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

Contents:
  Re: Old Faithful (dw)
  Measuring Specific Gravity (pisc2b!jnc)
  Heyyo again, temporarily. (mhalley)
  Re:  Homebrew Digest #160 (May 26, 1989) (David Fudenberg)
  Re: Old Faithful (Pete Soper)

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Date: 1 Jun 89 08:28:42 EDT (Thursday)
From: dw <Wegeng.Henr at Xerox.COM>
Subject: Re: Old Faithful

There are several factors that can cause a beer to gush out. Some include:

1) You may have bottled the beer before fermentation was complete. This
seems unlikely in your case, for 4 weeks in secondary fermentation is
usually enough (though I recently made a dopplebock that took about 6 weeks
to ferment out). Keeping track of the specific gravity will help eliminate
this type of problem.

2) Adding too much priming sugar might also cause this (pure speculation).

3) Bacteria infection. I've heard (and my own experence seems to support)
that bacteria infections don't always result in a poor tasting brew. If I
were betting on what caused your problem, this is where I'd put my money.

As for whether you should continue drinking this brew, I dunno. Any
microbiologists listening who would care to speculate on whether
contaminated beer is likely to be poisonous? 

/Don

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Date: Thu Jun  1 16:09:00 GMT 1989
From: attmail!pisc2b!jnc at hplabs.HP.COM
Subject: Measuring Specific Gravity

I'm a  novice  homebrewer  whose got  a  couple    of questions  about
measuring the specific gravity  of the brew. [As  a preface, I'm *not*
worrying; my first batch -- a pale lager  -- came out quite drinkable,
so I am able to relax and have a homebrew. Now for the questions:]

    * Determining the SG of the batch involves grabbing a sample
    and measuring its SG.  I would think  that since the mixture
    is not uniform  (for  instance, the yeast and sugar settle),
    the SG will be greatly  affected  by merely  where  one  had
    grabbed the sample.  So the question: where  is a good place
    to take the sample?  From the top of the  brew?  The middle?
    The bottom?  If not from the top, how do  you get the sample
    without contaminating the batch?

    * I've read that bottling can happen when the SG stabilizes:
    that  is, when  you  obtain the same  reading  for 3 (or so)
    consecutive days. Along similar lines of the above question,
    how does one  take   these  readings while  maintaining  the
    sanitized environment? I am reluctant to open the fermenter,
    especially if  I   can   tell it's  time    to  bottle  when
    fermentation stops.

    * (This may be the issue underlying the  above points.) Am I
    being obsessive  about  cleanliness? Just  how clean  do you
    need to make everything? On my  first batch  I used a bit of
    household bleach and rinsed everything many, many times. I'm
    wondering how much of  this is  necessary. I've read in this
    digest varying opinions on this: everything from:

	"Make  all your equipment as  clean  as you possibly
	can   to  eliminate    the    potential of   nasties
	developing."

    to, at the other end of the spectrum:

	"I ferment in a garbage can with a piece  of plywood
	for  a cover".    

    I believe that  somewhere  between  these  extremes lies the
    truth. 

Any opinions? (We all got 'em. 8-)

In advance,  I  am indebted to  your  collective wisdom with hopes  of
better brewing.

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Date: 01 Jun 89 15:28 -0330
From: mhalley%ahab.mun.ca at CORNELLC.cit.cornell.edu
Subject: Heyyo again, temporarily.

Sorry I missent last message.  It's somewhere in mid-air.

I have FINISHED my 400-page thesis and am now once more
"communicado."  HOORAY!  HUZZAH!  ETC.

I have several brief messages to convey.

To Roger and Alex in Greater Boston area:
I have difficulty contacting you via bitnet.  Please
send surface address via email (YOURS got through to
ME) if you seriously desire meeting & exchange of
ideas when I'm going through.  Will be able to meet
you EITHER sometime September OR next spring/summer.
Do not expect to have access to computer facilities
after August this year.  Would be delighted to bend
an elbow and share brewing experiences.

