---

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


Contents:
  Book descibing differences between different beer styles (Barry Cunningham)
  Beer style literature (Mark Gryska)
  mashing mystery (Pete Soper)
  re: SG adjustments (ephram)


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


----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Thu, 7 Sep 89 10:27:45 EDT
From: cwjcc!abvax.UUCP!calvin.icd.ab.com!bwc at gatech.edu (Barry Cunningham)
Subject: Book descibing differences between different beer styles

Patrick Stirling asks:
"Can anyone recommend a book that describes the differences between
different styles of beer? E.g. Maerzen, Trappist, Bock, Alt, etc. I'd
like something pretty detailed, that describes what gives each style
its individual character."

I just got my copy of Recipes from the Winner's Circle, published
by the American Homebrewers Association.  It contains descriptions
of the various beer style categories used in the AHA competitions.
But better yet, it also contains recipes from the winners in these
competitions over the past several years.  Most categories include
both extract and all-grain recipes.  I heartily recommend it.

If you just want descriptions though, you can find these in Papazian's
book, The Complete Joy of Home Brewing, or the descriptions of the
categories for homebrew competitions that appeared in several of the
issues of Zymurgy from early this year.  I suppose that Michael Jackson's
books on beers of the world really have the definitive descriptions
of all the types you're looking for, but I haven't actually read them
myself yet.  I'm sure I will break down and buy them soon (or drop enough
hints so that I get them for a Christmas present or something).

				-- Barry Cunningham

Return to table of contents


Date: Thu, 7 Sep 89 10:56 EST
From: Mark Gryska <GRYSKA at cs.umass.EDU>
Subject: Beer style literature

pms%jammer at Sun.COM (Patrick Stirling) writes:

>Can anyone recommend a book that describes the differences between
>different styles of beer?

The "Simon & Schuster Pocket Guide to Beer" written by Michael Jackson
contains descriptions and ratings for many different beers. There are
descriptions of different beer styles but this is not the main
objective of this book. "The Essentials of Beer Style" written by Fred
Eckhardt has very specific descriptions of different beer styles along
with things like starting and finishing gravity, color, bitterness
etc.  The Malt Extract Special issue of Zymurgy has descriptions and
recipes for different beer styles. You may also want to contact the
American Homebrewers Association about their Beer Judge certification
program.  They have a "study package" that will include information
about beer styles.
				- mg

  Mark Gryska		gryska at cs.umass.edu

Return to table of contents


Date: Thu, 7 Sep 89 14:12:22 -0400
From: Pete Soper <soper at encore.com>
Subject: mashing mystery

  The discussion of crystal and dextrin malts and mashing vs steeping
raises a fundamental question that has been bugging me for a long time. You
may recall I asked this question many moons ago but never got a reasonable
answer: The main purpose of crystal and dextrin malts is to provide residual
sweetness via unfermentable dextrins. With this as a given (and ignoring
"body", "pallet fullness", and color issues), why should these malts be
mashed with regular malts and the dextrin->maltose enzymes the regular
malts contain? Surely this causes all or part of the specialty malt's
dextrins to be converted to simple, fermentable sugars?
  Given this I would stop mashing specialty malts together with my
pale or lager malt except for one thing. I am told that even specialty
malts like these need a protein rest (assuming they are not fully modified -
in other words virtually anything made in the USA). So where do I get
these protolytic enzymes to break down the big proteins and keep me
haze free? From the regular malt whose other enzymes will nibble the
specialty malt's dextrins into maltose. Catch-22.
  What am I missing?

Return to table of contents


Date: Thu, 7 Sep 89 23:18:53 PDT
From: ephram at violet.berkeley.edu
Subject: re: SG adjustments

>From: Darryl Richman <darryl at ism780c.isc.com>

>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. ... 
Here I state the formula does not conform to the published refrence that
I have (Byron Burch).

>My goodness!  Do you really think that your measurements are accurate
>beyond 3 places on a hydrometer?  
No, I do not even think that I can accurateley read to .001 with one (although
I do anyway :-).
Daryl goes on to say things about signifigance and accuracy of hydrometers.

My reply:
That a hydrometer only measures in increments of .002 and the #'s I am
talking in my posting are well below signifigance here I do not argue.
I _do_ however like my sources to agree with each other.  All that I 
have read, and seen, has said SG v. temp is not linear.  Maybe it 
approaches linearity over some range of temps but not over the whole scale.

Now if the formula represents close enough for temps between 60 and 100 F
then it should say so.  I might even use it.  My point is that the formula
is not correct for the whole range of temp's (32 - 212 F) and should
come with some kind of caveats.

I would like to add that this forum has been wonderfully free of flames,
and, it is not my intention to start any now.   If this posting (or my 
pprevious one) was too strong I appologize.  My intent was mereley to
point out my observtion about the formula.

We must prevent those commies from compromising the integrity of our 
precious bodily fluids.      -Gen. Jack D. Ripper
Ephram Cohen                              ephram at violet.berkeley.edu
466 44th St.  #1                          3210 Tolman Hall
Oakland, CA 94609                         Berkeley, CA  94720


Return to table of contents



End of HOMEBREW Digest #247, 09/08/89
*************************************
-------

---