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

Contents:
  Re: Yeasts, Sweeter Beers, Bad Smells, Boom (Dr. T. Andrews)
  Mega Stout - The Recipe (man)
  herbs in beer ("1107-CD&I/VIRUS DISEASES")
  Re: "narcotic herb" (a.e.mossberg)
  Re: homebrew tuning (John D. Polstra)

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Date: Wed, 7 Jun 89 7:11:12 EDT
From: Dr. T. Andrews <tanner at ki4pv>
Subject: Re: Yeasts, Sweeter Beers, Bad Smells, Boom

) ... Some kits provide wickedly pleasant yeasts - Dogbolter ...
Yes, the Dogbolter yeast is a nice one.  It also works well, and
starts quickly.  I use it for most of my beers now, and am happy
with it.  It's easy to re-use the stuff; grab the sludge from
secondary fermentation of one batch, and you have plenty for several
batches of beer.

To re-use the stuff: after racking the beer from the secondary
fermentation vessel, you will have a mass of yeast sludge in the
bottom.  Sterilize the top of the carboy in the locally approved
manner (I use vodka) and pour the mess into a sterile jar.  Cap,
store in back of refrigerator.

To make beer: just scoop some of it out; drop it into a nice, warm
batch of malt solution (aka "sterile wort"); cover and let it start
while you boil your wort.  By the time the wort is boiled and
chilled, you have a good crop of yeast ready to take off immediately.

					Dr. T. Andrews, Systems
					CompuData, Inc.  DeLand
--
...!bikini.cis.ufl.edu!ki4pv!tanner  ...!bpa!cdin-1!cdis-1!ki4pv!tanner
or...  {allegra killer gatech!uflorida decvax!ucf-cs}!ki4pv!tanner

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Date:  8 Jun 1989   7:20 EDT
From: man at granjon.att.com
Subject: Mega Stout - The Recipe

                                Mega Stout

Ingredients for 5 gallons:

2	3.3 lb. cans Munton & Fison stout kits
3	lbs. Munton & Fison extra dark DME ( I substituted dark, since I had it)
2	cups chocolate malt (whole)
2	cups black patent malt
2	cups roasted barley
3	oz. Fuggles hops (whole, 5-6 % alpha acid)
.5	oz. Cascade (whole 5-6 % alpha acid)
	ale yeast
.25	tsp. Irish Moss

Steep 6 cups of grain in 2 gallons of cold water and bring to a boil.
Remove grain at boil.
Add all extracts and Fuggles for entire boil. (1 hour)
Add Irish Moss for last 15 minutes of boil.
At end of boil, steep Cascade for 10 to 15 minutes.
Cool, pitch, look out!

That's the recipe.  I modified it slightly, with the DME and boiling 5 gallons
and topping to 5 gallons with chilled, pre-boiled water.

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Date: 8 Jun 89 08:47:00 EST
From: "1107-CD&I/VIRUS DISEASES" <henchal at wrair-emh1.army.mil>
Subject: herbs in beer

Tony Burgess writes:

 " A few months back someone asked about the possibility of
replacing hops with a related plant renowned for its narcotic
properties.  I tried this once, with mixed results." 

Excuss me a minute, while I flame.  1) Hops and that other herb
to which you are referring, besides being plants, are not
related. 2) Why would you put anything in beer or encourage
others to use ingredients which contribute negatively to the
flavor and natural aroma of beer? 3)If you want to use drugs, go
ahead. But if you want to brew REAL beer, use only hops, malt,
water and yeast. 

  ERIK A. HENCHAL
<Henchal at WRAIR.ARPA>

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Date: Thu, 8 Jun 89 10:36:26 EDT
From: aem at mthvax.cs.miami.edu (a.e.mossberg)
Subject: Re: "narcotic herb"

In HOMEBREW Digest #171, Tony Burgess sez:

>[...]
>mixed results.  We made a batch of Papazian's Propensity Pilsener, replacing on
>e ounce of boiling hops with an ounce of the aforementioned narcotic herb.  The
>good news is that the narcotic properties transferred perfectly.  The bad news
>is that it was practically undrinkable.  The taste was utterly foul and complet
>ely unfamiliar.  By adding a few (6 or 7) drops of pure hop extract to a beer j
>ust before drinking it, we were able to make it palatable.  Here are the mistak
>es I think we made.  We should have made a much more full-bodied and flavorful
>brew (though not too alcoholic, of course), and we ought to have increased rath
>er than decreased the amount of hops used, so as to obscure the awful flavor of
> the other herb.  Those are my suggestions for anyone who wants to try this.