To Rob:
In case I forget, in the rush of leaving, please sign
me off the list as of 1 September 1989.  Do NOT, please,
sign me off immediately, as I really do enjoy this forum.
As for YOU, I think you have done and are doing a GREAT,
not to say F_A_N_T_A_S_T_I_C job.  You deserve rousing
cheers and many bottles of the best available product.
Thank you!  (There, I've done it, so I don't need to
keep reminding myself.)

To Jon:
Probably in September.  If not, possibly in spring, when
I start eastward.  Keep in touch.

To the rest of you:
It looks like I will be leaving Newfoundland at the end
of August and heading fairly rapidly for California.  Will
fly back to Philadelphia third weekend in October for
American Folklore Society meeting, then on to Newfoundland
again for Convocation, toi receive my M.A., and back to
Calif.  Will be running up and down Pacific coast during
winter, living in motorhome.  In spring will head back to
Atlantic seaboard and will definitely be near NYC, Boston,
Halifax.  Might possibly be coming by way of Galveston.
Am leaving for England in fall of '90.  Might also make it
to Great Lakes area, but not quite so likely.  Anybody who
wants to mix pleasurable converse with my fieldwork, let
me know.
email = MHALLEY at MUN.CA
surface = Morgiana P. Halley
          Dept. of Folklore, MUN
          St. John's, Nfld., CANADA, A1C 5S7 (till end of Aug.)

     ,    c/o Steele
          1598 Hillcrest Dr.
          Arroyo Grande CA 93420 (homebase till leave for UK)

I am hopful (that was intentional) of hearing from many of you.

Closing with favourite Spanish proverb:
Dime lo que cantas, y te dire quien eres.
(Tell me what you sing, and I'll tell you who you are).

Happy airlocks to all,
--Ye Olde Batte

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Date: Tue, 30 May 89 06:29:58 PDT
From: unet!fudenberg!dfuden at ames.arc.nasa.gov (David Fudenberg)
Subject: Re:  Homebrew Digest #160 (May 26, 1989)

Hello. I've been reading the digest for some time, and I do appreciate it.

My question concerns cask conditioned ("real") ale. I've never had any,
am am wondering which pubs in the US serve real ale, and what impressions
people have of it. 

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Date: Thu, 1 Jun 89 16:52:15 edt
From: Pete Soper <soper at maxzilla.encore.com>
Subject: Re: Old Faithful

Tom Hotchkiss <trh at hpestrh> writes:
>Now, I have read in many places that infections can cause geyser like
>action.  In this case however, once the foaming subsides, the brew smells
>and tastes wonderful, in fact it's one of my best.  Also, I have consumed

  This is a description of dextrin fermentation by wild yeast or bacteria and
is more extreme the more full bodied your beer is. These animals are slow to
multiply which is why it took time to develop. I'd put your remaining bottles
in a box inside a garbage bag if I were you and drink it while you can still
pour it and before it becomes dangerous (i.e. Old Faithful unchained).
The beer will become more thin and more highly carbonated with time.

>A couple more notes.  I carried out the saccrification step at 158 degrees
>to produce a full bodied, sweet beer (this worked).  Also, I left the ale
>in the secondary for 4 weeks, which I assumed was long enough.  Perhaps in
>this case I should have let is sit longer before bottling?

  You don't mention other times and temperatures which might shed some light.
The time it took to cool the wort and the pitching temperature and lag time
would be interesting to know. Also, yeast preparation would be worth a look.
If you measured your wort pH at pitching time that would be handy, since I'm
told that a wort with pH over 5.8 is more more attractive to bacteria than
one with the usual 5.2-5.5 pH.
  Why leave your beer in secondary for 4 weeks? Surely it wasn't active all
that time?  I chill and bottle my ales the moment they finish fermenting which
is usually 8 days but once in a while 14 days total from pitching, mainly to
get them off the yeast pack and odd bit of trub. But I'm not saying 4 weeks
is an infection risk and hope this irrelevance doesn't annoy you but I'm
curious.
  Then there is sanitation. This has been covered zillions of times and we
all agree it is important. One of my superstitions is to turn off the AC during
racking to have as little air movement as possible. We can clean and sanitize
our equipment all day long but can't avoid room air (without expensive
equipment).

--Pete Soper

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