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

Contents:
  Re: homegrown hops - yield, drying (dw)
  Re:  Homebrew Digest #230 (August 17, 1989) (Stanley Dunn)
  Great Fermentations, more info (drutx!homer)
  Yeast Suppliers ("Allen J. Hainer")
  Re: The Gravity of the Situation (Patrick Stirling)
  The Gravity of the Situation (Doug Roberts)

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Send requests to homebrew-request%hpfcmr at hplabs.hp.com


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Date: 17 Aug 89 09:50:06 EDT (Thursday)
From: dw <Wegeng.Henr at Xerox.COM>
Subject: Re: homegrown hops - yield, drying

Since my name came up, I guess that I'll throw in my two cents worth. :-)

My references indicate that in most climates hops will give a good harvest
the second year. My experience seems to support this, for my second year
crop has produced a large number of flowers. My guess is that climate,
soil, etc. will affect this.

While I have your attention, here's a question, How do I determine when
it's time to harvest my hops? I've got some good size flowers (with yellow
resins starting to become visible), and after rubbing one in my hands I
could detect some aroma. Are they about ready?

/Don

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Date: Thu, 17 Aug 89 11:12:15 EDT
From: smd at occlusal.rutgers.edu (Stanley Dunn)
Subject: Re:  Homebrew Digest #230 (August 17, 1989)

>From: Steve Anthony <steveo at Think.COM>	Subject: Grain Grinding
>Does anyone out there have any experience using a food processor or blender
>to grind grains for brewing?  Seems like it'd be an efficient way to grind
>the grains, rather than use the rolling pin or breaking down and buying a
>grain mill.

I use our La Machine to grind grains with the dough kneading attachment
and NOT any of the blades.  Instinct told me that the blender or
the food processor with any of the blades with cut and crush the grain.  
The dough kneading attachment actually does a credible job of cracking 
the grain.  Our La Machine is variable speed to boot, so I have pretty 
good control of the grinding process.

-- Stanley Dunn

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Date: Thu, 17 Aug 89 09:28:40 mdt
From: att!drutx!homer at hplabs.HP.COM
Subject: Great Fermentations, more info

>From Doug Roberts:
>Great Fermentations
>87 Larkspur
>San Rafael, CA 94901 (415)459-2520

>and

>840 Piner Road
>Santa Rosa, CA 95403 (707)544-2520

These are now two separate companies. the partners divided things up
last year, as I understand.  Both maintain a mail order business.  I
have never ordered from either, or the original company.

Great Fermentations of Santa Rosa, is run by Byron Burch and Nancy
Vineyard.  The address above is correct, Another phone number is
(800) 544-1867.

The San Rafeal people also have a catalog, I can not verify the
address, or new name.

Jim Homer
att!drutx!homer

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Date: Thu, 17 Aug 89 18:25:45 EDT
From: "Allen J. Hainer" <ajhainer at violet.waterloo.edu>
Subject: Yeast Suppliers

I received this request from Pat Patterson and thought that maybe there
are some others on the mailing list who would be interested ...  uh, well 
actually, my reply kept bouncing, but who knows? ;')

>From "Pat Patterson" <patterso at gmuvax2.gmu.edu>
To ajhainer at violet.waterloo.edu
Subject yeast
>I have no access to a supplier of liquid yeast.  Who is your distributor
>and will they mail supplies?
>                               Thanks.

I get my yeast from Homebrewers Retail in Waterloo.  I phoned them
and asked about their yeast.  They told me that they got it from
MEV Research Inc. Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.  

Sorry I don't have any more information about MEV, but you could
probably phone information (we're area code 519) to get their
number or maybe even their complete address.  They weren't in the
phone book, but maybe they're new.

As for mailing the yeast, that may be expensive.  The yeast must be
kept cool.  I'm not sure where GMU is, are there any cities with
homebrew supply shops near by?  Try the yellow pages under Wine or
Wine making supplies.

If that fails, Zymerology (sp?) magazine (available at most HB supply
stores) should have advertisements for mailorder shops.  If you can't
get hold of a copy of the magazine, e-mail me and next time I go
by the HB store, I'll take a look for you.

               Good luck     -al (ajhainer at violet.waterloo.edu)

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Date: Thu, 17 Aug 89 13:56:39 PDT
From: pms at Sun.COM (Patrick Stirling (Sun USHQ Consulting Services))
Subject: Re: The Gravity of the Situation

Papazian in 'The Complete Joy of Homebrewing' (which I recommend) has this
equation:
	%age alcohol by waight = (SSG - FSG) * 105
Where SSG = starting Specific Gravity, FSG = Finishin SG.
To convert to volume, multiply by 1.25.

So for Mike's example of Budweiser (gag!) (1.045 - 1.005) * 105 * 1.25 
gives 5.25% alcohol by volume, which is pretty close to the number given
in last Sunday's (8/13/89) This World section of the Ex/Chron. This also
bears out Doug's equation (which I didn't see, being a new subscriber).

On another topic, I have difficulty getting my wort to ferment out all
the way. I also find that the starting SG is lower than the recipe said
it would be. I don't have my records to hand but for one attempt at an
English style bitter, the recipe said it started around 1.060 and finished
around 1.016. I actually got 1.052 and 1.022 as far as I remember. Any
ideas on why the low initial reading and incomplete (presumably) fermentation?
This happens a lot (usually in fact). I use dried yeast, and it seems to
get started OK and there's plenty of activity. How critical is the
temparature?

patrick

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Date: Thu, 17 Aug 89 22:14:18 MDT
From: roberts%studguppy at LANL.GOV (Doug Roberts  at  Los Alamos National Laboratory)
Subject: The Gravity of the Situation

> Can someone help me out with the math here?  Working backwards from these
> numbers, I assume that potential alcohol is the starting (original) gravity
> divided by 7.31, or more precisely, potential alcohol = (OG-1)*1000/7.31. 
> Residual is final gravity divided by 7.31, or (FG-1)*1000/7.31.   Alcohol
> content is the potential alcohol minus the residual, giving
> (OG-FG)*1000/7.31.  Is this by weight, or by volume? 
> 
> Alcohol by volume gives a higher figure than alcohol by weight, because 
> alcohol is lighter than water.  %-by volume is around 20% higher than 
> %-by-weight.
> 
> Doug's technique seems reasonable, but the resulting numbers seem high. 

You know, those numbers _do_ seem high. After I read your message, I
went home & looked at my hydrometer a little more closely. Using your
Budweiser numbers, It says a starting SG of 1.045 represents a
potential alcohol of 6.1 percent; SG of 1.005 is 0.6 percent. This
would mean that Budweiser is 5.5 percent. My (cheap little) hydrometer
doesn't say if the alcohol percentages are by weight or volume.
However, since the specific gravity of a liquid is defined as the
ratio of it's density with respect to pure water, I would think that
the alcohol percentages would be weight percents.

BTW: where does your magic 7.31 number come from?
> 
> I probably should just use the potential alcohol numbers on my hydrometer
> and not worry! 
> 
That's what I was doing, but now I'm a little suspicious of them :-).

--Doug 

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End of HOMEBREW Digest #231, 08/18/89

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