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

Contents:
  S.G. measurement problem (Gordon Hester)
  Stirring the wort (man)
  Re:  Headaches, US Beer, Volksfest, etc (florianb)

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Date: Tue, 30 May 89 10:52:11 -0400 (EDT)
From: Gordon Hester <gh0t+ at andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: S.G. measurement problem

I boiled up a batch of ginger beer last night. I'm hoping that it will
make good summer drinking when things get hot and sticky here in Pittsburgh
(which will happen all too soon.)

I screwed up, though, when I put the 2 gallons of boiled wort in the
primary fermenter with 3 gallons of cold water - I measured the S.G. of
the undiluted wort instead of the wort plus water. I was scratching my
head for awhile over the fact that I got a reading of 1.112! I knew I didn't
put that much malt and honey in there!

Well, I figured out what my error was, obviously, but now I'm wondering
what to do about it (OTHER THAN relax and have a homebrew, thanks). Is there
any way that I can estimate the S.G. of the diluted wort? Multiplying the
S.G. of the wort (112) by the approximate proportion of the wort to the
whole batch (0.4 or so) seems an obvious method, and yields a
not-unreasonable figure (about .045, which seems consistent with the 6
pounds of malt and honey in the batch). But I'm by no means sure that this
is a valid estimation method. Any ideas?

BTW, I'm reluctant to open up the fermenter and take out a sample - why
risk contamination for something that, after all, isn't going to affect
the resulting beer. But this is only my third batch, and I'm trying to keep
track of what I'm doing, including original and final S.G.'s of each
batch.

While I'm posting a message, I'd like to ask if anyone else has any
experience brewing ginger beer. (That's beer with ginger used as a
flavoring, BTW, not "ginger beer" as in the stuff made by Schwepps that
you can but in the grocery store.) My interest in making some was spurred
by an encounter in Trinidad with a beer called "Shandy" that is a
regular (lager, I assume) light beer made by the Carib beer company
(Trinidad's largest brewing company by far) that is supplemented with a
strong dose of ginger. It was very pleasant to drink in a tropical climate.

What I made last night was an attempt to reproduce that flavor, but in an
ale with considerably more malt character than Carib has. I used
Papazian's recipe for something like "Linda's Lovely Honey Ginger Beer"
as a rough guide, with a bit less honey (I didn't have 3 lbs on hand, and
the stores weren't open) and some crystal malt added for color and flavor.

gordon hester
gh0t+ at andrew.cmu.edu

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Date: 30 May 1989  10:19 EDT
From: man at kato.att.com
Subject: Stirring the wort

Has anyone tried using an automatic stirrer in their brewing ?
I found a device at my sister's house a couple months ago.
She was using it to stir gravy, and it worked well. She bought
one for me and I have used it in my last two batches. It works
great. It is a small pyrex dish, about the size of a small
ashtray. I put it at the bottom of my brewing pot and as the
boiling starts, the "ashtray" rotates and mixes the stuff.  A
great helper! And I haven't had my usual problem of scorching
on the bottom of the pot. The last two batches have left clean
pots.  Best of all, I don't have to keep on top of the boiling
action now.  I think it cost $5.00 at a local gourmet shop.

Has anyone else used a similar device ?

RDWHAH,
Mark Nevar

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Date: 30 May 89 13:43:01 PDT (Tue)
From: florianb%tekred.cna.tek.com at RELAY.CS.NET
Subject: Re:  Headaches, US Beer, Volksfest, etc

Thanks go to Daryl Richman for his comments on brew process, 
quality of US beers, headaches, etc.         

My German friends also commented on the headaches they got from
drinking US beers, so I don't think it is indicative of my 
personal chemistry.

I'd still like to obtain a satisfactory explanation of why some
beers produce headaches while others do not.  So far, I have heard
a lot of good ideas, but none convincing enough for my "Doubting
Thomas" sort of skepticism.  I, meanwhile, cling to the bad
water/poor process explanations.  I will give a suitable prize
to the first person who can convince me otherwise.

On the subject of aluminum in brewing--I'd stay away from cooking
anything acidic in aluminum.  Why take a chance?

Florian 

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