---

	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:
  100 Gallon limit broken! dont do it (DakBrew)
  oatmalt stout results ("Ratkiewich, Peter")
  6 oz. bottles (Peter Bertone)
  1st Annual Palmetto State Brewers' Open (chatgros)
  IBU standard... ("D.B. Metallo")
  chitosan (David Whitman)
  EKU Lager yeast (Andrew Stavrolakis)
  mills, backdoor, 100gal++, carboys. (Joe Rolfe)
  Aluminum Screen in a brew pot? (Joy Hansen)
  chitosan (Domenick Venezia)
  copper scrubby problems (Elijah Daniel)
  Water transfers to gott coolers (Eric Reimer)
  Oat Malt % in 6 Grain Stout ("Philip J Wilcox")
  starters (Bryan Gros)
  Split session brewing (Greg Remake)
  homebrew shops vs. backdoor black market (Boeing)" <BayerMA at navair.navy.mil>
  RE: Backdoor Dealings... (LaBorde, Ronald)
  Correction/Minimashs/Water/Iodine (AJ)
  What the AHA is for (Paul Gatza)
  Re: Fred Garvin Seminars (Tim Anderson)
  backdoor dealings, con't. ("Marc Sedam")
  Decline of Homebrewing (Dan Listermann)
  Where to get 6oz bottles for barleywine (Alan Edwards)
  Food processing grain ("Robert C. McDonald")


Beer is our obsession and we're late for therapy!

Madison Homebrewers and Tasters Guild's 13th annual Big and Huge - 28
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----------------------------------------------------------------------


Date: Mon, 15 Mar 1999 06:46:12 EST
From: DakBrew at aol.com
Subject: 100 Gallon limit broken! dont do it



>>WayneM38 at aol.com sez....

>>Then there is that 100 gal limit........

>Tha one's easy: just get married! It doubles it!See ya!

>Pat Babcock in SE Michigan    

Don't do it Wayne The rule is 200 GL for a 2 adult Household. I take this to
mean Girlfriend, Roommate, or anyone as long as there are 2 adults residing in
the house. 
No need to potentially ruin your life for 100 GL of beer per year.

Dan  


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Date: Mon, 15 Mar 1999 08:16:01 -0500
From: "Ratkiewich, Peter" <PRATKIEWICH at ci.westport.ct.us>
Subject: oatmalt stout results

Many thanks to all the providers of Oatmeal stout recipes that have 
been
sent over the past week.  After considering them all my partner and I
decided to go with a recipe based on oat malt rather than oatmeal.  (we
were going to do two batches one with oat malt and one with oat meal,
but upon receiving the 55 lb bag of oat malt, we figured it would be
better to put a dent in the bag....).  Anyway, this is the recipe we
ended up using.

We run dual 15 gallon setups, one a conventional gravity system, and 
one
a PBS - MRS.
For each 15 gal. batch:

22# Maris Otter Pale
8# Thomas Fawcett malted oats
2# Roasted Barley
 # Chocolate Malt
 # Wheat 
4# 120l-150l M&F Crystal

We've dubbed this as our "Six grain Oatmalt Stout".  Pretty original 
eh!

Also somewhat complicated of an ale.  First the grist bill had to be
ground in two stages.  We ground all the grains but the oatmalt at our
normal setting on the jsp mill.  ( that being the "magic" setting where
the tick mark is straight up and down).  The oat malt however is
slightly smaller in diameter and much softer than the other grains.  In
addition, according to the maltster's notes, (thank you Sir Renner),
they recommend a smaller setting, approximatly 70-80 % of the "normal
setting".  Being rather simple Neanderthal style brewers, we adjusted
the jsp mill to it's smallest setting by turning the eccentric 
adjusting
screw until the rollers came to there closest point.  The gap appeared
to be about  of the normal gap so we went with it.  We don't split
hairs about these things.  The small setting worked excellent on the 
oat
malt.

Now the other trick we employed was that we setup, ground and mashed in
on Saturday night.  Using a single infusion, we struck in with 7 
gallons
at 168 degrees.  We were looking for a stiff mash, and definitely
achieved it.  (By the way if you want a work out some day, try mashing
in 37-1/2 ponds with just 7 gallons.  It took almost  an hour just 
to
get everything un-lumped.)  Around 11pm we finally stabilized at a mash
temp of about 155 degrees.  At this point we wrapped these big 
insulated
moving blankets around the SS mash tuns and called it quits for the
night.  The theory being that you can't mash for too long, and that
somewhere during the night the mash would pass through the entire
temperature range from 155 to 148.

