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


Contents:
  Grand Cru Request (Jon Olsen)
  Wit beer reflections revisited ("Lee Bussy")
  BBC vs. BBW (Ben Ide)
  Gypsum is not carbonate! ("nancy e. renner")
  STEAM JACKET KETTLE  2 ("rick_ l")
  Smiling Malt Gods (ELQ1)
  Aquarium Air stones (EDGELL)
  blackhawk stout clone? (Peter Mumford)
  Fridges and Shipping Ale (Richard Buckberg)
  Shipping Ale (Richard Buckberg)



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Date: Fri, 30 Dec 1994 02:40:07 +0600
From: olsen at augsburg.edu (Jon Olsen)
Subject: Grand Cru Request

Greetings.  I've been doing some hunting with little luck for a Grand Cru
recipe along the lines of Celis.  Email please soon.  Whatever method.  I'm
pretty clueless about it and I might have to turn to the Who's in the
Garden Grand Cru from TNCJOHB so if any of you've tried it, let me know if
it's any good.
TIA.

olsen at augsburg.edu
aka Reaper Man



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Date:          Fri, 30 Dec 1994 06:09:19 +0000
From: "Lee Bussy" <leeb at southwind.net>
Subject:       Wit beer reflections revisited

I thought I'd drop a note to follow up on my Wit Beer brewing 
experience.  

We were discussing the validity of recommending decoction mashing for 
brewing Belgian Wit beers.  My beers have been in the bottle for 
almost a month and I thought I'd post the results.

Two seperate batches were done, one using a decoction mash and the 
other used a standard step infusion.  As I posted then, the decoction 
mash yeilded 1.006 pts more extract than the standard mash and also 
produced a more easily handled grainbed in the lauter tun.  

In a tasting I had last night (which was not a blind one) the 
decoction brewed Wit was perceptibly (although slightly) darker.  
Both were still within style for the color.  The decocted one also 
has less of a chill haze although in this style that is not 
necessarily a plus.  The tastes were similar but the decocted one had 
a slightly maltier taste and a slightly fuller mouthfeel, again, not 
necessary in a Wit.

So, in summary, next time I make a Wit beer I will not kill myself 
doing it and I will use a modified step-infusion rather than the 
decoction.  I liked the decoction brewed beer better but with 
consideration towards the final product abd how it relates to style, 
the step mash is probably the better way to go.

Other recipe notes:

I used Tangerine peel along with the Orange, very slight taste but 
perceptible if you know what to look for.  1/2 oz Tangerine and 1 oz 
Orange peel along with an oz of Corriander were used.  I'd use the 
Tangerine again.

I used 15 ml of Lactic acid at bottling and that seemd slightly too 
much.  Next time I'll use 10 (like everyone told me to).

The yeast I used was from a culture plated out from a bottle of 
Steendonk.  It was slightly but perceptibly phenolic and next time 
perhaps I'll use a different one.

That's about it.  Both were good beers and I look forward to entering 
them in some competitions to see what the judges think.


 -Lee Bussy           |   The Homebrew Television Workshop Presents:         |
 leeb at southwind.net  |   The 4 Basic Foodgroups... Salt, Fat, Beer & Women  |
 Wichita, Kansas     |   A Special Documentary on Proper Diet.  This Week   |
 Super Brewer!       |   On your local PBS Station.  Check local listings.  |


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Date: Fri, 30 Dec 1994 09:48:58 -0500 (EST)
From: Ben Ide <bide at acad.bryant.edu>
Subject: BBC vs. BBW


My wife, Sarah, stopped in at the Boston Beer Works yesterday and saw 
that they had a special double bock named Victory on the menu.  When she 
asked about it her waitress said that it was named to commemorate their 
recent, and fourth, victory over the Boston Brewing Company in court.

My question is:  What is the problem?  Why have they gone to court with 
the BBC four times?  Is there some sort of grudge between the Boston Beer 
Works and the Boston Brewing Company?  Does any one know the history?

					-- Ben


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Date: Fri, 30 Dec 1994 11:19:54 -0500 (EST)
From: "nancy e. renner" <nerenner at umich.edu>
Subject: Gypsum is not carbonate!

(From *Jeff* Renner)

In HBD 1614, Andrew Patrick wrote:

>We DO use gypsum for certain styles where a high carbonate water is
>desirable, but _only_ for those styles.  And dont chuck in 8 tablespoons
>of the stuff, you are making BEER, not CHALK, for Pete's sake!!

Gypsum is calcium sulphate, chalk is calcium carbonate.  Gypsous (sp?) water
has gypsum dissolved in it , and is good for pale ales - the calcium for 
wort acidity with pale malts, and the sulphate for the snappy bitterness 
is gives with hops.  Carbonate water has pH raising carbonate (actually 
bicarbonate), which is good for balancing the acidity of dark malts in 
stouts, porters, dunkles, etc.  This was originally discovered 
empirically, when brewers in Dublin, London, Munich, etc. discovered that 
they could make better dark beers than pale, and those in Burton, 
Dortmunder, etc. found the reverse.

