HOMEBREW Digest #254 Fri 15 September 1989

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


Contents:
  Yeast experiments (Marty Albini)
  Wort Chiller (kipps)
  June 1989 Digest Index ("MR. DAVID HABERMAN")
  July 1989 Digest Index ("MR. DAVID HABERMAN")
  Color computing (Pete Soper)
  Beer judge exam, Houston, Texas (drutx!homer)

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---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 14 Sep 89 11:33:36 PDT From: Marty Albini <hplabs!hpsdl39!martya> Subject: Yeast experiments Jeff Casey reported his experiments with yeasts, and I thought I might add to (or further confuse) the discussion. His experiment, with seven different yeasts in one gallon batches, is more ambitious than my own. I tried three different yeasts (Red Star Ale, Red Star Lager, and M&F Ale) with three different temperature profiles. The ale yeasts were fermented warm (68-73F) and the lager yeast was done warm, done warm with a 50F lagering period, and fermented at 50F and lagered: five one-gal batches in all. The recipe was Papazian's "The Sun Has Left Us On Time Steam Beer." I was looking for a light-boddied brew to serve at a party to non-fanatics, so I didn't want to stray too far from Budmillob, but I wanted something with some character in case I had to finish the leftovers. The local homebrew club (QUAFF) did the tasting for me. Overall winner (dry, best head, no funny notes) was M&F, second was the "cold steam" (lagered, warm fermented lager yeast). When I ask them which they'd recommend for my intended audience, the order reversed (cold steam won). Nobody liked the lager or the Red Star Ale, the "warm steam" was third. [Jeff describes the recipe he used, which included two oz Cluster hops for bittering...] >First: I already realize that I used a pretty bad recipe for the test. It >had far too much bittering hops for balance. The idea was to look for >differences in yeasts, however, so I tried to look through it. [He goes on to list results for the various yeasts, many of which are judged to suffer from "yeast bite"] The Cluster hops may make this difficult. I have experienced a nasty aftertaste when using them, which some yeasts soften quite acceptably, and others do not. I was amazed at how much difference the yeast made in hop character. But (back to the point) the "yeast bite" reported is something I've always thought of as a very subtle flavor, which might easily be masked by the Clusters. Maybe someone with more experience in this area could comment on this. >I was also experimenting on yeasts suitable for my conditions (Boston >in summertime), where the temperatures are ungodly hot, and mold runs rampant. >I also realize the problem with my lack of gravity measurements and exact >temperatures, sorry. Don't chew me out for these, but I would be interested >to hear if one of the "bad" yeasts might be perfectly good under other >circumstances. Temperature makes a very noticeable difference. The only difference between a steam beer and a lager is fermentation temperature, and steam beers have a lot more ester tastes (which lager brewers avoid like death). In my experiment, the cold-fermented lager had a thinner, "cleaner", less complicated taste than the steam beer. Lagering the steam beer seemed to take some rough edges off, though the difference was slight IMHO. If you anticipate problems with mold infections, you might want to favor a very active yeast, which will beat the mold to the nutrients. M&F ale fermented amazingly actively in my experiment, the next being the warm lager yeast. Either will tolerate <85F pretty well. Thanks, Jeff, for a very informative