"narcotic herb"? Let's see, you must be saying that you used opium.. Now if
you're trying to say that you used something in the genus Cannabis, it is
decidedly not classified as narcotic.

Now, I... er.. a friend did this, but did not replace the Humulus with Cannabis
but merely reduced the former, and added a quantity of the latter.

Umm. Did you follow that?  Rather than eliminating totally the hops, just 
reduce it slightly or not at all, and add the additional herb.

It works very nicely, and there was no off tastes in the sample I tried.

Maybe there was some pesticide residue? Or it wasn't cleaned properly?
Or it wasn't put in the boil (to sterilize it)? Etc. Etc.

>A slightly more ambitious approach, if you have a green thumb, is to graft a ho
>p shoot onto the root of its friendly cousin.You will produce a truly extraordi
>nary hop plant, at least according to a book I was reading recently on the subj
>ect.  [...]

This has been suggested, but I haven't heard of anyone actually doing it. 
I suspect the benefits are limited, and if the plant is illegal, the root is
too...

aem
-- 
a.e.mossberg - aem at mthvax.cs.miami.edu - aem at miavax.SPAN - aem at umiami.BITNET 
I am strongly in favor of using poison gas against uncivilized tribes. The moral
effect should be so good. Loss of life should be reduced to a minimum. It is not
necessary to use only the most deadly gases; gases can be used which cause great
inconvience and would spread a lively terror...	- Winston Churchill

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Date: Thu, 8 Jun 89 10:47:42 PDT
From: polstra!jdp at hplabs.HP.COM (John D. Polstra)
Subject: Re: homebrew tuning

In Homebrew Digest #169, Dave Sheehy writes:
> My taste in beer runs towards the sweeter varieties. I have been unable to
> duplicate the sweetness of the beer at the microbreweries I've frequented. 
> I talked to one of the brewers at the Triple Rock microbrewery in Berkeley 
> and he said that they interrupt primary fermentation prematurely in order 
> to retain a sweetness in the flavor of their beer. I've now realized that 
> they must also either pastuerize the wort to kill the yeast of filter the 
> yeast out to avoid additional fermentation. I suppose that their beer might 
> be consumed quickly enough for the above steps to be ignored and not 
> matter much.

I recently took a tour of a brewpub here with the local homebrew club,
and learned how this particular establishment achieves sweetness in its
beers.  They monitor the SG during fermentation.  When the SG drops to
their target level (chosen for the desired amount of sweetness), they
add finings (isinglass, if I remember correctly) and then quick-chill
the beer.  The fast chilling shocks the yeast, causing it to
precipitate out and stopping all fermentation dead in its tracks.  (The
finings help speed the precipitation, for clearer beer sooner.)  They
keep the beer cold from that point on, so that essentially no further
fermentation takes place.  Carbonation is supplied in the aging tank by
CO2 pressure.  They don't filter or pasteurize the beer.  (This was
interesing to me:  they used to filter the beer, but stopped because
they felt that filtering was taking away too much of the flavor.  I
sampled all of their brews, and they were crystal clear.)

Now, I can't see any way to make this work if (like me) you're bottling
your homebrew.  It could work if you kegged your beer, kept it
refrigerated, and consumed it fast enough.

Here are a few other suggestions for sweeter brews:

1.  Add some crystal malt, as somebody else has already suggested.  Or,
try using some Munich malt.  I've had good luck with that.

2.  Use higher mash temperatures.  If you're using a step mash, don't
let the mash linger too long at the lower temperature, and don't take
too long in raising the temperature between steps.  I am finding that
precise control of temperature *and* time (we're talking minutes here)
really do make a substantial difference.

3.  Cut down a little on the bittering hops.  Even though that doesn't
change the amount of residual sugar in the beer, it makes it *seem*
sweeter.

4.  Try different strains of yeast.  I've been experimenting with
the various strains from Wyeast.  They produce quite different results.
Wyeast prints a sheet describing the characteristics of each of their
yeasts.  You can probably get a copy from your local homebrew supply
store.

5.  (Somebody please correct me if I'm wrong on this one.)  Try a higher
fermentation temperature.  I'm pretty sure that the resulting faster
fermentation will leave more residual sugars.  You'll also get more
fruitiness, though.  (Not a bad thing for ales, in my opinion.  Not even
a bad thing for lagers, if you're willing to throw authenticity out the
window.)

-- John Polstra               jdp at polstra.UUCP
   Polstra & Co., Inc.        ...{uunet,sun}!practic!polstra!jdp
   Seattle, WA                (206) 932-6482

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End of HOMEBREW Digest #172, 06/09/89

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