) gentile sparging, 2) temperature >control, and 3) try to get the quantities right! I dunno about the rest of you, but i've _never_ been able to get a good extraction rate from a gentile in the tun! They never fit in very well, and it's always such a problem explaining it to the neighbors... l8r... ty (george tempel, home = netromancr at aol.com) "kiss cats: the dachshund and the deer are one"--wallace stevens Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 9 Aug 94 10:52:59 EDT From: Spencer.W.Thomas at med.umich.edu Subject: Using Green Beer to Prime You need to save enough beer to raise the SG of your beer by about .004. The (simplified, but fine for this task) equation for the gravity of mixed worts is: extract(mixed) = [vol(beer)*extract(beer) + vol(wort)*extract(wort)] --------------------------------------------------- [vol(beer) + vol(wort)] Where extract = 1000*(SG - 1.000), for simplicity. Rearranging this to isolate vol(wort) gives V(w) = [(E(m) - E(b)) * V(b)] / (E(w) - E(m)) Substuting E(m) = E(b) + 4, gives V(w) = 4*V(b) / (E(w) - E(b) - 4) Thus, if we had a 1.050 wort, 5 gallons of beer with a final gravity of 1.008, we would need to save V(w) = 4 * 5 / (50 - 8 - 4) = 20 / 38 = .53 gallons = 2.1 quarts of wort. Of course, you've got to estimate your FG in order to save wort before fermentation. Another, perhaps more useful calculation is this: If you've got a certain volume of wort, and you want to save some, how much should you save. In that case V(beer) = V(initial-wort) - V(saved-wort), and the equation becomes: E(m) = [(V(i)-V(w))*E(b) + V(w)*E(w)] / V(i) or V(w) = [(E(m)-E(b))*V(i)] / (E(w)-E(b)) Substituting E(m)-E(b) = 4, we get V(w) = 4 * V(i) / (E(w) - E(b)) The example case then gives V(w) = 4 * 5 / (50 - 8) = .48 gallons = 1.9 quarts Hope this helps. =S Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 9 Aug 94 11:42:08 EDT From: Spencer.W.Thomas at med.umich.edu Subject: Bacteria in tap water I first became aware of this problem a few years ago. Our water smelled very strongly of chlorine, so I called the water treatment plant. I had a chat with one of the chemists. He explained that they used chloramine to sanitize the water, and that it is odorless. However, in the 3-4 days it takes the water to get from the plant to my house (I'm at the edge of a "pressure district"), nitrifying (?) bacteria *in the pipes* convert the chloramine to free chlorine (and something else). The water analysis I ordered at the same time listed something like 99 "cfu" (colony-forming units) of bacteria (per some unit I can't now recall, probably milliliter). Clearly this water is not sterile. While I'll take their word that it's safe to drink, I'm not going to take a chance on what might grow in my beer. I don't even rinse with tap water, let alone use it unboiled in my beer. =Spencer in Ann Arbor, MI Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 9 Aug 94 11:50:49 -0400 From: stricklandc at cocoa12.ksc.nasa.gov (Chris Strickland) Subject: Using Green Beer to Prime Thanks for the formulas. I don't remember, I may have already asked. But have you tried priming this way, and if so is it any better? +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Chris Strickland | Allin1: stricklandc | | Systems Analyst/Statistician | Email : stricklandc at cocoa12.ksc.nasa.gov | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 9 Aug 1994 12:09:08 From: djmiller at tasc.com (Dean J Miller) Subject: Beer Labels I have made a barleywine for a friend's wedding and have bottled it in the Fischer Alsace 22 oz. bottles. But, I would like to get some neat beer labels made. Does anyone know of a good source for custom-made labels for beer bottles?? Private E-Mail or Posting is OK. If there are a lot of responses, I will post a summary. TIA Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 09 Aug 94 12:27:07 EDT From: lavist at cc.tacom.army.mil Subject: WORRY No More Steven Cook says he is worried that the straining procedure can infect his batch. I suggest, No More Straining! Steve, tie your hops and a half dozen marbles loosely in a piece of sanitized cheesecloth during the boil. (Actually, the boil will sanitize it but I boil the cheesecloth separately first, just in case.)The marbles will effectively keep the hops bag from floating to the top of the wort but won't allow it to sink all the way to the bottom. When you are finished boiling the hops to the proper bitterness level to suit your tastes, just remove the whole bag from the batch. No more scum! Try it, it really works! Terry Lavis lavist at cc.tacom.army.mil Return to table of contents
End of HOMEBREW Digest #1497, 08/10/94