article. Please post any further results along these lines. -- ________________________________________________Marty Albini________ "To enjoy life, take big bites. Moderation is for monks." phone : (619) 592-4177 UUCP : {hplabs|nosc|hpfcla|ucsd}!hp-sdd!martya Internet : martya%hp-sdd at hp-sde.sde.hp.com (or at nosc.mil, at ucsd.edu) CSNET : martya%hp-sdd at hplabs.csnet US mail : Hewlett-Packard Co., 16399 W. Bernardo Drive, San Diego CA 92127-1899 USA Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 14 Sep 89 13:38:55 -0700 From: kipps at etoile.ICS.UCI.EDU Subject: Wort Chiller I would like to add a wort chiller to my homebrew arsenal and am try to decide if I should make one or buy one. What I want is the copper coil type that fits in the boiling pot and attaches to a sink facet. Has anyone made one of these? If so, what diameter of copper tubing should be used, what length, and how much did it end up costing? -Jim Kipps Return to table of contents
Date: 14 Sep 89 09:55:00 PDT From: "MR. DAVID HABERMAN" <habermand at afal-edwards.af.mil> Subject: June 1989 Digest Index HOMEBREW Digest #166 Thu 01 June 1989 Boston Ale (pri=8 Marc San Soucie ms 019-890 x76723) Aluminum pots (Michael Bergman) Old Faithful (Tom Hotchkiss) specific gravity measurement problem (GARSKE) Homebrew Digest #162 (May 28, 1989) (Paul Placeway) HOMEBREW Digest #167 Fri 02 June 1989 Re: Old Faithful (dw) Measuring Specific Gravity (pisc2b!jnc) Heyyo again, temporarily. (mhalley) Re: Homebrew Digest #160 (May 26, 1989) (David Fudenberg) Re: Old Faithful (Pete Soper) HOMEBREW Digest #168 Sat 03 June 1989 Re: Homebrew Digest #165 (May 31, 1989) (Crawford.WBST129) HB DIG #167: Cleanliness (florianb) ginger beer (BROWN) HOMEBREW Digest #169 Tue 06 June 1989 homebrew tuning (Dave Sheehy) Smelly Beer (Russ Pencin) Vitamin B's in Homebrew (florianb) Mega stout eruption (man) Request addition to homebrew list (Ken Kron) AHA Convention (Edward C. Bronson) HOMEBREW Digest #170 Wed 07 June 1989 Almost Old Faithfull (Andre Petit/Hydro-Quebec/QC/Canada 514-652-8060) Lager vs Steam:an experiment (Jason Goldman) HB DIG#169 Yeasts, etc (florianb) Yeasts, Sweeter Beers, Bad Smells, Boom (pri=8 Marc San Soucie ms 019-890 x767 Re: specific gravity measurement problem (John D. Polstra) HOMEBREW Digest #171 Thu 08 June 1989 Re: homebrew tuning [for sweeter beer] (Dr. T. Andrews) Re: filtering also book recommendations (Michael Eldredge) special ingredients (Tony Burgess) Megastout (Robert Virzi) HOMEBREW Digest #172 Fri 09 June 1989 Re: Yeasts, Sweeter Beers, Bad Smells, Boom (Dr. T. Andrews) Mega Stout - The Recipe (man) herbs in beer ("1107-CD&I/VIRUS DISEASES") Re: "narcotic herb" (a.e.mossberg) Re: homebrew tuning (John D. Polstra) HOMEBREW Digest #173 Sat 10 June 1989 Hops, relatives, and REAL beer (BROWN) herbs in beer (Dick Dunn) hops and relatives (TEJB0) Just getting started (Paul A. Ebersman) Humulus and Siblings (Michael Berry) Re: Homebrew Digest #172 (June 09, 1989) (Greg Wageman) herbs in beer ("1107-CD&I/VIRUS DISEASES") David Line (Pete Soper) mead (florianb) Re: Sweet Beers (Mike Fertsch) Brewing in garbage pails (Where'd all this water come from?) HOMEBREW Digest #174 Sun 11 June 1989 Re: Brewing in garbage pails (Martin Weinberg) Interesting Ingredients ("Allen J. Hainer") Re: lots of stuff in Homebrew #173 (a.e.mossberg) HOMEBREW Digest #175 Tue 13 June 1989 Growing Hops and Propagating Vines (Dr. T. Andrews) Brewing in garbage pails (Michael Bergman) herbs and mead (BROWN) Getting Started (pri=8 Marc San Soucie ms 019-890 x76723) Re: Brewing in garbage pails (florianb) HOMEBREW Digest #176 Wed 14 June 1989 Brewing with Fruit. (bryan) Mead