---

	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
		Digest Janitor: janitor@hbd.org
		Many thanks to the Observer & Eccentric Newspapers of 
		Livonia, Michigan for sponsoring the Homebrew Digest.
				URL: http://www.oeonline.com


Contents:
  Yeast stirring, Barcelona (Hugh Hoover)
  RIMS v. Decoction Yeast Revisited (Louis Bonham)
  Re:  Upgrading to all-grain brewing ("Crossno, Glyn")
  Re: HSA (again?) (Steve Jackson)
  Staling of kegged beer (Ian Smith)
  Visit to Chicago (Alan Monaghan)
  Unusually long lag time ("Tidmarsh Major")
  Re: Amino acids / HSA (Mark Riley)
  Off flavor questions ("Tom Struzik")
  rehydrating Dry yeast (Badger Roullett)
  Barleywine, Infections, Re: First Batch ("Penn, John")
  Briess ESB query (Charles Epp)
  The Adaptive Significance of Excessive Beer Consumption ("Dr. Pivo")
  Experiments and Design (Jim Liddil)
  RE: Experiments and Design ("Thomas, Andrew R")
  HSA ad infinitum ("Dr. Pivo")
  Re: Even More Yeast (Scott Murman)
  Salt/Wort Dilution ("A. J. deLange")
  affects of sterol levels on glycogen uptake and it's indications through spectrophotometric measurements of fusel alcohol production (Alan Edwards)
  re: The truth about American Beers (Jonathan Edwards)
  liberty ale really uses all cascade? (Jonathan Edwards)
  AHA-Nationals Judging question (Christopher Peterson)


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Date: Sun, 23 Aug 1998 23:32:01 -0700
From: Hugh.Hoover at software.com (Hugh Hoover)
Subject: Yeast stirring, Barcelona

Stir plates.  There are repeated assertions that they increase
the available O2, which increases the health & growth of the yeast.
Ok, but riddle me this... After fermentation starts, and a CO2
blanket covers the yeast, how does the stirring improve oxygenation?
There's obviously a period when there's little CO2 production, and
this should result in near continuous aeration of the wort.  Is that
long enough to really produce the acclaimed result, or are there
other factors?

- ---
I got stuck being sent to Barcelona, Catalunya this week.  Spain
doesn't evoke many memories of classic beers -- Any
recommendations anyway?

Thanks
Hugh Hoover
PetaPint (home)Brewery, Enumclaw WA.




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Date: Mon, 24 Aug 1998 05:19:10 -0500
From: Louis Bonham <lkbonham at phoenix.net>
Subject: RIMS v. Decoction Yeast Revisited

Jim Liddil posits a theory for why the bock beer in the recent RIMS v. Decoction
experiment had a rather strange ferment.  While Jim makes several very good
points, and I agree 100% with his ultimate conclusion -- that a bigger starter
and/or more aggressive aeration was needed -- a couple of his assumptions about
out procedures are inaccurate.

> Let's look at the BT article in vol 6 no.1 that compared
> decoction and RIMS beers and experienced a stuck fermentation with the 16.5 P
> bock.  The text indicates that the wort was pitched with a 2 quart starter.  2
> quarts is equal to 1.89 liters.  All the text says is that the
> starter was made using a step up procedure and does not indicate if the
> starter was continuously agitated or not.  It is then likely the yeast had
> a low sterol and UFA level when the went into this high sugar environment.

Procedure used:  fresh Wyeast pack used to innoculate 1 quart of starter, which
was in a 2.5 gallon carboy (to maximize surface area and therefore aeration) and
placed on a stir plate.  Six quarts of aerated starter were added later, and
again the stir plate was used.  All indications were that we were getting lots
of nice, healthy yeast.  (As mentioned in the article, we used these same
procedures when doing the 15P Helles and had a proper, quick fermentation).

> If we do the math again this gives us a figure of 7 X10e6 cells/ml in the wort
> at the start. This is the minimum level one would use for a normal gravity
> beer in the range of 11 Plato.

I don't have my notes handy, but I did a yeast count post-pitching and I seem to
recall the count being significantly higher than this.

> The beer that stuck was 16.5 P.  A minimum number of cells for a beer of this
> gravity would be ~17 million cells/ml and a more typical number is on the
> order of 20 million cells/ml.  So I feel the authors started off by
> under pitching.

It's certainly possible, but given my recollection of the actual count (as
opposed to the theoretical one), I demur on this point.

>  The wort itself was aerated using air via a fish pump and
> then inoculated with the starter or so the text seems to indicate.  This is
> another point where the authors and other brewers can do things to prevent
> stuck fermentation.  The rule or thumb that I have read and heard about is
> that one should increase the oxygen level 1 ppm for each degree Plato above 10
> P.  If air saturation gives 8 ppm then a 16.5 P wort should be oxygenated to a
> level of ~15 ppm oxygen.  The authors used air so the best they could get was
> 8 ppm.  Also wort of this gravity has a lower oxygen solubility (someone can
> probably tell us what the conc. was approx) presenting another disadvantage
> for the yeast.