Morning arrived and at 7:30 AM both mash tuns were hovering around 140
degrees.  We took an hour to bring the temp back up to mash out at 168,
using water additions and slow heating.

We opted for a step runoff rather than a continuous sparge.  We 
measured
the SG at each runnings.  First was 1104, second was 1100 and third was
1060.  Bear in mind that the SUDS program predicted an OG for this 
grain
bill of 1061!  I guess we got a better extraction than the 75% I had
estimated.

It took about 1  hours to do all three runnings. In our 90 minute 
boil
we used 1 oz. of 17.2%AA yakima german magnum hops at 0min and 30 min
into the boil.  We continued with 5%AA Cascade, 1 oz ea. at 45, 60, and
75 minutes.

OG on this ale was 1090.  We pitched with a wad of 1056 yeast that we
had harvested from last month's batch and stored.  We're shootin for a
FG of about 1020.  Our yield, starting with a fifteen gallon recipe was
12 gallons each for a total of 24 gallons.  The unfermented liquid
tastes very smooth, slightly burnt from the roasted barley, and has a
good base bitterness from the Magnum hops.


So we still have about 39 pounds of this oatmalt.  We were thinking of
making a 50-50 grain mix with oatmalt and pale, and see what we come up
with.

Happy brewing!
Pete Ratkiewich, Milford, CT

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Date: Mon, 15 Mar 1999 09:17:49 -0500 (EST)
From: Peter Bertone <bertone at physics.unc.edu>
Subject: 6 oz. bottles


On Mon, 15 Mar 1999 in HBD #2978, Thomas Murray wrote:

> Does anyone know of a source for 6oz bottles. It's about time to bottle my
> barleywine.
> 

  Presque Isle Wine Cellars sells 187 mL (about 6.4 oz.) champagne bottles
(catalog #W187). They come 24 to a case. The price is $7.30 per case. If
I'm not mistaken these bottles can be crown capped. PIWC's phone number is
814-725-1314 (info) 800-488-7492 (orders), email <prwc at erie.net> .

I hope this helps.

Peter Bertone
Chapel Hill, NC




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Date: Mon, 15 Mar 1999 06:24:33 PST
From: chatgros at excite.com
Subject: 1st Annual Palmetto State Brewers' Open

April 10, 1999
Beulah's Bar and Grill, Columbia, SC
Entry Deadline:  April 6, 1999 (forms and money)
All Categories, Ale, Lager, Mixed, Cider, Mead
AHA/BJCP Sanctioned
1999 AHA style guidelines

Info:

http://www.axs2k.net/fatcat/psbflyer.htm

E-mail:

chatgros at mailexcite.com




_______________________________________________________
Get your free, private email at http://mail.excite.com/


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Date: Mon, 15 Mar 1999 08:44:02 -0600
From: "D.B. Metallo" <dbmetallo at wwisp.com>
Subject: IBU standard...

I was wondering - which is considered the IBU "standard" gauge -
Garetz, Rager, or Tinseth?  Who's numbers do the AHA and/or the BJCP
use? I asked a few people in the local club around here and they didn't
seem to know. Thanks.

   Adieu,
    Dan
- -----
"Give me ambiguity or give me something else."
 -Anonymous
                Rat Sass Online
         http://members.wwisp.com/~dcscanner/


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Date: Mon, 15 Mar 1999 09:50:39 -0500
From: David Whitman <dwhitman at rohmhaas.com>
Subject: chitosan

Harry Ewasiuk is considering using chitosan as a fining agent:

>The issue:  I began brewing a few months ago from extract and all grain
>kits, producing some very nice, drinkable brews. A friend noticing a slight
>haze in my beers, suggested using chitosan to fine them before bottling.
>Unfortunately, he was unable to tell me what chitosan is made from and
>whether it would be a good fining agent. I have searched the HBD archives
>and came up with nothing. If anyone has any information on chitosan, please
>share your knowledge.

Chitosan is a polysaccharide with pendent amine groups.  Product literature
I've got suggests that it's quite non-toxic, with LD50 comparible to sugar
or salt.

Chitosan is soluble at acidic pH, but is an efficient thickener so that you
need to work in very dilute solution to keep things pourable.