et al. (Dave Sheehy) Brew Humor (Steve Anthony) HOMEBREW Digest #177 Thu 15 June 1989 Re: Dave Barry article in #176 (a.e.mossberg) Response to items in # 176 (JOHN L. ISENHOUR) Fruit Beers, Mead and the AHA National Conference (rogerl) Homebrew Mailing List Circulation (rdg) bad smell while making lager (Dan Crocker) HOMEBREW Digest #178 Fri 16 June 1989 Re: Fruit Beers (dw) Dextrinous Porter (Peter Klausler) re: bad smell while making lager (Darryl Richman) Spices in mead (mhalley) A Page From The Brewing Journal (pri=8 Marc San Soucie ms 019-890 x76723) HOMEBREW Digest #179 Sat 17 June 1989 Texas Homebrewing is again Legal (sort of) (jmellby) HOMEBREW Digest #180 Sun 18 June 1989 HBU and sanitation (iwtio!korz) HOMEBREW Digest #181 Mon 19 June 1989 Temperatures higher than 70 F ("Where'd all this water come from?") HOMEBREW Digest #182 Wed 21 June 1989 Re: High Temperature Fermentation (JOHN L. ISENHOUR) specific gravity problems, over-carbonation ("1107-CD&I/VIRUS DISEASES") HOMEBREW Digest #183 Thu 22 June 1989 AHA National Conference and Competition (Mike Fertsch) Wine Yeast for Imperial Stout? (pbmoss!mal) Missing Digests (pbmoss!mal) HOMEBREW Digest #184 Fri 23 June 1989 Beginning mashing & water filters (man) Wanted: wheat beer recipes (Alex M. Stein) Thanks! (pbmoss!mal) Label Images Wanted (John S. Watson) Canadian homebrew laws? (davet) Interesting Ingredients ("Allen J. Hainer") HOMEBREW Digest #185 Sat 24 June 1989 pyment recipe (BROWN) removing labels (iwtio!korz) Wheat Beers ("Lance "Bits B We" Smith") HOMEBREW Digest #186 Mon 26 June 1989 Re: Beginning mashing & water filters (Dr. T. Andrews) Re: Homebrew Digest #185 (June 24, 1989) (Darryl Richman) HOMEBREW Digest #187 Tue 27 June 1989 Siphoning (florianb) Precipitate in wort. (Richard Hargan) Cyser (dw) 1989 NATIONAL HOMEBREWERS COMPETITION WINNERS (drutx!homer) HOMEBREW Digest #188 Wed 28 June 1989 Digest 186 (M Nevar) Re: Siphoning (From: florianb%tekred.cna.tek.com at RELAY.CS.NET) (ferguson ct 71 Re: Siphoning (Jeremy Cook) RE: Siphoning (Gordon Hester) re: Siphoning (Darryl Richman) re: Precipitate in wort. (Darryl Richman) siphoning & canning wort (Pete Soper) Re: single-step infusion method (Paul Close) siphon starting (utah-cs!att!ttrdf!frank) Homebrew Kits From Around The World (pri=8 Marc San Soucie ms 019-890 x76723) HOMEBREW Digest #189 Thu 29 June 1989 food-grade bleach (Marty Albini) Sterilizing Agents (pbmoss!mal) Yet Another Siphon Start Method (Eric Durbin) cyser/melomel (mhalley) Starting the siphon (bryan) Siphoning-thank you, and bleach sterilizing (florianb) Help on email/surface mail (mhalley) Hop aromatic data and request for Kirin II hops (JOHN L. ISENHOUR) Questions on Ice, Plactic liners, proper airspace. ("Christian A. Ramsburg") programmable thermostats, whirlpooling ("1107-CD&I/VIRUS DISEASES") RE: Homebrew Digest #186 (June 26, 1989) ("Dr. Williams") HOMEBREW Digest #190 Fri 30 June 1989 Yellow Dog Malt Extract Arrived Today (Dr. T. Andrews) RE: Homebrew Digest #189 (June 29, 1989) (") Re:Sterilizing (Brian Bacskai) Re: Questions etc, proper airspace (Pete Soper) Re: hop aging (Gordon Hester) re: whirlpooling (Darryl Richman) Return to table of contents