Good point.  Again, however, we had used this same procedure with the Helles and
had had no problems.  Hindsight being 20/20, yeah, I would have used pure O2 on
a higher grav beer.

> The authors took gravity readings at 6 weeks and low and behold the beers had
> not fermented out. hmmm.  And the authors state "although significant amounts
> of viable yeast were present....."  My question is how did the authors
> determine the yeast were viable?  I would presume methylene blue was used.

Yes.

> Methylene blue staining really tells one nothing about the
> actual state of the cells other than that they can exclude the dye. [snip]

Again, good point. If the yeast were alive, they would have excluded the dye.
But alive that late in the ferment doesn't necessarily mean viable.

> The authors decided to pitch more yeast in the amount of  "One quarter of the
> cultured yeast slurry was added to the RIMS and Infusion mashes and one half
> added to the decoction mash."  The RIMS and infusion beer reached terminal
> gravity "fairly quickly". Not sure what that is but compared to 8 weeks
> anything is quick.

Bear in mind that by the time I pitched the new yeast (I had to grow up two
batches, because the first batch of new yeast was infected (probable vector:
aeration stone)), the RIMS and infusion batches were getting pretty close to FG
on their own, which was the reason why the decocted batch got a double dose of
yeast.  When I checked the gravity a couple of days later, the RIMS and infusion
batches were at FG.

> Why did the [decocted] beer not finish?  It is hard to draw any concrete
> conclusions based on the limited N value.  But adding new yeast that may not
> be at full sterol and UFA level to an environment of no oxygen, low nutrient
> levels, some alcohol is a problem any one who repitches faces. Also at the
> point in time the authors repitched the glucose may have all been depleted
> along with some maltose.  The yeast may
> have been to stressed by all this.  This is by no means a definitive
> diagnosis since the other two beers finished "fairly quickly"..

There's the rub.  Since the OG on these beers was identical, and virtually all
the other variables (water, yeast, hops, malt, aeration rate, temperature), were
kept to a minimum, why would the decocted beer demonstrate such dramatically
different behavior -- especially after having been repitched?

> In general it looks like the decoction mashing did something to the wort
> sugar profile and nutrient profile that lead to this slow fermentation, but
> who knows.

Indeed, who knows?  Perhaps the decocted beer had lower lipid levels . . .

> My point (and I don't mean to pick on Louis and the others) is
> that here we have one guy who has a SABCO  unit that was till expensive when
> Louis go it a few years ago.

BTW, I got my unit in a swap with the inventor.

> Andy Thomas went to all the trouble to do a triple decoction.  These guys put
> all this time, money and effort into making these beers and even wrote an
> article about it.  It is my belief that they and many other could save
> themselves a lot of grief by directing some of their money and efforts toward
> making bigger starters.

In this instance, we used pitching procedures that had worked well for us in the
past (including the Helles portion of the experiment), and by all objective
indications (read: yeast count) we had pitched enough yeast.  Obviously, in
hindsight something was amiss, and given reports I have received since this
experiment I tend to suspect the particular yeast strain a bit.  Perhaps we
could have avoided the problem by pitching more yeast and aerating more
aggressively, but perhaps not.

But Jim *is* dead on in his ultimate advice.  You can have all the cool brewing
toys you want, and get unbelievably esoteric with your water, mills, mashing,
sparging, etc., but you still won't get truly great beer (especially lagers)
without taking good care of the yeast and pitching large quantities.  Indeed,
how does George Fix win so many ribbons?  While he has a lot of cool stuff in
his lab, his actual brewing setup is very simple.  What George does that is
unusual for most amateur brewers is pay *extremely* close attention to the
condition and performance of his yeast, and grow and pitch large quantities of
it; indeed, George won't brew if the yeast isn't ready.  While we all don't need
to go to the lengths that George (and Jim) probably do, the yeast should not
just be an afterthought to the brewing day.

Louis K. Bonham



Return to table of contents


Date: Mon, 24 Aug 1998 08:23:51 -0500
From: "Crossno, Glyn" <Glyn.Crossno at cubic.com>
Subject: Re:  Upgrading to all-grain brewing

Like quite a few of us I started with extract made the move (up? down?
lateral?) to all grain. I started on the stove with a 5 gallon pot.  Got
kicked out of the house!  Actually used a Coleman camp stove for a
couple of batches then propane (look up burners, or poke around the
web).  Went to the local recycler a couple of times and got a 15.5
gallon pot, it is now any way.  About this point I started seriously
looking at going all grain.  Picked up a couple of brass ball valves at
my favorite hardware's going out of business sale :-(  Just missed the
10 gallon Gott.  Took our 48 quart chest cooler, and some spare copper
pipe.  Ok, don't tell the wife but I did have to buy some.  Made a
copper manifold.  Not being close to any homebrew stores, and being
cheap, built a mill.  Checked a couple of 50 lb. sacks of grain as
luggage, the shipping on that can eat you up.  Put the specialty grains
in the carry on, only two pieces per passenger!  

