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


Contents:
  Carboy deposits (Dan Roman)
  Excessive bitterness (Phil Miller)
  Apricot ale recipe (mlloyd)
  StLouis BrewPubs? (Dan Walker)
  Agitated Yeast (PatrickM50)
  BBC vs. BBW ; how to determine the answer. (Richard A Childers)
  Honey, I'm home! (GARY SINK 206-553-4687)
  Re: Propane Cookers (John Adams)
  Re: Michael Jackson Pocket Guide (John Adams)
  Modifying Thermostat/Bitterness/Hop Bags/Oxidized Resins (npyle)
  BBW vs. BBC / Kinney / Cold Fridge (npyle)
  Food grade sealants (Jim Griggers)



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----------------------------------------------------------------------


Date: Tue, 27 Dec 1994 10:18:55 -0500 (EST)
From: romand at dialogic.com (Dan Roman)
Subject: Carboy deposits

Out of sheer laziness I left a bleach and water solution in one of my
carboys for an extended period of time (greater than a month).  When
recently going back to get the carboy ready for brewing I noticed what
looked like pitting in the bottom and sides of the carboy.  Further
investigation revealed that it was not pitting but rather very small
deposits which look like sugar or salt crystals clinging to the glass
surface.  Problem is they are clinging rather strongly and I'm having
trouble getting them off.

I've tried bleach, B-brite, and hot water and none of these will disolve
it off.  The only thing I've found that works so far is using a wood
dowel with one of those Scotch Brite pads attached to it and applying
lots of elbow grease.

Anybody have any idea was this crud is?  Is there an easy way to get rid
of it?  Since the wood dowel mechanical method will not get everything
will this stuff hurt my beer if I brew with it in the carboy?

Happy New Year!
- -- 
Dan Roman           | Internet: romand at dialogic.com                    +
Compliance Engineer | Personal: danno at intac.com GEnie: D.ROMAN1  R/C ==O==
Dialogic Corp, NJ   | Homebrew is better brew!  Amiga after C=?      ./ \.

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Date:         Sat, 31 Dec 94 10:31:25 CST
From: Phil Miller <C616063 at MIZZOU1.missouri.edu>
Subject:      Excessive bitterness

I have recently brewed a cream ale and a Pete's Clone and have a discouraging
(not worrying) problem: although I used two different types of hops in the
brews - Brewer's Gold in the "Wicked" and Cascade in the "Cream" - they both
came out with an excessive, sharp, and unpleasant bitterness. This is not a
hoppy bitternes, and each brew's sharp biternes has the same taste. I just
bottled the Cream Ale last night, so I can't do a ring check to look for
signs of an infection. The "Wicked" has no ring around its bottles' necks.
What, besides an infection, may cause a brew to have such excessive bitterness
(assuming the brewer addds the desired amount of hops)? I think I have an infec
tion, and thought it may be from my wire-mesh strainer. He has since been boile
d. Would light interacting with hops cause this bitterness?. Can anyone help me
on this?
Also, when is the best time to add ascorbic acid to a brew?
Private email is fine, and if anyone wants a summary, I will oblige.
Thanks much.

Phil Miller c616063 at mizzou1.missouri.edu

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Date: Sat, 31 Dec 94 14:53:48 EST
From: mlloyd at cuix.pscu.com
Subject: Apricot ale recipe


Does anyone have any good ideas for a mash-extract recipe for an apricot
ale>  Specifically, I am looking to duplicate Pyramid Apricot Ale, a
hefeweizen with apricot flavoring.

Please post your responses to the digest or send a email to
mlloyd at cuix.pscu.com.  Thanks.

Michael Lloyd

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Date: Sat, 31 Dec 1994 19:31:16 -0600 (CST)
From: Dan Walker <mfpdw at uxa.ecn.bgu.edu>
Subject: StLouis BrewPubs?

Hi All,
 I am intersted in information, including personal opinions, about Brew Pubs
in the St. Louis area.  I am most intrested in the West County area as I
have frends there, however I am aware that good BPs are some times "scarse
as hen's teeth' as my dear grand mother would have said, so recomendations
from either side of the river(s) are very welcome.

