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


Contents:
  Advice from a fellow neophyte (John DeCarlo)
  Re: Results of GABF  (Bruce Buck - Sun ECD Hardware)
  Stuck fermentation! Help! (Doug Roberts  at  Los Alamos National Laboratory)
  Re: label glues (Jason Goldman)
  Max Headroom (willa)
  end of ``Golden Beer'' State; bad return path (David do-not-trust-the-return-path Kensiski )
  Index of TCJHB in \LaTeX format (Francois Felix INGRAND)


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


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Date: Friday, 27 Oct 1989 09:18:08 EST
From: m14051 at mwvm.mitre.org (John DeCarlo)
Subject: Advice from a fellow neophyte

>From: microsoft!jamesb at uunet.uu.net

>I have just recently developed an interest in the fine art of
>home brewing. I have yet to brew even my first batch, I'm still
>collecting equipment. What I am looking for is general words
>of wisdom and warning, supply connections and ingredient suggestions,
>recipes and stories. If you have any of the above and would like to
>share it with the world, I for one would truly appreciate it.

Well, I expect you to get some really good stories from many more
experience brewers, but let me just tell you a few lessons I think
I have learned :-).

1) Relax, don't worry.  I made mistakes the first two times merely
by being over-worried and trying to do too many things at once.
The best way to avoid this is to plan ahead everything you are
going to do.  Even write it down the first few times.  Avoid
running around consulting books and such *during* the brewing
process.

2) Sanitize.  Use one tablespoon (1/2 ounce) of unflavored bleach
per 5 gallons of water.  Some claim you should rinse, others that
you should just drip dry with such a weak solution.  I have tried
both and haven't seen a difference.  So I'm not worrying.  I still
am glad I sanitize everything I can't boil, and it isn't all that
hard if you plan in advance to have the 30 minutes or so.  BTW,
I use the dishwasher heated rinse and dry cycle to sanitize my
bottles--I can just get the two cases to fit in there.

3) Use malt instead of sugar.  If you use a kit, don't follow the
directions in there at all.  Get some malt to replace the sugar
and boil the wort 45-60 minutes.  You probably want to get some
advice on finishing hops to use after a while.

4) Sparge. (Is this the correct term?)  Anyway, anytime you use
whole leaf or pelletized hops you need to strain as much of it
out as possible.  I didn't do that on my second batch (when I
realized I needed some finishing hops after the wort boiled
an hour) and regretted it.  Even managed to get some of the
pelletized hop powder into the bottles.  (Still drinkable,
amazingly enough.)

5) Rack before bottling and priming.  Leaving behind the sediment
in another container allows you to bottle all the liquid you have.
I am much happier now that I learned this technique.

6) Boil the priming sugar.  I generally use 3/4 cup corn sugar
and boil in one pint of water.  Mix it well into the beer before
bottling.

John "Getting more confident after four batches" DeCarlo

ARPANET:  M14051 at mwvm.mitre.org (or M14051%mwvm at mitre.arpa)
Usenet:    at ... at !uunet!hadron!blkcat!109!131!John_Decarlo
Fidonet:  1:109/131

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Date: Fri, 27 Oct 89 10:25:46 EDT
From: bbuck at East.Sun.COM (Bruce Buck - Sun ECD Hardware)
Subject: Re: Results of GABF 

H.David Scarbro writes that in competition:

Dry Beer
Gold	Bud Dry, Anheuser-Busch Inc, St. Louis, MO

I thought that they made Michelob Dry and not Bud Dry.

Also, since I live close to the Bud plant in Merrimack, NH we get something
called "Anheuser" which is a great Marzen beer.  Not at all something you'd
expect from Anheuser-Busch.  Was "Anheuser" entered in the competition?

Further, the fact that Bud, Miller, Coors, et. al. won medals in the American
pilsener categories should remind people that these beers are not the junk
everyone says they are.  They are good examples of the style.  It's just that
that's the only style available from the big brewers.  Hence the rise of
micro- and homebrewing.