Long winded, not much of an answer.  
1. Yes, but could be a pot on the stove.  Started my partial mashes
there.
2. Yes, but could be the same as one, call Jack S.  Or get out the
cooler.  But dear, we need this 10 gallon Gott for the soccer practice
and games.
3. Yes, leave LOTS of head room.  I had a 5 gallon barley wine climb out
of my converted keg.
4.  Time, the day is a little longer.  I have been happy with the 6 to 8
hour overnight, while at work mashes.

Nice, but debatable:
Chiller, do you know how long it takes for 11 gallons of 200+ degree
beer to cool to 80?

Glyn Crossno
Estill Springs, TN

PS.  Thanks, Pat and Karl.
Thanks Posters, and Homepage Publishers!

Bob if you send a couple of the bottles from that case of Chimay Grand
Reserve (blue), I'll test them.

- ---------------
     "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little
temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."  Benjamin Franklin



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Date: Mon, 24 Aug 1998 06:37:28 -0700 (PDT)
From: Steve Jackson <stevejackson at rocketmail.com>
Subject: Re: HSA (again?)

In HBD #2805 (August 22, 1998) "Dr. Pivo" wrote:

>>>>
Steve in Indianapolis wrote in reponse to my preliminary HSA experiment
results, which showed you can hardly create the stuff if you try.....

<One thing I'd be interested in knowing is how old the beer was when it
<was sampled for any negative effects due to HSA. I believe it was
<George DePiro who posted that Seibel indicates...... "(snip)

You might recall my opening premise....

<(I am presenting this in the perspective of the HBD tradition of
<vociferously chanting the cause, of industrial brewing literature)

<<<<

I do recall your premise. Which is why I brought up my question. You
cannot hardly have proved or disproved the validity of this particular
bit of brewing literature if you did not meet essentially the same
conditions. Hence, my question as to the age of the beer.

>>>>
Now Steve, I want both you and George to stand up, put your right hand
on your heart, and repeat after me:    "GUILTY! GUILTY! GUILTY!".
<<<<

No. Ken Starr might be listening.

>>>>
Now, I want you both to put the palm of your left hand on the back of
your head, with your five fingers extended in the air and say: "Now I am
a hedgehog."

This last thing had of course nothing to do with anything, but can be
pretty entertaining for someone sitting next to you at the moment....
especially if their sense of humour stagnated at the age of seven (like
myself).
<<<<

I'm alone in the office today, so I can do this without fear of
embarrassment.

>>>>
These beers were sampled between 6 and 8 weeks of age.
<<<<

Thank you. That helps me (and I'm assuming others) to give the
appropriate consideration to your results. If the beers had only been
a couple of weeks old, I would not have been inclined to consider your
results as having proved or disproved anything. As it stands, I think
your experience is certainly enough to warrant questioning of the
conventional wisdom and further experimentation to see if the results
are duplicated.

>>>>
I'll go into detail about my speculations about this, and its relevance,
when I post.
<<<<

I'm looking forward to it.

>>>>
<snip>

This stuff is really not hard to test.  I don't see why it isn't done
more, instead of presenting anectdotal information where  the only
"analysis" is purely subjective descriptions, coloured by the
perceptions of people who seem very interested in having their results
agree with the literature they've read.
<<<<

My guess is more people aren't willing to these sorts of tests because
most brewers aren't willing to intentionally do something that *may*
create a bad batch of beer. I average about a brew a month, much too
infrequently to make it worthwhile to do much experimentation. Since I
don't test out any of these theories, etc. on my own, I have to rely
on other homebrewers who are willing to do so. I very much appreciate
your willingness to experiment regarding HSA and slow cooling and your
report of the results.

 -Steve in Indianapolis 
_________________________________________________________
DO YOU YAHOO!?
Get your free  at yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com



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Date: Mon, 24 Aug 1998 08:38:10 -0600
From: Ian Smith <isrs at cmed.com>
Subject: Staling of kegged beer


I recently bought a 1/4 barrel of micro-brewed beer. This is one of my 
favorites (Avery ESB from Boulder). My question:- The brewer keeps his kegs 
in his walk in refrigerator at 34 F. I took it home and put it in my 70 
degree F basement. Initially the beer tasted great but within a few days I 
noticed it was getting darker with a definite increase in bitterness. I 
used CO2 to transport/transfer the beer. Could this be staling? How long 
does it take for a commercial beer to stale at room temperature?

Cheers
Ian Smith
isrs at cmed.com



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Date: 	Mon, 24 Aug 1998 11:08:36 -0400
From: Alan Monaghan <AlanM at GardnerWeb.com>
Subject: Visit to Chicago

I am going to be in Chicago for two weeks starting the day after labor
day for the big tool show. I am looking for recommendations on any Brew
Pubs to visit (staying at the Drake downtown so not too far out please),
home brew supply stores, or home brewers in the area. Would love to have
a full two weeks of Brew Pubs to visit. Also, any local beer or
specialty beer from that area would also be welcome.

Thanks ever so much.

vitam cerevisiae venturi saeculi omnia 
Alan G. Monaghan
Gardner Publications, Inc.
AlanM at Gardnerweb.com <mailto:AlanM at Gardnerweb.com> 



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Date: Mon, 24 Aug 1998 10:26:24 -0700
From: "Tidmarsh Major" <tidmarsh at mindspring.com>
Subject: Unusually long lag time

Greetings, all.

