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

Contents:
  Re:Culturing SN Yeast ("Allen J. Hainer")
  Honey, Molasses, and Ginger (kipps)


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Date: Sat, 12 Aug 89 10:54:21 EDT
From: "Allen J. Hainer" <ajhainer at violet.waterloo.edu>
Subject: Re:Culturing SN Yeast

  Last week I brewed a double batch of my favourite bitter and wanted to
try an experiment with yeast.  One batch with yeast cultured from Belgian
Chimay and one with liquid ale yeast (my first try with liquid yeast).

  Chimay has LARGE amounts of sediment in the bottom.  I swished it out
into a small amout of boiled extract, water and hops, and waited.  At
first there were some bubbles (probably due to the carbonation in what
I swished out) and then nothing.  I then discovered that the corks on
Chimay are dated.  This one had been bottled in 11-87!  The yeast had been
dead long before I tried to culture it.  This may have been what happened
to you.  Beer (particularly imported or rarely purchased brands) may be
very old by the time in makes it into your glass and yeast will not live
forever.

  As to culturing with table sugar, I would use either corn sugar or extract.

  I also learned a quick lesson on liquid yeasts I'll pass on.  I had
well over 1/2 gallon of very active starter when I pitched.  To save on
measuring the yeast, I pitched it all into 5 gallons and then divided
this in half and diluted each to 5 gallons.  Unfortunately, when I pitched,
the wort was quite warm (I wouldn't call it hot though).  Ten minutes
later when I had diluted the wort to 10 gallons, it was nice and cool, but
I guess the damage had been done.  36 hours later the airlocks were actually
sucking air.  Because it was the start of the long weekend (supply store 
closed), it would have taken at least 4-5 days to get another starter going,
so I ended up using the yeast supplied with the extract kits.

  The moral of the story - Make sure your wort is COOL before pitching.  My
beer is now fermenting nicely, but I'll have to wait until the next batch
to find out the advantages of liquid yeast.

                       -al (ajhainer at violet.waterloo.edu)

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Date: Sat, 12 Aug 89 12:59:30 -0700
From: kipps at etoile.ICS.UCI.EDU
Subject: Honey, Molasses, and Ginger

A few weeks ago I decided to give honey a try.  I had a 3.5 lb can of
Ironmaster's Pale Ale (Hop flavored) and figured this would be good for
the experiment.  I added one pound of orange blossom honey to a five
gallon boil (no sugar).  As a further twist, I primed half the batch with
corn sugar and the other half with black molasses.  It's only been
conditioning a week, but I sampled a bottle of both last night.

The half primed with sugar had a very light, crisp taste that also was a
little dry and gingery.  I thought the flavor was weak, as though it were
missing something; using real hops instead of a hop-flavored extract would
have helped or maybe conditioning another week.  Also, if I were going to
try adding ginger to a beer, this would be a likely candidate.

The molasses-primed bottle was much better.  An amber color, but still
crisp, this beer had a full flavor that the other did not.  I've primed
with molasses before (1 cup in 5 gallons) and found it over-powering.
This time I used between 1/3 and 1/2 cups for 2.5 gallons.  I still think
the beer could benefit from real hops, but otherwise it's not bad.

One more thing, I've noticed twice now that beer primed with molasses is
more heavily carbonated than beer primed with sugar.  Anyone else notice
this?  I'm thinking that next time I try it I'll cut back to 2/3 cups for
5 gallons.

-Jim Kipps

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End of HOMEBREW Digest #227, 08/13/89

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