Thank's
Dan Walker
mfpdw at uxa.ecn.bgu.edu

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Date: Sat, 31 Dec 1994 21:01:47 -0500
From: PatrickM50 at aol.com
Subject: Agitated Yeast

I had to move my vigorously fermenting brew the other day and was wondering 

if agitation is a problem at this point.  I am making a California Common
with a liquid ale yeast culture and fermenting it at 70 degrees.  It got
agitated quite a bit when I moved it and the bubbling through the airlock
seemed to slow down after it initially speeded up.  It is still bubbling at
the rate of 1 per 20 sec. or so.  Anyone know of a problem here?  Thanks for
taking the time to respond!
Pat (PatrickM50 at aol.com)

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Date: Sat, 31 Dec 1994 22:12:38 -0800
From: pascal at netcom.com (Richard A Childers)
Subject: BBC vs. BBW ; how to determine the answer.


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

"... 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?"


Good question.

Based on my knowledge of legal research ( gathered, rather painfully,
over the past two years ), here's how to find out the answer.

( I can't do this 'cuz I'm 3000 bloody miles away, mate. I have my reasons
  to go to the East Coast, and Massachusetts in particular, (-:, but doing
  legal research for the HBD ain't one of them. :-)

You need to be in or near Boston for this to work, since you need to go
to the Massachusetts state courthouse, in Boston. ( This is a consequence
of Boston being in a certain county ; that county being served by a certain
courthouse ; the probability that any charges that were filed, were filed
in state court ; and the probability that BBC filed in the county which
Boston is located within. )

( You can save some time by calling both BBC and BBW and asking them which
  court(s) the case(s) were filed in. It may turn out that both state and
  federal courts are involved. )

Assuming it's a state court ... simply go to the court clerk's office, for
the state ( superior ? ) court, and ask how you can conduct a search of the
files for the name of a specific plaintiff and/or defendant.

Here in California, in all the clerk's offices I've been in, there were one
or more computer terminals that one could use to query various lists ... the
criminal cases list, the civil cases list, the small claims cases list, maybe
one or two others. Like the phone book and the dictionary, experimenting and
exploring often reveal fascinating and educational results. ( You, too, can
read the grimy details of your friends' divorces. )

I don't know if this technology extends to the Federal court, but suspect so.
Certainly the basic algorithm applies. ( You'll need to go to a different
courthouse, though. )

Once you have the files in your sweaty little hands ( you'll probably have to
read them in a special room ), take careful notes of case numbers and grimy
details ... and then post 'em. It's a matter of public record. If you're shy,
perhaps someone else will post them for you ... like me.

Inquiring minds want to know. And it's sure to give Sam(tm) Adams(tm) a real
fizz.		(-:


- -- richard

       Pontius Pilate was politically correct. So was Benedict Arnold.
       So was Vidkun Quisling ... and so was Adolph Hitler.	|-:

   richard childers        san francisco, california        pascal at netcom.com

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Date: Sun, 01 Jan 1995 03:15:00 -0500 (EST)
From: GARY SINK 206-553-4687 <SINK.GARY at epamail.epa.gov>
Subject: Honey, I'm home!


          Eric brings up a good point when asking about adding honey to 
          remedy his low OG problem.  Honey will definitely not add a lot 
          of body to the beer, but it will add some (which is better than 
          none).  But if it's a question of adding honey vs. sugar, by all 
          means use honey.  With honey you don't have the risk of the off-
          flavors generated by plain sugar.  I checked some recipes and 
          found that those with honey generally call for about 2 lbs 
          (boiled w/1 gl water).  While I've never done this, you could use 
          1 gallon of your unfermented brew as a substitute for the water, 
          boil for 15 minutes, cool, then add back to your fermenter.  If 
          this is not a good idea, I'm sure someone will enlighten us.   
          Also, Papazian says use a lighter honey or the flavors may 
          overwhelm the malt.  Keep us posted on how this works out.
          