Last night I brewed an extract wheat beer, and having followed 
recent yeast-count discussions, pitched 3 pkgs of rehydrated 
Nottingham dry yeast.  Surprisingly, I had the longest lag time 
since I quit pitching swelled Wyeast packs into unaerated wort.  
This morning, 12 hrs after pitching, there was slight positive 
pressure in the airlock, but no evident bubbling or foam on the 
surface of the beer.  Now, 15 hrs after pitching, foam is just starting 
to cover the surface of the wort.

On to the specifics.  I boiled 6.6 lbs of malt syrup in 5.5 gals of 
water.  It was in two pouches, presumably packaged by the 
homebrew shop from bulk container, and labeled Munton's wheat.  
The shop owner said it was Munton and Fison wheat extract, a 
50/50 barley/wheat extract.  I boiled 60 mins and cooled, using an 
immersion chiller to about 85-90F (as cool as the tap water here 
would get it.  I got very little break, either hot or cold.  I drained into 
the carboy though an Easymasher connected to a piece of racking 
cane with 4 small holes drilled in it for aeration, pitched the 3 
packages of rehydrated yeast, and put it into the fermentation 
chamber to continue cooling.  The color of the wort was much 
darker than I expected, more an amber or brown than what I would 
have expected from a wheat malt extract.  I din't take a gravity 
reading, but estimating from the amount of syrup and water, it must 
have been in the 1.048-1.050 range.

Unless the color of Munton's wheat extract is darker than other 
wheat extracts, I suspect that it was old, and the darkening was a 
result of that age.  

I'm particularly surprised at the long lag time, especially at such a 
warm temperature.  Could this be one of those mysterious low-
nitrogen malt extracts that certain researchers tested but wouldn't 
name?  I noticed that the foam from aeration fell into the wort much 
more quickly than I usually see with all-barley worts I've mashed 
myself.  I would have expected more foam stability in a 50% wheat 
wort rather than less. Could this seeming lack of heading proteins 
also indicate a lack of nitrogen?  If indeed my wort is low in 
nitrogen (175 ppm is tha magic number, right?), could that have 
caused the long lag time?

Tidmarsh Major
tidmarsh at mindspring.com
Birmingham, Alabama


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Date: Mon, 24 Aug 1998 08:40:26 -0700
From: Mark Riley <mriley at netcom.com>
Subject: Re: Amino acids / HSA

Steve Alexander writes:

>I'm not sure if this was in a previous post of a private comm, but one term in
>models for fusel production is yeast growth rate related *but* the coefficient
>on the term is also dependent on the specific related amino acid - so that at
>higher amino acid levels the fusel production is also moderated (and from some
>research even stops).  If this fusel term is the issue for reducing yeast
>growth in order to prevent off flavors (and I'm not sure this is the only
>factor) then adding a bit of valine, leucine and isoleucine amino acids to the
                              ^^^^^^  ^^^^^^^     ^^^^^^^^^^
>wort might be a preferable solution to inducing slow fermentation and low
>growth - at least on HB scale operations.  I'm not stating that this is the
>case - just stating that without understanding the nature of the problem that
>rushing to solutions is premature.

Just took a peek in the medicine cabinet, and wouldn't you know it, I'm
fresh out!  If'n it's decided that this would be a good idea for limiting
yeast growth (and thus fusel production), how would us homebrewer types
go about aquiring said amino acids?

George de Piro writes:

>...I agree with Dr. Pivo that with the myriad other things small brewers can
>do to their beer HSA is near the bottom of things to take care of.

I spent the day at one of the local brewpubs as assistant
brewer for the day, and was both shocked and horrified to
discover that the runoff from the lauter tun empties into
the boiler by means of a curved tube that directs the
flow against the side of the boiler where it dribbles the
4 to 5 feet to the bottom.  With that mental image in
mind, I have to say that the beers produced there are
quite good and hardly reminiscent of wet cardboard.  Now,
the popularity of this place ensures rapid turnover, but
I'd have to say the situation echoes that for many
homebrewers: it's hard to keep the stuff around for over
a month, let alone two.  Carry on, I say, with the crusade,
Dr. Pivo!

Cheers,

Mark Riley
http://hbd.org/recipator



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Date: Mon, 24 Aug 1998 11:41:33 -0400
From: "Tom Struzik" <tom at struzik.com>
Subject: Off flavor questions

Hi all -

I just tapped a keg of what was to be an IPA, but turned out closer to a
barley wine.  I believe that the OG was in the neighborhood of 1080 and the
FG was around 1010.  It has the slightest 'plastic' taste to it.  There is
also a smell that I can only describe as being rather like Gerber's Baby
Custard.  Any idea what caused this?

Thanks.