Date: 14 Sep 89 08:34:00 PDT From: "MR. DAVID HABERMAN" <habermand at afal-edwards.af.mil> Subject: July 1989 Digest Index HOMEBREW Digest #191 Sat 01 July 1989 Potential Happiness and Aging (JOHN L. ISENHOUR) Ullage; casks (pbmoss!mal) Crystal And Wheat (pri=8 Marc San Soucie ms 019-890 x76723) HOMEBREW Digest #192 Sun 02 July 1989 How reliable is Papiazan, and where is he not to be trusted? ("Paranoia means RE: Homebrew Digest #188 (June 28, 1989) (Yeast may safely graze) HOMEBREW Digest #193 Mon 03 July 1989 Re: cleaning up your act.... (blumenthal at home with the armadillos) HOMEBREW Digest #194 Tue 04 July 1989 Re: Homebrew Digest #191 (July 01, 1989) (Paul Perlmutter) Bleach, etc. (ROSS) disinfectants ("1107-CD&I/VIRUS DISEASES") Brewing Odds and Ends... ("Lance "Satchmo" Smith") HOMEBREW Digest #195 Thu 06 July 1989 Cleanliness [long message] (Steve Anthony) Re: Using crystal malt and other grains (Gordon Hester) Kegging info wanted (Edward A Estes +1 312 982 3969) Homebrew Digest #192 (July 02, 1989) (ferguson ct 71078) Bottle filling methods (Kenneth Kron) HOMEBREW Digest #196 Fri 07 July 1989 RELAX ("1107-CD&I/VIRUS DISEASES") Re: Using crystal malt and other grains (dw) Re: Homebrew Digest #195 (July 06, 1989) (Gordon Hester) HB.DIG#195-Relaxation, sanitization, success, and crystal. (florianb) Crystal Malt (iwtio!korz) (Darryl Richman) Sanitizing And Crushing (pri=8 Marc San Soucie ms 019-890 x76723) Excess fermentation and bad beer (Erik Asphaug) HOMEBREW Digest #197 Sat 08 July 1989 Crushing Malts and Grains (Stanley Dunn) Re: Charlie Papazian's Science (Mike Fertsch) grain crushing (iwtio!korz) RE: Homebrew Digest #196 (July 07, 1989) ("Paranoia means never having to say you're surprised.") HOMEBREW Digest #198 Tue 11 July 1989 Roto-Keg, Martin (David Carter) Freezing yeast cultures (Richard Hargan) HOMEBREW Digest #199 Wed 12 July 1989 Homebrew Digest #196 (July 07, 1989) (ferguson ct 71078) Yeast (David Baer) Potential contamination problem; comment invited ("FEINSTEIN, CHERYL") This just in .... (Steve Anthony) Needed: Recipe for sake (gateh) source of kegging and brewing equipment (Steve Conklin) HOMEBREW Digest #200 Thu 13 July 1989 Under-Pitching: Why You Should Not Have to Do It (Dr. T. Andrews) Re: Homebrew Digest #199 (July 12, 1989) (Paul Perlmutter) Cherry beers (ROSS) Quarter barrels. (Tom Hotchkiss) Nitrosamines (florianb) rootbeer (Marty Albini) Cambridge (England) (Martin D. Weinberg) Brewing Equipment (man) Priming Draft Beer (Dave Suurballe) Kegging Headspace (KDISEN01) HOMEBREW Digest #201 Fri 14 July 1989 beer anecdote (Steve Conklin) Wort Chillers (Mike Fertsch) RE: 1. Slow yeast 2. White scum (Roger Rose) RE:194,198,199 (JOHN L. ISENHOUR) RE: Sake Recipe ("MR. DAVID HABERMAN") My beer tastes like wine! (Paul Close) HOMEBREW Digest #202 Sat 15 July 1989 Nomenclature (Kenneth Kron) HB.DIG #201--breweries in Oregon (florianb) HB.DIG #201--Re: "my homebrew tastes like wine!" (florianb) beer -> wine (iwtio!korz) Re: Seattle brewpubs? (Gordon Hester) Re: My beer tastes like wine! (dw) Interesting Ingredients ("Allen J. Hainer") HOMEBREW Digest #203 Tue 18 July 1989 Re: Corn sugar cidery? (a.e.mossberg) Grapvine Brewery Anniversary ("MISVX1::HABERMAND") Reynolds Aluminum Tapper ("MR. DAVID HABERMAN") DRY!!! and, Aging (pbmoss!mal) HOMEBREW Digest #204 Wed 19 July 1989 Re: Reynolds Aluminum Tapper (dw) Re: Corn sugar cidery? (John D. Polstra) Lager question (florianb) Re: cidery taste and " DRY!!! and, Aging" (florianb) HOMEBREW Digest #205 Thu 20 July 1989 Homebrew Digest #204 (July 19, 1989) (ferguson ct 71078) Re: Lager question (John D. Polstra) Bottling in 2 Liter Pop Bottles (ferguson ct 71078) Wanted: Cider Clues/Recipes (Brian Atkins) HOMEBREW Digest #206 Fri 21 July 1989 Champagne Bottles (Steve Anthony) 2 liter soda bottles (Ihor W. Slabicky) Kit Yeasts - Who Makes Them? (Marc San Soucie) Bye bye (Peter Klausler) which cider you on? (Dick Dunn) lager, plastic, cider (Donald P Perley) about two-liter bottles (MANSFIEL) Re: Re: Lager question (florianb) bigger bottles (Dick Dunn) HOMEBREW Digest #207 Sat 22 July 