(Another surprise to me was that Little King's Cream Ale won a gold.)

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Date: Fri, 27 Oct 89 08:42:32 MDT
From: roberts%studguppy at LANL.GOV (Doug Roberts  at  Los Alamos National Laboratory)
Subject: Stuck fermentation! Help!

What was the temperature in your basement, Marty? I've noticed that 
Edme (which I've also had good luck with) is happiest when it's primary
temperature is not lower than 68 - 70 degrees.

--Doug

BTW: I called that recipe Sweet Darkness...

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Date: Fri, 27 Oct 89 09:29:17 mdt
From: Jason Goldman <hp-lsd!jdg>
Subject: Re: label glues
Full-Name: Jason Goldman

This is great to hear a discussion on this subject.  An artist friend of mine
has designed a series of labels for my beer (Bluestar) which I was copying onto
8 1/2 " x 11 " label stock that I got at an office supply store.  I've used two
different brands of label stock (Dennon [too sticky] and another brand [paper
too thick]) which I haven't been real happy with.  I'm moving into color labels
soon and was thinking of using rubber cement to fasten the label to the bottle.
I think that I will try the glue sticks instead.  Thanks for the great idea!

Jason

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Date: Fri, 27 Oct 89 10:16:05 PDT
From: willa at hpvclwa
Subject: Max Headroom

How much headroom?  I use a pvc bottle filler.  It's a rigid tube with a valve
on the end.  The valve opens when pushed down (against the bottom of a bottle
hopefully).  When the bottle is full, just remove the filler.  The valve
closes immediately.  At that instant, beer is just seeping over the lip of
the bottle.  When the filler is pulled out, the beer falls to fill in the
lost volume.  I get a nice 1" headspace on 12 oz bottles, and about 1 1/2" on
champaign bottles (due to the similar neck diameter and larger height).  
The headroom is very consistent.  No muss, no fuss.

The valve is removable for cleaning.  The only drawback is that the valve
leaks a little when closed.  I make sure I always have an empty bottle ready
to park the filler in (why does the phone always ring when I'm bottling?).

I've got mail order info if anyone is interested.  Cost is < $5.00.

. . .Will
...!hplabs!hpvcfs1!willa   or   willa at hpvcfs1.hp.com

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Date: Fri, 27 Oct 89 14:38:20 PDT
From: david%cygnus. at Sun.COM (David do-not-trust-the-return-path Kensiski )
Subject: end of ``Golden Beer'' State; bad return path

Well, that's it for my ``Golden Beer'' State postings.  I noticed that
my return path got seriously munged up.  If anyone tried to send me
mail using that path, it tried to go to some Sun office and undoubtably
bounced.  I apologize for that.  Try again with:

	mmsac!david at sacto.West.Sun.COM

David L. Kensiski, KB6HCN     Martin Marietta Data Systems
Software Engineer             1540 River Park Drive, Suite 213
Phone: (916) 929-8844         Sacramento, CA  95815
UUCP: sun!sacto!mmsac!david   INTERNET: mmsac!david at sacto.West.Sun.COM

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Date: Fri, 27 Oct 89 17:32:18 PDT
From: felix at Warbucks.AI.SRI.COM (Francois Felix INGRAND)
Subject: Index of TCJHB in \LaTeX format


A couple of days ago a very kind soul send me the index to TCJHB
(Charlie Papazian), which has been compiled by Steve Conklin.

I have ported the index to LaTeX (but did not change the contents of
the Index itself).

If anybody is interested by the LaTeX version, drop me a mail.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Francois Felix INGRAND                          SRI International, AIC
felix at AI.SRI.COM                                333, Ravenswood Avenue
felix%AI.SRI.COM at UUNET.UU.NET                   MENLO PARK, CA 94025, USA
"Pourquoi tant de haine..." (Edika)      "Read my Lisp... No new syntax" (nil)

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End of HOMEBREW Digest #289, 10/28/89
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