Tom




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Date: Mon, 24 Aug 1998 09:13:24 -0700
From: Badger Roullett <branderr at microsoft.com>
Subject: rehydrating Dry yeast

I was brewing last night, and came accross a question...

the packages of dry yeast both caution me to not Over Hydrate them.  i
tossed it into water before reading the packages all the way, so i was
wondering if my yeast is gonna take off at all?  have i killed it?  and why
does it caution that?

badger

*********************************************
Brander Roullett aka Badger

Brewing Page: http://www.nwlink.com/~badger/badgbeer.html
Badgers Brewing Bookstore: http://www.nwlink.com/~badger/brewbook.html

In the SCA: 
Lord Frederic Badger of Amberhaven, Innkeeper of the Cat and Cup Inn



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Date: Mon, 24 Aug 1998 12:32:40 -0400
From: "Penn, John" <PennJE1 at SPACEMSG.JHUAPL.edu>
Subject: Barleywine, Infections, Re: First Batch

Barleywine:	Thanks to all the input on carbonating my barleywine, a
question from two weeks ago.  I was away for a week and its taken me 2
weeks to catch up on the HBD.  Generally the suggestions were to give it
a lot of time, many months.  Another suggestion was to try and stir up
the yeast which I did.  Nottingham is very flocculant so that was a good
suggestion to periodically roust the yeast into suspension just like you
would do in your fermenter.  Lastly, if it doesn't carbonate before I
get too impatient, I will try rehydrate or make a yeast starter and put
a small amount in each bottle.  I guess at 10% abv, those yeasties in
the bottle must be pretty worn out.  As for carbonation I usually get
carbonation within a month for beers in the 8-9% abv range if I pitch
enough Nottingham yeast or Wyeast 1728.  Also I keep the beers at about
70F so that they are warm enough to carbonate in a reasonable amount of
time.

Infections:	The comments recently on infections led me to believe
that many people cannot tell when their beer is mildly infected either
because of the style of beer, personal tastes, or because they drink it
before it really manifests itself.  Well I've been suspicious of my
beers of late but wasn't sure about the infections because it can be
hard to taste.  I believe I have the most common culprit identified.  I
did a 7 gallon batch and put 3.5 gallons in my glass carboy and 3.5
gallons in my plastic bucket.  I think my 2 year old bucket is the
source of my main infections though I may still have some wild yeasties
floating around this summer, and there may be some other minor sources.
I am very surprised by the result and I have yet to taste the two
bottled versions but there was definately a layer of scum in the bottles
from the plastic bucket batch.   I thought that if I soaked the bucket
in a weak bleach solution it would still kill everything even in those
scratches that may be unnoticeable.  At any rate I guess I should
replace my plastic bucket.  Is that what most of you do with plastic,
replace every couple of years?

Re: First Batch:	Tim (Cosmo) asks about a stuck? first batch.
With you ingredients list you should have had an OG in the high 50s
assuming a 5 gallon batch, not the low 44 that you measured.  If this
was a partial boil extract batch then its very possible that you didn't
get a good mix of ingredients which would lead to the low OG you
measured.  Given that expected OG, and FG in the low 20s is about right
and the yeast you used is probably not a high attenuator.  The easiest
prevention of high FGs is to pitch enough yeast and make sure you aerate
the batch well at pitching time.  As for the sweet taste, that
relatively high FG may seem like a thick sweet beer but that can be
offset by hop balance.  You failed to mention how much the boil amount
was or what the AA rating was of those Hallertau hops.  A small partial
boil will result in less hop isomerization so it may seem sweet because
you don't have enough bitterness to suit your taste.  Try getting one of
the formulas like Rager and try calculating your bitterness based on the
AAs of hops, amount, and boil percentage/gravity so that you have a
basis for comparing this batch to future batches.    Hope that helps.
 
John Penn
Eldersburg, MD


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Date: Mon, 24 Aug 1998 12:39:26 -0500
From: Charles Epp <chuckepp at ukans.edu>
Subject: Briess ESB query

Beer friends:

I posted this query a couple of weeks ago and got no response; don't
fail me now, oh great beer society!  I'd appreciate some comments on the
quality of the relatively new Briess ESB malt -- does it match British
pale ale malts in flavor and performance?  Private replies are fine,
although I'll bet others want to hear, too, as the Briess ESB seems to
be a lot less expensive than British malts.

Thanks.  --Chuck in Lawrence, KS


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Date: Mon, 24 Aug 1998 19:18:12 +0100
From: "Dr. Pivo" <irv at wireworks.se>
Subject: The Adaptive Significance of Excessive Beer Consumption

Wish I could say that I was the creator of the following, but I'm not. 
In spite of blatant plagiarism I'll pass it along for the edification of
all....

"A herd of buffalo can only move as fast as the slowest buffalo, and
when
the herd is hunted, it is the slowest and weakest ones at the back that
are killed first. This natural selection is good for the herd as a
whole, because the general speed and health of the whole is maintained
or even improved by the regular culling of the weakest members.

In much the same way, the human brain can operate only as fast as the
slowest brain cells through which the electrical signals pass. Recent
epidemiological studies have shown that while excessive intake of
alcohol kills off brain cells, it attacks the slowest and weakest brain
cells first. Thus, regular consumption of beer helps eliminate the
weaker cells, constantly making the brain a faster and more efficient
machine.