While I've never heard of using chitosan as a fining agent, based on
chemical structure I would expect it to have similar behavior to Polyclar -
helping polyphenols precipitate.  This helps reduce chill haze of beer.
Polyclar may also help yeast floculate (although I personally never noticed
an effect), and chitosan may do the same.

The product literature I've got suggests chitosan can be used as a
precipitating agent for proteins in food processing plants but I suspect
they're controlling the pH of solution to do so.  However, precipitation of
protein is how irish moss works to clarify beer.

Chitosan is made by hydrolyzing chiton, which in turn is extracted from
crab and shrimp shells.  Chiton is reasonably cheap, but the conversion to
chitosan isn't. My product sheet is dated 1986, and in large lots the stuff
cost $22/kg back then. Looking at the structure, I don't think cheaper,
unhydrolyzed chiton would act as a fining agent. 



Return to table of contents


Date: Mon, 15 Mar 1999 10:34:45 -0500
From: Andrew Stavrolakis <andrew_stavrolakis at harvard.edu>
Subject: EKU Lager yeast

Hi All,

I just won a vial of "EKU Lager Yeast" at the recent Boston Homebrew
Competition for 1st place Alt (Thanks to Al K. for so publicly encouraging
the use of 100% Munich in Altbier recipes - alas, Alt is no longer an MCAB
qualifying style) I'd like to use this yeast to brew soon- I rely on nature
to provide lager ferment temps and I am rapidly running out of winter.  What
are the characteristics of this yeast?  Similar to Wyeast Bavarian? I've
heard of Kulminator, but I'd rather not brew a doppelbock; I was thinking
more along the lines of a Marzen.

Any thoughts would be appreciated...

Thanks.

andrew_stavrolakis at harvard.edu 



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Date: Mon, 15 Mar 1999 11:08:25 -0500
From: Joe Rolfe <rolfe at sky.sky.com>
Subject: mills, backdoor, 100gal++, carboys.

from >jsp / >>Dan Listerman..
 .hope i quoted you guys correctly - flame my arse if not.

>>"One of the prime reasons that brewers get poor extractions 
>>is poor crushes.  This is especially common 
>>amoung beginning all-grain brewers because of a fear
>>of getting a stuck mash.  Inconsistant crushes cannot
>>be looked upon as an advantage."

Once you "see" good crush - you just know if it is good enuff or not. 
The more likely reason for crappy extract or batch to batch
inconsistency, (outside of normal boundaries what ever that works out
to for the beers you brew with your equipment) is old, stale or
otherwise mishandled (many hands are touching this before you in most
cases) malt. The next would be poor lautering, followed by pH/temp
control, then i'll buy into the crush.

>>"I crush by visual inspection never worrying about what the gap is.
 
>Me too.  I have not adjusted my mill in 4 years 
>nor have 7000 happy users of pre-adjusted MM's.

I usually adjust my mill everytime till I see what I want to see
coming out.  But I bet I could set it and forget it if I wanted to.

sedam at bellsouth.net said...

>I work at a homebrew shop that was the victim of a 
>"backdoor buy" and can assure you that it does effect the
>bottom line of the shops.  Don't you think a homebrew shop 
>would want to sell someone 2,000 lbs of grain?  
>That's only 40 bags of grain--easily within the realm of 
>an industrious group of brewers. For the $3/ bag 
>you might save, you'll kill the local shops. 

By backdoor buy  I take it you are talking about - buying direct from
a brewery or distributor. 

Find a homebrewshop that can except 2 pallets of grain and have room
to store it.  a metric ton of grain makes a hell of a lot a beer.
(2200#malt at 25pts/# of 1050 beer = 1100 gallons - yea we could do
that). But my guess if that or a few of those deals are enough to kill
any shop then - biz is biz, fix the cash flow problem or find
something else to do.  The good shops dont tend to go out of biz
easily.  And I can see saving more than $3/bag on a $35-40 bag if this
is done thru a brewery.  Some of the shops are doing a fairly high
markup, not that I wish them to go out of biz, but dont take me to the
cleaners me before you do. Charge me a fair price, have the products I
am looking for and cut me some slack if I buy volume, that is all I
can ask.(guilty streak just set in tho..- I used to do the backdoor
deals from my brewery - string me up)  

>>Then there is that 100 gal limit........
 
