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


Contents:
  re:  SG adjustments (Darryl Richman)
  Misc. Meanderings (Doug Roberts  at  Los Alamos National Laboratory)
  Mashing (kipps)


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Date: Sat, 2 Sep 89 07:41:48 PDT
From: Darryl Richman <darryl at ism780c.isc.com>
Subject: re:  SG adjustments

From: ephram at violet.berkeley.edu
">and on Doug Roberts (HBD #236)
">
">             (T x 1.449E-4 - 0.009) + SG(uncorrected) = SG(corrected)
"
"This formula does not hold true for 60 degrees F.  For 60 F I get a correction
"factor of -0.000306,  decidedly not 0 as it should be for a hydrometer
"calibrated to read acurateley  at  60.  I plotted the function using data
"points that I got out of the back of Byron Burch's Brewing quality Beers.
"The function that I was looking at was decidedly _not_ linear.

My goodness!  Do you really think that your measurements are accurate
beyond 3 places on a hydrometer?  (On my hydrometer, SG is marked off
in increments of .002, which means that I can only hope to read accurately
to about .001).  Also, consider the size of the hair we are splitting
here:  .0003 difference in OG corresponds to about .075% sugar in
solution.  When fermented perfectly, half of this will go to alcohol.
My 3 scale hydrometer will definitely not allow me to measure the
difference.  In fact, the owner of the shop I go to, who also owns
a Ventura county winery, has an ebulometer (a professinal lab device
for measuring alcohol content by distillation), and it is only good
for 2 decimal places.

		--Darryl Richman

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Date: Mon, 4 Sep 89 19:49:14 MDT
From: roberts%studguppy at LANL.GOV (Doug Roberts  at  Los Alamos National Laboratory)
Subject: Misc. Meanderings

1. In my most previous posting I asked if anybody had experience with
"Clara Pils", a source of dextrine. I meant, of course, "Cara Pils". I
still like the name "Clara Bell" for the recipe, though.

2. Mackeson: I tried the following recipe (recently re-posted by Marty
Albini) a few years ago:


		Mashing Recipe
		5 gal, OG 1040, FG 1008-1010

		5 lb pale ale malt
		1/2 lb crystal malt
		1/2 lb roast black malt
		1 lb soft brown sugar
		1 3/4 oz Fuggle hops


and I _didn't_ like the results.

First, now that I am a little more experienced, I will never again
make a batch with brown sugar as an ingredient (a little honey or
molasses, perhaps, but not caramelized refined sugar). Second, the
recipe, at least as I made it, bore absolutely no resemblence to 
thick, rich, sweet Mackeson. It was a thin, cidery (thanks to the
brown sugar) sorry imitation. Your milage may vary, etc. etc..

3. Linearity, or non-lin. regarding temp vs. specific gravity
relationships for beer wort in the range of 50 - 130 F: I'll go back
to school on this one & give my official Chem. Eng. opinion (yes, I
actually used to be a Chem E., before computers became my sole
professional occupation), in a few days. I'll dig out some old
references that should tell us what the true story is.

4. More BEER recipes!

I'm just having so much fun now that I'm making brew again I can
hardly contain myself....

A year or so ago I went to a party where the host had about 20
different types of _good_ beer. One of them was a German _Malz Bier_.
It was _delicious_! If any of you have had Malz beer, you know that it
has a wonderful sweet, malty, full-bodied flavor, achieved, I suppose,
with dextrin & crystal. Anyhow, working on that assumption, I cooked
up the following recipe last night:

7# light syrup
2# Cara Pils (dextrin malt)
2# light crystal
1# extra rich crystal
1/2 oz Hallertauer hops (5.0% Alpha acids)
1.0 oz Willamette hops (4.5% AA)
1 tsp salt, 1 tsp Citric acid, 1 tsp yeast nutrient
1 TBL Irish Moss
11.5 oz Edme Yeast

I mashed the cara & crystal malts for 2 hours at 140 F, then sparged
to about 4 gallons. Then, added the syrup & Hallertauer hops. Boiled
for 30 minutes, and added the Irish Moss. Then boiled for 30 more
minutes and decanted to the primary where I added the salt, citric,
nutrient & Willamette Hops (dry hopping, I believe this technique is
called). Willamette, BTW, is a wonderful aromatic hops.

The intent is to have all or most of the dextrin & caramelized maltose
remain after fermentation for the Malz Bier taste & body. I'll let you
know in a few months if it worked. In the meantime, if anybody has
experience with Malz Bier recipes, please let me know.

5. Has this ever happened to anyone else? I racked my Clara Bell batch
from the primary to the secondary day before yesterday. The head had
just fallen after a healthy, vigorous initial fermentation. However, I
noticed the next day that fermentation had completely stopped. I've
experienced this before where racking seems to shock the yeast
temporarily (up to a few days), and then fermentation resumes. I'm
always careful to let the wort cascade down the side of the glass
carboy to minimize oxygentation, and I always make sure to syphon a
big slug of yeast with the wort in an attempt to assure continuous
fermentation.  However, about half the time I notice that
fermentation comes to a complete halt for up to 3 or 4 days, after
which it slowly resumes. Any ideas?

Well, this should be enough ramblings for one evening.

--Doug


================================================================
Douglas Roberts                |
Los Alamos National Laboratory |When choosing between two evils,  
Box 1663, MS F-602             |I always like to try the one 
Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545   |I've never tried before.
(505)667-4569                  |
dzzr at lanl.gov                  |
================================================================

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Date: Tue, 05 Sep 89 11:54:34 -0700
From: kipps at etoile.ICS.UCI.EDU
Subject: Mashing



I'm about to try mashing for the first time :-) using a 33 qt enamel pot
as the mashing tun.  Now, I've read about a number of different techniques
for adapting the boiling pot for mashing, i.e., from a heated oven, to a
stove, to a styrofoam container, but I've thought of another way that I
haven't read about.  Why not emerse the pot in a sink of water?  It seems
like an easy way to control the temperature surrounding the mash.  Has
anyone tried this before or know of a good reason not to?

-Jim Kipps

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End of HOMEBREW Digest #245, 09/06/89
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