The result of this in-depth study verifies and validates the causal link
between all-weekend parties and job related performance. It also
explains why, after a few short years of leaving university and getting
married, most professionals cannot keep up with the performance of the
new graduates. Only those few that stick to the strict regimen of
voracious alcoholic consumption can maintain the intellectual levels
that they achieved during their university years.

So, this is a call to arms. As our country is losing its technological
edge we should not shudder in our homes. Get back into the bars! Quaff
that pint! Your company and country need you to be at your peak, and you
shouldn't deny yourself the career that you could have."


As once again, this represents speculative, unsubstantiated theory, I've
taken it upon myself to do the testing (sample size(n) =1).

(disclaimer printed in advance, in case others are planning to partake
in said experiment.  It would be advisable to carry the requisite
accessories before joining in... one extra brain, three extra livers,
one reserve peripheral nervous system, and a spare pancreas or two)

Dr. Pivo



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Date: Mon, 24 Aug 1998 10:56:50 +0000
From: Jim Liddil <jliddil at azcc.arizona.edu>
Subject: Experiments and Design

Andy Thomas wrote:
> 2206
>is a wonderfully tempermental yeast, to my evaluation.  I have seen one
>starter blow through 10 gal of octoberfest, then stick on 5 gallons of
>pilsner literally a month later (different starters, I always start from
>scratch).  Although I appreciate Jim's points, and his technical
>knowledge is obviously good, I am happy with my present state of
>knowledge.  2206 is temperamental.  Some breweries use it successfully,
>I have trouble with it from time to time.  

You guys were doing an experiment.  when one does an experiment, one wants
to control all the variables except one.  This "experiment" was to look at
the effects of various mashing methods on flavor.  By you own admission the
2206 is a temperamental strain.  This throws another large variable into
the experimental design.  Regardless of your love of the yeast it was a bad
choice for this type of experiment.  You would have been better off using a
strain that is more consistent in behavior.  One could make the arguement
that this large variable from the yeast would invalidate your results.

Jim Liddil  


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Date: Mon, 24 Aug 1998 13:14:01 -0500
From: "Thomas, Andrew R" <thomaar at texaco.com>
Subject: RE: Experiments and Design

I suppose so, if you wanted to be a hard ass about it.  There are very
few lager yeasts out there that are "munich centered", and this in my
opinion is the best.  As I mentioned, it often runs flawlessly, and did
so in the helles experiment.  Ever had a munich helles that was estery?
Neither did we.  So we wanted to make a great beer, in addition to make
a great experiment.  So invalidate them if you like, but Jim, have a
great day.  andy

> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Jim Liddil [SMTP:jliddil at azcc.arizona.edu]
> Sent:	Monday, August 24, 1998 5:57 AM
> To:	post@hbd.org
> Cc:	thomaar at exchange.texaco.com; lkbonham at phoenix.net
> Subject:	Experiments and Design
> 
> Andy Thomas wrote:
> > 2206
> >is a wonderfully tempermental yeast, to my evaluation.  I have seen
> one
> >starter blow through 10 gal of octoberfest, then stick on 5 gallons
> of
> >pilsner literally a month later (different starters, I always start
> from
> >scratch).  Although I appreciate Jim's points, and his technical
> >knowledge is obviously good, I am happy with my present state of
> >knowledge.  2206 is temperamental.  Some breweries use it
> successfully,
> >I have trouble with it from time to time.  
> 
> You guys were doing an experiment.  when one does an experiment, one
> wants
> to control all the variables except one.  This "experiment" was to
> look at
> the effects of various mashing methods on flavor.  By you own
> admission the
> 2206 is a temperamental strain.  This throws another large variable
> into
> the experimental design.  Regardless of your love of the yeast it was
> a bad
> choice for this type of experiment.  You would have been better off
> using a
> strain that is more consistent in behavior.  One could make the
> arguement
> that this large variable from the yeast would invalidate your results.
> 
> Jim Liddil  


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Date: Mon, 24 Aug 1998 21:01:32 +0100
From: "Dr. Pivo" <irv at wireworks.se>
Subject: HSA ad infinitum

I received a nice letter from George DePiro, which I see he has posted
here, which gives me freedom to quote from it, as it raises some
interesting points:

>  What about the amount of HSA in the control batch?  Maybe
> there is some HSA going on in both beers?

It is one slippery bugger.  First HSA was immediately apparent with the
slightest agitation, then it only became apparent after long term
storage, and now it is an "on/off" phenomenon.

I sort of preferred it when it was explained by electron trading amongst
amino acid-saccharide complexes, and would fall well within the kinetics
of any normal chemistry.  Now that it is an "all or none" phenomenon, I
frankly don't know what to do with it. 

It must either be like an "indicator" system, or totally unlike other
taste perceptual parameters.  I'll grant that tasting is non-linear, and
people rarely can give equivalent "numbers" of taste perception that
match concentration (accomodation, receptor down-sensatising, etc. play
in).... but the "on/off" thing is new.  I guess once you've accidently
brushed against that switch, you've turned on the irretrievable HSA
production, and nothing that you do from that point on matters.