1989 Aging in wood (Bruce Buck) Ooops! (Michael Bergman) Homebrew Digest #206 (July 21, 1989) (ferguson ct 71078) Re: cider (dw) HOMEBREW Digest #208 Sun 23 July 1989 on using returnable soda bottles (blumenthal at home with the armadillos) HOMEBREW Digest #209 Mon 24 July 1989 cider (Donald P Perley) HOMEBREW Digest #210 Tue 25 July 1989 Re: Aging in wood (Jerry Burch) cider (long) (florianb) Plastic Seltzer Bottles ("MR. DAVID HABERMAN") HOMEBREW Digest #211 Wed 26 July 1989 Ageing in wood (ROSS) 200 gallon batches ("Allen J. Hainer") John Courage, grain bags, brewpubs, etc... (Dave Sheehy) Mailing homebrew (or taking it on a plane) (Alex M. Stein) HOMEBREW Digest #212 Thu 27 July 1989 John Courage, mailing beer (gateh) Malting Barley (Mike Fertsch) Shippping beer (Mike Fertsch) yeast (Jason Goldman) Award winners - Extract vs. Grain (Mike Fertsch) First time brew (JDK) re: John Courage (Darryl Richman) re: dry v. liquid yeasts (was 200 gallons) (Darryl Richman) re: 200 gallon batches (Darryl Richman) re: Malting your own barley (Darryl Richman) Re: 200 gallon batches (dw) Re: Mailing homebrew (or taking it on a plane) (dw) HOMEBREW Digest #213 Fri 28 July 1989 Shipping beer (John D. Polstra) Using grain (Drew) Lynch <atl at ardent.com> HOMEBREW Digest #214 Sat 29 July 1989 Wood Beer (Tom Hotchkiss) Beer rating scales (Robert Virzi) Why not to boil grains (Michael Berry) various (florianb) Correction to prior posting (Gary Benson) Polstra, Lager, Steam Beer (Gary Benson) HOMEBREW Digest #215 Sun 30 July 1989 Re: Why not to boil grains (Dr. T. Andrews) Yellow Dog (Dr. T. Andrews) HOMEBREW Digest #216 Mon 31 July 1989 Question about brands of dry yeast (Gordon Hester) Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 14 Sep 89 17:27:31 -0400 From: Pete Soper <soper at encore.com> Subject: Color computing Mike Fertsch recently described how to predict the color of a beer by adding up the color contribution of ingredients using their Lovibond numbers. I would like to add a couple of details to this based on my experience. I've been working on a spreadsheet for quite some time that among other things does color prediction. I've had to add to it to compensate for a few important factors. First, wort darkens while you are making and boiling it. The amount of darkening can vary over a broad range. If you do full wort boil with a heating system that doesn't burn the wort then a fudge factor of around 25% might be right. That is, the color of the wort might come out 1.25 times as dark as what you would expect by just using the Lovibond numbers. For a very long and/or very concentrated boil (e.g. not boiling all the water with the extract), on an electric stove with the kind of pot that is prone to hot spots, the fudge factor needed to account for this could be dramatically higher. In addition to the boil, I believe that handling of hot wort while making it from grain can also cause darkening, especially the transfer from the lauter tun. However I have not tried to quantify this. The wort lightens in color during fermentation. However the amount of lightening is so slight that I ignore it. For that matter, if you had the equipment to filter the yeast out of your beer you'd probably want to take that into account since other material is filtered out too and this can affect the color. I recently visited a brewpub in England where the brewmaster was moaning about having to deal with this kind of tradeoff. He had a starch haze, but in getting rid of it he lost significant flavor. But enough of that. The very dark malts can produce color contributions that are hard to predict. The way you grind, steep and sparge them