>Tha one's easy: just get married! It doubles it!
Why get a wife, Call the local ATF office and file a brewers notice
(plus a few other stacks of paper) and raise the limit even higher.
Tis alot cheaper to go commercial - me thinks....

CARBOYS.
ALL glass carboys should be destroyed as soon as possible.... recent
new law enacted by congress mandates this by Jan 1, 2000.


Good Luck and Great Brewing
Joe Rolfe


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Date: Mon, 15 Mar 1999 11:05:41 -0500
From: joytbrew at halifax.com (Joy Hansen)
Subject: Aluminum Screen in a brew pot?

Adam Holmes asked about using aluminum screen as a filter in his brew pot.

While there isn't any confirmed health problem associated with aluminum in
wort, IMO the acidity of the boiling wort will eat away at the screen.
Stainless steel is a better choice because it isn't affected by the wort,
will last for many years, and it will stand up to many cleaners used for
brewing equipment.

I've read several HBD posts which indicate alternatives to screen.  One
using the braided SS cover of flexible water pipe seems very workable and
easily cleaned.



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Date: Mon, 15 Mar 1999 08:30:25 -0800
From: Domenick Venezia <demonick at zgi.com>
Subject: chitosan

"Harry Ewasiuk" <shogun at ccinet.ab.ca> says:
>A friend noticing a slight haze in my beers, suggested using chitosan to
>fine them before bottling. Unfortunately, he was unable to tell me what
>chitosan is made from and whether it would be a good fining agent.

Chitosan is a recent craze in weight loss management.  It is heralded as a
fat sponge.  It is a deacylated form of chitin which is the carbohydrate
that makes up the shells of crabs, lobsters, cockroaches, and other
arthropods.  It is very similar to cellulose but has -NH2 groups attached
to the #2 carbons instead of -OH.  It is not digestible, but is supposed
to bind fat and pass it through the digestive system unprocessed. 

My guess is that it would not make a good fining agent.  In fact it
might tend to remove the lipids that make trub useful.  

Search for chitosan on the web or go to:

http://members.tripod.com/~Dalwoo/home.html
http://www.chitosan.net/

DISCLAIMER:  I know nothing of the scientific validity of the claims of
the proponents of chitosan.  I am not advocating the use of chitosan.
I have never used chitosan.  I have no plans to ever use chitosan.

Cheers!

Domenick Venezia
Venezia & Company, LLC
Maker of PrimeTab
(206) 782-1152  phone
(206) 782-6766  fax orders
demonick at zgi dot com



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Date: Mon, 15 Mar 1999 11:48:36 -0500
From: Elijah Daniel <Elijah.Daniel at digital.com>
Subject: copper scrubby problems

Hi, all.

I recently put a spigot on my enamel-on-steel brewpot (anyone who's
interested in details is free to email me directly).  Inside the pot, I have
a Copper Scrubby Thing (CST) for washing dishes which I attached to the dip
tube with a hose clamp (stainess steel?) for a filter.  I ran water through
the system a couple of times, and it worked great.

So here's my problem: I just noticed that the CST produces nasty orange
goop.  It seems that when its left sitting around wet, little pieces of
copper flake off and make this very metallic smelling slime.  Not something
I want to get in my beer.

So, what's wrong here?  I took the CST off from the pot and noticed that it
was corroded-looking where the hose clamp had been attached to it.  The
problem doesn't appear to be specific to places where the CST touches metal,
though... I've been using another one (they came in a package of two) for
dishes, and its been doing the same thing, even in a pottery bowl where it
was left overnight.

Is the CST-as-filter idea inherently flawed?  Or is my generic CST just
poorly made?  Should I get a brand-name one?  Or just use screen or some
such instead?

Thanks for any input...

Eli Daniel
Somerville, MA


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Date: Mon, 15 Mar 1999 11:58:40 -0500
From: Eric Reimer <eric at etymonic.com>
Subject: Water transfers to gott coolers

Hi all.

I am having an on going problem with oxidation.  Most of my beer is 
suffering from a short shelf life.  The beer tastes great for a few weeks 
after packaging, but changes for the worse after this time.  I am very 
careful about all transfers of wort and beer during mashing, sparging, boil 
pot to fermenter and packaging.  My current brewery set-up uses a gas stove 
to heat the water and wort.  A gott cooler to mash and sparge , and another 
gott cooler to hold the preheated sparge water.