It would just have to be HSA that has these previously unheard of
qualities, and I have resolved myself to the fact that I'm not going to
be able to grab this wiley vermin by the tail..... it's just too tricky.

Dr. Pivo


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Date: Mon, 24 Aug 1998 12:29:20 -0700 (PDT)
From: Scott Murman <smurman at best.com>
Subject: Re: Even More Yeast


> (2) re pitching yeast that has been previously used to
> ferment a beer. 

> (in this case) What one would
> like to do is pitch enough yeast and give just enough oxygen so that one
> maximizes the conversion of wort to ethanol and not yeast growth.  So
> enough oxygen is given so that we don't really max out the lipid level in
> the yeast to 1%.  A better level is something like 0.8%.
> 
> Jim Liddil

So how do you monitor your yeast lipid level while you're adding O2 to
the wort in order to hit the "optimum" level of 0.8%?   I mean, I know
how I do it, but I'm curious how you do it.

SM


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Date: Mon, 24 Aug 1998 14:38:24 -0500
From: "A. J. deLange" <ajdel at mindspring.com>
Subject: Salt/Wort Dilution

A couple of readers (Fred Johnson, Jeremy Bergsman) have commented on my
post RE estimating alcohol in beer using salt and I am chatting back and
forth with Aaron who asked the original question and forwarded me the
pages from Wagner, "Chemical Technology" published in 1872 which put
this bee in his (and my) bonnets originally. Both Fred and Jeremy
commented on the inherent conductivity of beer. I did think of this.
Nominal beer seems to have a conductivity  on the order of a couple of
mS/cm. This conductivity is  swamped by the conductivity fom  the added
salt. At the 1:1000 dilution I originally tried 1mS/cm would be reduced
to about (ionic strength considerations aside) 1 uS/cm. A saturated salt
solution diluted by this much has a conductivity of about  660 uS/cm. In
the presence of ethanol at the levels we expect to see in beer, this
drops to a little under 600 uS (I'm going to drop the /cm from here on).
I'm now thinking of a 250:1 dilution (requires less DI water and a
smaller flask and gets conductivity up to where it can be measured with
a $60 meter). Conductivity for beer at this dilution is about .004 mS
and saturated salt in water only at this dilution reads about 2.5 mS.
Thus, to respond to Fred's first point, I haven't been correcting for
the conductivity of the beer though it would be a simple matter to do so
and perhaps even necessary in, say, Burton ales.

Fred's second point is that denatured EtOH solutions and pure alcohol
solutions probably dissolve salt differently and this is doubtless true.
What I have is 94 - 96% ethanol denatured according to DOT Formula 3,
whatever that is. The rest of the stuff in the bottle is propanol, and
methanol. Making a few assumptions about what this means in terms of
water content of dilute solutions made from this concoction I conclude
that 8 mL of it diluted to 100 mL with DI water should have a water
content of 93.8% by weight. I suspect this is pretty close to the right
value but it just occured to me that I can check this by measuring the
density of the dilution and using the ASBC tables and I'll do tjust hat.

Meausrement of the conductivity of a series of test dilutions of this
denatured alcohol at 0,2,4,6 and 8 mL/100 mL by saturation with salt and
then dilution of  1mL of the saturated salt solution to 250 mL reveals a
very good fit with a straight line. Assuming the 93.8% number is right:

Percent Water by Weight = .47407 + .21379G  (i.e. grams of water per
gram of solution ) where G is the conductivity of the 250:1 dilution in
mS.

The following procedure is my current thinking as to how one might use
this scheme:

1. Place 4 g salt in a 25 mL volumetric flask (or other similar small
bottle).
2. Pipet in no more than 10 mL beer.
3. Cap and shake vigorously. Allow to come to room temperature (or
better yet, use a water bath).
4. Shake again vigorously for several minutes
5. Allow to stand so that all undissolved salt can settle out
6. With a pipet or syringe  withdraw a 1 mL aliquot being careful not to
disturb the settled salt.
7. Transfer this aliquot to a 250 mL volumetric flask being careful that
no salt crystals are transferred.
8. Fill flask to reference line with deionized water.
9. Invert repeatedly.
10. Measure conductivity carefully.
11. Use formula above to calculate grams of water per gram of beer from
conductivity reading.
12. Add grams of extract (Deg Plato)/100, to result of step 11. See Note
2.
13. Subtract sum in step 12 from 1.0. This is grams of alcohol per gram
of beer
14. Convert to ABV by multiplying by beer SG and divding by 0.791
(density of  EtOH).

Thus it's Step 12 that I neglected to think of in the first experiment.

I've done 2 examples. The first is a Pils with specific gravity 1.00968
and true extract 4.85 Plato. It's conductivity was 2.00 mS. This implies
a water content of .90166 gram per gram (based on the 93.8% value). The
true extract of 4.85P means that one gram of beer contains .0485 gram of
extract. Thus the beer contains .95016 grams of things other than
ethanol (the CO2 is assumed outgassed). Thus it must contain 1 - .95016
= 0.0498 grams of ethanol per gram for an ABW of 4.98%. Multiplying by
the specific gravity of the beer and and dividing by the specific
gravity of ethanol gives 6.36% ABV. This beer's actual acohol content is
estimated at 6.21% (OK, its on the hefty side for a Pils but I brewed it
and I can call it anything I want even though its color is 14 SRM).