          Gary Sink
          sink.gary at epamail.epa.gov
          


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Date: Sun, 1 Jan 1995 09:52:54 -0700
From: John Adams <j_adams at hpfcjca.sde.hp.com>
Subject: Re: Propane Cookers

I must have been a very good boy this year since Santa left me with a
14g stainless steel pot and a bottle tree.

I immediately ran out and purchased a "cajun cooker" propane burner (my
wife had grown tired of my consistant scorching and warping of the burners
on her range).  This one puts out 160k BTU's and I can get 7 gallons of
wort boiling in 15 minutes.  This has decreased my (all grain) brewing time
by at *least* 1.5 hours.

I have a covered porch outside where I use my burner.  I would NOT recommend
using propane in the house or any area that doesn't get sufficient air flow.
There's a slight propane smell outside but I works great even in the 15
degree weather we had yesterday.  It even kept the porch warm!


John Adams

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Date: Sun, 1 Jan 1995 10:15:33 -0700
From: John Adams <j_adams at hpfcjca.sde.hp.com>
Subject: Re: Michael Jackson Pocket Guide

The version I have is the oldest (and the most out of date), the 1986
version.

A brand new version (4th edition) just came out.  "The Simon and Schuster
Guide to Beer:  The Connoisseur's Companion to Over 1,500 Beers of the
World."

The U.S. now has 6 four star beers:
   Anchor Steam (the only 4 star in my version).
   Anchor Liberty Ale.
   Sierra Nevada Pale Ale (the bottled version).
   Sierra Nevada Bigfoot Barley Wine.
   Celis White Beer.
   Alaskan Smoked Porter.


John Adams

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Date: Sun, 1 Jan 95 14:18:08 MST
From: npyle at hp7013.ecae.StorTek.COM
Subject: Modifying Thermostat/Bitterness/Hop Bags/Oxidized Resins

Thought I sent this days ago, but I guess not:

Pete Cooke asks:

>A friend of mine uses a hot water heater to heat his sparge water.  The
>problem is getting the temp. of the water to 170+.  The hot water heater
>is set up to run off propane.  The max temp. will not go above 140.  We
>suspect the problem is the thermostat (which is set to the highest
>possible setting).  Has anyone replaced a hot water heater thermostat and
>if so what did you replace it with?  The temperature does seem to reach an
>acceptable sparge temp. in the winter but never in the summer.  Any
>solutions would be much appreciated.

You can probably modify the thermostat to do what you want (I did).  To do
it, I removed the front knob and also the front plate of the thermostat.  The
front plate has a stop molded into it and the the knob shaft has a cam on it.
Well, not a cam, it is a protrusion on the side of the shaft which hits the
stop.  This is a safety measure so you can't turn you thermostat up hot enough
to do any real damage.  Guess what?  You can defeat this easily, but turning
the knob past the stop and then reinstalling the plate and knob.  Now, your
lowest setting is higher than the previous highest setting.  Another option
is to grind off the stop on the plate or the protrusion on the shaft.  That
gives you the entire range of temperatures.  The main point is that the
thermostat allows more than one turn of control, and you can use it to your
advantage.

**

Kerry writes:

>My understanding is that the the flavor is gone after the usual 45 - 60 min
>of
>boiling the bittering hops. That being the case, it makes sense to use the
>high
>AA hops for bittering (you need less) and use the good tasting (flavor) hops,
>which you may need more of and can cost more, for the flavor cycle, typically
>the final 10 minutes or so. Use a good IBU calculator program and it's hard
>to
>go wrong.

For absolute bitterness (so many mg/l of isomerized alpha acids) this is true,
but the quality of the bitterness will vary.  George Fix wrote an interesting
HBD article about this last year, and followed it up in a talk at the
Brewstorm 94 Conference.  I suspect this subject will be well covered in his
upcoming book.  The bottom line is that at reasonably high IBU levels, some
hops give a nicer bitterness than others.