makes a big difference in the amount of color contributed. For example I sampled a club beer last night that had a color of about 13 degrees L which is roughly half way between Bass Ale (10) and Michelob Classic Dark (17). As I'm looking at this beer I'm being told that its maker intended it to be a Porter and included 8 ounces of black patent malt. Huh? A quick bit of pencil work tells me this beer should be around 50-60 degrees L, which is essentially black. A few moments later the club member says "I just cracked the black malt with a rolling pin". Mystery solved. By contrast I very finely grind the small amounts of chocolate malt I use for color adjustments and get the "expected" color contribution. So my current bias is to grind the heck out of dark malts as part of extracting all the color. However this might be the WRONG thing to do if you do not have a filter bed of some sort to prevent the solid material from getting into your boiling pot. In this case, you'd perhaps be better off crushing the grain and applying a fudge factor of less than 1 based on experience. Haze is another thing that you have to account for. If you are making a very pale beer the slightest bit of haze will make the beer appear noticably darker. Darker beers are also subject to this but it takes a lot more haze to swing the apparent color. A few months back I got a couple of cylinders and some Michelob Classic Dark and followed the procedure that Breiss developed and Fix described in "Zymurgy" 9 months to a year ago. It works very well and is super for determining the real effects of different dark malts depending upon how you use them. So let me just run through a quick example to tie this together. I recently made a 5 gallon batch with these ingredients: 7 pounds (normally crushed) 2 row 1.2L Klages malt 1/2 oz finely powdered 350L chocolate malt 8 oz (normally crushed) 3L wheat malt 8 oz (normally crushed) 40L crystal malt Here are the contributions: 7lb klages X 1.2 = 8.4 .031lb choc X 350 = 10.9 .5lb wheat = 1.5 .5lb crystal = 20 for a total of 40.8 dividing by 5 gallons gives an expected color of 8.2L Then applying a fudge factor of 1.25 for wort darkening, 1.0 for the dark malt grind and 1.0 for haze gives me 10.3L and this is about what the beer really looks like and what I was after in the first place. If I had put the chocolate malt under a rolling pin I might have only gotten 1/3 the normal color out of it and so would have gotten 8.3L. Applying a .33 fudge factor would have led me to use 1.5oz and so compensate. Likewise, a longer or more concentrated boil (i.e. not boiling all the water with the extract) might have given me twice the darkening or a fudge factor of 1.5 so I'd want to use less chocolate to tune the final color. --Pete Return to table of contents
Pete Soper +1 919 481 3730 internet: soper at encore.com uucp: {bu-cs,decvax,gould}!encore!soper Encore Computer Corp, 901 Kildaire Farm Rd, bldg D, Cary, NC 27511 USA Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 14 Sep 89 22:12:18 mdt From: att!drutx!homer at hplabs.HP.COM Subject: Beer judge exam, Houston, Texas Beer Judge Certification Program Exam Houston, Texas October 14, 1989 9:00 AM Contact: Brad Kraus DeFalco's Home Wine & Beer Supplies (713) 523-8154 Full details on the program are contained in a booklet that can be requested by sending a postal address to: att!drutx!homer, or AHA, PO Box 287, Boulder, CO 80306. Attn: BJCP Administrator Jim Homer Co-director BJCP att!drutx!homer Return to table of contents
End of HOMEBREW Digest #254, 09/15/89 ************************************* -------
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