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

Contents:
  Re: cleaning up your act.... (blumenthal  at  home with the armadillos)

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Date: Sun, 2 Jul 89 13:16:17 CDT
From: brad at cs.utexas.edu (blumenthal  at  home with the armadillos)
Subject: Re: cleaning up your act....

I thought I would throw my gram of hops into the discussion of
sterilizing agents.  I've been using a product called B-Brite which is
made by Crosby and Baker (Westport, MA).  The package reads: "Made
with active oxygen as the sanitizer.  Does not contain chlorine,
bisulfate or organic compounds."  One 8-ounce package ($2.35) has
lasted me through about 6 5-gallon batches; that includes sterilizing
primary and secondary fermenters and bottles, as well as siphoning
tubes, measuring cups (for S.G. samples), etc.  

Speaking of bottles, I've never used a bottle brush.  I make sure that
the bottle is thoroughly rinsed *as soon as it's emptied* (about four
times with hot water).  When it's time to bottle, I put about an ounce
of B-Brite solution in, shake it for 10 or 15 seconds, then rinse with
cold water three or four times.

I suppose I'm pretty lax about cleanliness compared to some, but in my
limited experience, I've never had even a hint of infection.

WRT the discussion about head space:  I've also noticed that the less
headspace I leave in the bottle, the more carbonated the beer is.
This makes sense to me, given my naive understanding of the
compressibility of gas and the relation between pressure and gas in
solution.  

Obligatory joke (whoops, wrong forum):  One recent batch came out to
be about 9+% alcohol (the recipe is not worth posting -- it tastes
like a cross between Pabst Dark and sake).  We named it Hazelwood --
"Totally alcoholic and completely incompetent."

Cheers,
brad

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End of HOMEBREW Digest #193, 07/03/89

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