>Now my question.  Has anyone ever thought of blending whole hops and a
>little
>water in a blender or food processor? Would this yield more consistent
>results
>or get better utilization? Private E-Mail OK.  TIA

I suspect the oxygen added would be detrimental to the hops, but I don't know
for sure.  Maybe you could purge the blender with CO2 before blending.  OTOH,
I don't think you'd gain anything an extra 10 minutes of boiling wouldn't
solve, and the setup and blending would take longer than that.

**

Now my question:  does anyone know where I can get some hop bags of good
quality that will hold two ounces of loose hops comfortably?  Since I've gone
to 10 gallon batches I find I need to use more hops (duh) and my bags end up
pretty crowded.  I'm sure this will affect my utilization and not in a
predictable way.  I know I could just use more of the smaller bags, but
larger bags would make things simpler.

**

Another question:  Mark Garetz contends that the hop resins that get pushed
to the top of the krauesen during fermentation become oxidized and insoluble,
so that even if they fall back in the wort they are lost in terms of
their bitterness contribution.  I don't quite understand this, as it seems
that by the time high krauesen occurs, the environment in the top of the
fermenter should be quite oxygen-free.  Any comments?

Cheers,
Norm

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Date: Sun, 1 Jan 95 14:36:02 MST
From: npyle at hp7013.ecae.StorTek.COM
Subject: BBW vs. BBC / Kinney / Cold Fridge

Ben Ide writes:

>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.

Well, good for BBW!  Ben goes on to ask what the deal is with these two.
Well Ben, in Jim Koch's litigious manner, he seems to feel the need to sue
anybody and everybody he meets.  I don't think he's out to win friends and
influence people.  BBW was sued because of their name.  Koch felt that the
word "Boston" in the beer business was his and his alone.  BBW, and most
right-minded Americans, did not.  I don't know the details of the four
different suits/victories, but it is based on this.  He's gone on to try and
copyright virtually every historical figure's name and a bunch of other stuff
in the hopes that someday he'll want to use them.  Good beer or not, these
antics, make him a scoundrel around these parts.

**

Rick Langhorne wrote:

>K. Boughman

and

>Kenny

Just for the record, his name is Kinney Baughman.  He's too good a guy to have
his name butchered like that, and likely a good one to imitate in your
low-budget micro business plan.

**

Richard Buckberg wrote:

>I
>think you will find that most refridgerators, especially old cheapies, will
>have a hard time getting down below 40 degrees F.

Maybe so, but my old fridge ($50 at a garage sale) has a hard time staying
ABOVE 40 F.  In fact, I run it at the setting just above OFF to get it to
40-45F.  Go figure.

Happy New Year,
Norm

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Date: Sun, 1 Jan 1995 22:32:18 -0500 (EST)
From: Jim Griggers <brew at devine.ColumbiaSC.NCR.COM>
Subject: Food grade sealants


Dan Fitzgerald, gjfitzg at vnet.ibm.com in HBD1616 writes:

=>And where are you guys finding "food grade sealant", i havn't seen tube 1 !!

I posted this information some time ago in the Digest, but I will repeat
myself.  The tube of Dow Corning 100% Silicone Sealant distributed by DAP
states that it is safe for food contact.

 "SAFE FOR FOOD CONTACT:  When cured and washed, ingredients which remain
  or which could migrate to food are listed in FDA Regulation No. 21 CFR
  177.2600. 

  Contact supplier for Material Safety Data Sheet which contains detailed
  use and health information."

Both the "Clear" and "White" sealants that I looked at had the above
statements.  I might could locate the MSDS, but it should be available
wherever you buy the sealant.  I think the building supply place
called DAP and they faxed the sheet to the store.

Happy sealing.
  __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __
 |\/ \/ \/ \/ \/ \/ \/ \/ \/ \/ \/ \/ \/ \/ \/ \/ \/ \/ \/ \/ \/|
 |Jim Griggers    brew at devine.columbiasc.ncr.com    Columbia, SC|
 |______________________________________________________________|

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End of HOMEBREW Digest #1620, 01/02/95