The second example is a Weizen with SG 1.01179 and  TE 4.87P. It
measured 2.11 mS implying a water content of .925176g/g. Adding the
extract gives 0.97385g/g which, subtracted from 1 leaves 0.02615grams
alcohol per gram of beer. Converted to ABV this is 3.34%. The actual
alcohol content of this beer is more like 5.4% and so the method is not
nearly so close in this case as in the case of the Pils. At this point I
don't know why but am suspicious that suspended protein, which does
enter into the TE measurement, might not effect the solubility of salt.
On the other hand the method may jsut not be that accurate for a variety
of other reasons. Obviously, more data is needed. I'd love to have some
collaborators but based on the results of the recent appeal for pH data
am not going to hold my breath.

Notes:
1. Any method for determining the amount of salt dissolved will do. In
Wagner a measured amount of salt is added to a measured amount of beer
and the amount which settles, after shaking, into a thin, graduated tube
is deducted from the original amount added. One could also measure the
sodium ion concentration in a dilution using an ISE or titrate for the
chloride with mercuric nitrate. I chose conductivity because I'd hope
that accurate enough measurements could be made with a cheap
conductivity tester and a conductivity check is simpler to do than
assaying for the sodium or chloride.

2. True extract here means the fraction of the dissolved solids by
weight in the beer. This is determined by boiling a sample of the beer
to a fraction of its original volume thus ensuring that all the alcohol
is driven off. The residue is cooled and diluted back to its original
volume with deionized water and the specific gravity measured. Specific
gravity is then converted to degrees Plato by use of the Tables in the
ASBC pubs or HSB&Y or a curve fit to them. True Extract must be measured
fairly accurately i.e. one must pay attention to temperature.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

To those who thought I overkilled the dilution question I guess I should
mention that I do the problem as I indicated but the implementation
couldn't be much simpler. I  always have a programmable calculator handy
when I brew. Among other things it's programmed to do is display  pounds
per gallon extract as a function of degrees Plato (I have Plato
hydrometers). Thus the tricky part is programmed and I don't really even
have to think about what I'm doing - just enter a value for P, press a
single key, read the lbs/gal, multiply by the gallons to get pounds.
Dilutions are simply caluclated from there. In the example, 4 gallons of
wort  at  13P --> (4)(1.141) = 4.56 Lbs. 12P --> 1.049 lbs/gal. 4.56/1.049
= 4.34 gal. Add 0.34 gal.




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Date: Mon, 24 Aug 1998 13:13:28 -0700 (PDT)
From: Alan Edwards <ale at cisco.com>
Subject: affects of sterol levels on glycogen uptake and it's indications through spectrophotometric measurements of fusel alcohol production

Ugh!  I put yeast in malt.  It tastes goooood!  Ugh!

 -Alan


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Date: Mon, 24 Aug 1998 16:43:23 -0400
From: Jonathan Edwards <jdedward at us.ibm.com>
Subject: re: The truth about American Beers


"Robert C. Sprecher, M.D." <rcs8 at en.com> wrote:

Subject: The truth about American Beers

Actual quote from a patient's medical chart:

"The catheter was draining urine the color of American beer"

'nuf said.

=====


gee, i hope this wasn't a rogue oatmeal stout, an anderson valley stout,
liberty ale, american brown ale, sierra nevada porter or bigfoot barleywine or
that guy is in real trouble.

maybe it should have said the color of budmillcoors beer.

'nuf said.

jonathan
 - -


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Date: Mon, 24 Aug 1998 16:47:19 -0400
From: Jonathan Edwards <jdedward at us.ibm.com>
Subject: liberty ale really uses all cascade?

hey now,

i'm in the process of planning a liberty ale clone. i've hear rumor that it
uses all cascades. anyone know this for a fact? there's some question as to
whether it really uses all cascades over on
rec.crafts.brewing. any of you enlightened scienitist/brewer types know the
scoop? thanks!

jonathan


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Date: Mon, 24 Aug 1998 17:02:46 -0400
From: Christopher Peterson <peterson at ucmg65.med.uc.edu>
Subject: AHA-Nationals Judging question

Beer geeks,
	A friend of mine and I have a question regarding beer judging (scoring) at
the AHA nationals.  We both entered a beer in the same category. Both made
it into the finals. In both evaluations, it was unclear how the final score
given to the beer was obtained. 
	Both at the first round and second rounds, the two scores I received were
averaged to give a final score (for example but not actual scores; 35 + 37
= 36 final average score). On my friends sheet, he received two scores, yet
the final evluation score was not the average of the first two (for example
32 and 31 final score 38). How do they come up with these numbers? Do the
judges reevaluate beers after trying the whole category? I know the finals
used a two tier system to judge the beers. Do the judges re-score beers
that score the highest? Just wondering. Any info would be appreciated. As
always, private emails welcome.


Christopher Peterson
peterson at molgen.uc.edu


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---