Jeff Renner in Ann Arbor, Michigan c/o nerenner at umich.edu

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Date:          Fri, 30 Dec 1994 12:30:25 +0000
From: "rick_ l" <rick_l at nr.infi.net>
Subject:       STEAM JACKET KETTLE  2



Can any of the professional brewers or researchers out there help me? My 
friend who is an advanced homebrewer and myself would like to do a
 production and marketing trial using some of his recipes . If the trial is 
successful we could progress to some larger more professional equipment.
 Our goal is turn out a good quality brew with a minimum investment. We
have seen K. Boughman's operation at Tumbleweed and were very 
impressed with the quality of the beer he turns out , especially given  his
minimum investment in brewing equipment. Kenny's low investment approach
to brewing good beer is something we would like to model. Following the 
model we have located an inexpensive used  Groen steam jacketed kettle
 for a boiler.  This kettle is generally used in food service. WILL  THIS STEAM
JACKETED KETTLE MAKE A GOOD BREW KETTLE? The bottom of
 the kettle is contoured toward  the drain port.
 It looks like the  trub will fall into the drain, making it impossible to
 remove. We received  several good suggestions when we posed this
 question several weeks ago. They included: use a copper "chore boy" to
 catch the trub, use a false bottom  with hops as a filter, weld a piece of
 stainless pipe to the inside of the drain  to give the trub a space to settle. 
Unfortunately most of the suggestions were from folks who had never seen
 a steam kettle .Can someone tell me how the  bottom and drain in a real
 brew kettle are constructed. Is the drain located  above the bottom of the 
 kettle to allow space for the trub to settle?  Given the steam kettle's drain 
configuration would it make a good boiler? Any good source for a used
 stainless 2 bbl boiler  ( we tried all the scrap yards) ? Thanks and good
brewing

Rick Langhorne
Blueberry Hill Farm
Gibsonville NC
rick_l at nr.infi.net 
Rick Langhorne             "The diffusion of knowledge is 
Blueberry Hill Farm               the only guardian of 
Gibsonville, NC                        true liberty"
910-449-7246           
                                      
rick_l at nr.infi.net                    James Madison

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Date: Fri, 30 Dec 94 11:20:23 PST
From: ELQ1%Maint%HBPP at bangate.pge.com
Subject: Smiling Malt Gods


  ....So there I was, just getting home after driving 5 hours on Dec. 26
  to find my house a mess from our Day after Christmas Earthquake, I run down 
  to my brewing shed and find EVERYTHING in the middle of the floor, and
  under all this mess I see the top of a carboy sans the air lock, hmmmm..
  I try to ponder 'ala Coyote, lets see, that carboy is still full, it was
  sitting on a upsidedown 5 gal bucket and it just hopped off amid all the
  crash and clutter and landed bung up, this particular batch took 5 hours
  to sparge thanks to a gooy infusion, and not even a little earthquake will
  take this mizzerable batch out. So.... when it stops shaking and und
  gravity be dropping, I'll bottle this mizzerable miracle batch up!
   New Years Wish to all of you,   May all yours land BUNG UP!!
   
    ELQ1 at PGE.COM               Ed Quier              707-444-0718

   Brewing Live! and bung up, from behind the Redwood Curtain in Eureka Ca.

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Date: Fri, 30 Dec 1994 13:55:56 -0600 (CST)
From: EDGELL at uwmfe.neep.wisc.edu
Subject: Aquarium Air stones

HBD,

I recently received an aquarium air pump and stuff. I have two questions.

1) With the pump I was given a cubic "air stone" and some cylindrical
"air diffusers". Is there any real differrence between the two?

2) These porous air stone/diffusers seem like their small holes would be hard
to sterilize. Is boiling the only way to sanitize them well enough for brewing?


Thanks,

Dana Edgell
edgell at uwmfe.neep.wisc.edu
- ---------------------------------------------------------------------

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Date: Fri, 30 Dec 1994 14:04:32 -0800 (PST)
From: Peter Mumford <pmumford at seanet.com>
Subject: blackhawk stout clone?


greetings Brewers!

if anyone wants to brew a pretty good copy of Mendocino's Blackhawk 
stout, they might try The Homebrewer's Store stout kit. (really, no 
affiliation) 

you can order the kit from them (the 800 number is advertized in zymergy)
and you get the live yeast culture.  but, since they list the ingrediants 
in their catalog, i'll list them here:

6 lbs dark malt extract.  3lbs crystal malt.  1 lb roasted barley.  
1/4 lb chocolate malt.   2oz northern brewer hops & 2 oz cascade.

the HBS kit comes with a porter/stout liquid yeast culture, but i used a 
chico culture from a sierra nevada bottle.  maybe this was part of my 
beer's similarity to blackhawk?

the hop schedule is: add 2oz northern brewer, boil half an hour.  add 1 & 
1/2 oz cascade and boil another 45 min.  turn off the heat and finish 
with 1/2 oz cascade.

now i know what your thinking - how can that taste like blackhawk with 
all that crystal malt?  who knows?  i dont think any commercial brewery 
could afford to use so much crystal malt, even in a premium priced brew.  
but it is a pretty close match, try it yourself.

peter mumford


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Date: Fri, 30 Dec 1994 15:12:09 -0800
From: Richard Buckberg <buck at well.sf.ca.us>
Subject: Fridges and Shipping Ale


Peter Misiaszek asked about getting fridges or freezers for brewing.  I
think you will find that most refridgerators, especially old cheapies, will
have a hard time getting down below 40 degrees F.  If you wish to lager your
beers, you will want to be able to hold a temp below 40, preferrable about
30-32.  For that you will need to scrounge a freezer.

You will also need a decent temperature controller, since you will get a
wider range of temps using the freezer's thermostat.  The aftermarket
controllers are available in lots of catalogs - let me know if you want a
referral to the one I use.  Highly recommended.

FWIW, off the Net I scrounged a good working fridge (for storing bottled
beer) for $30, and got a good working freezer for free.

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Date: Fri, 30 Dec 1994 15:15:16 -0800
From: Richard Buckberg <buck at well.sf.ca.us>
Subject: Shipping Ale


I forgot to ask this question before sending off the other note to the
Digest:

Has anyone ever sent homebrew to England from the states?  What are the
rules regarding shipping it?

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End of HOMEBREW Digest #1619, 12/31/94