One area of concern is the transfer of heated water to the mash/lauter 
vessel (before adding grist) and transfer of the heated water to the HLT. 
 I have been dumping the water from the pot used to heat the water into the 
respective gott cooler.  This must be a major factor in oxygen pickup...no? 
 How are other gott cooler users transferring water to the gott so as not 
to aerate the water?

All comments welcome.

TIA,

Eric Reimer
Barking Dogs Brewery
London, Ontario




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Date: Mon, 15 Mar 1999 12:08:10 -0500
From: "Philip J Wilcox" <pjwilcox at cmsenergy.com>
Subject: Oat Malt % in 6 Grain Stout




From: Philip J Wilcox at CMS on 03/15/99 12:08 PM

Hi everyone,

Im kinda tossed on what I want to do for my next stout. I know I want to
have it as a Milk stout (My wife and I are expecting) (a girl in July, thx
for asking;<). But after visiting the brew store this weekend I realized
how easy it would be to make this a Six Grain Stout. Rye and Rice were on
sale. I already had the corn--Wheat and Barley are givin's in my ales and
Oats are where I was starting from.   I'm Just not sure which way I want to
go with it.

I re-read the stout chapter of Daniels book and I think it was he who
mentioned how oily Oats are and that you don't want to use more than 12%
else the head will suffer. Is this something I should worry about?  Could I
over compensate by using Carapils or Tortified Wheat?

Six Grain Stout
Malts                                         LBS                  %
Scot Malt                        9              44.44
Oat Malt                          2.5           12.35
Rye Malt                          1              4.94
Munich                             1              4.94
Belg CaraMunich              1              4.94
Corn-Flaked                     1              4.94
Rice-                               1              4.94
Flaked Oats                      0.75         3.70
Germ Choc Wheat                  0.5                2.47
HomeRoasted Oat Malt      0.5           2.47
Roasted Barley                 1              4.94
Tortified Wheat                   1              4.94
Hopped 3 to1 with EKG and Fuggles to 21 IBU in one addition

The other way I have it is more like Mackeson's or Maclay's

Scot Malt                          10          49.38
Oat Malt                            4.5   22.22
Munich                              1              4.94
Belg CaraMunich               1              4.94
Flaked Oats                  0.75         3.70
Germ Choc Wheat                   0.5           2.47
HomeRoasted Oat Malt          0.5           2.47
Roasted Barley              1            4.94
Tortified Wheat                   1              4.94
Hopped 3 to1 with EKG and Fuggles to 21 IBU in one addition

Any suggestions or experience out there would be very much appreciated.

Phil Wilcox
Poison Frog Home Brewer
Warden-Prison City Brewers
AABG, AHA, BJCP, HBD, MCAB, ETC., ad nausium...




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Date: Mon, 15 Mar 1999 09:13:33 -0800
From: Bryan Gros <bryang at xeaglex.com>
Subject: starters

"Conan Barnes" <barneco at earthlink.net> wrote:

>I'm pretty new to homebrewing(on my 3rd batch). ...
>i'm planning on a Honey Brown Ale, and thought i'd try wyeast
>1028.  my question, is this yeast known to be slow?  or have i done
>something wrong? i bought the pack on sunday and started it. 2 days went
>by with no activity.  so i put it on the hot water heater(not very hot, just
>not cold like the rest of the house), and the pack swelled up in 24 hours.
>so i brewed a starter and pitched it.  after about a day i could see
>activity and the airlock was moving(slow, but moving).  i expected to see a
>good Krausen soon, so i'd be ready to pitch it saturday(tomorrow), but
>instead, the activity slackened, then stopped all together. ...
>has anyone come up with some nifty gadget to
>maintain a 70-80F temp in a champagne bottle?

Congratulations on taking the plunge with liquid yeast and improving
your brews. Sounds like your starter may be done. One thing beginners
expect is a good active krausen, and you generally don't see that in
a starter. If the airlock is moving, then you're okay. If you swirl it
around, you should see some CO2. Looks like you're fine. And 
depending on how you made your starter, it may be fermented
out by now.
  As for keeping it warm, I made a crude incubator at one time. I
simply made a box from thin plywood just big enough for my
ehrlenmeyer (sp?) flask. I used a light bulb as a heat source and
a cheap air conditioner thermostat to control it. If you don't put hops
in your stater, then the light won't hurt anything. It seemed to work
fine, but I think it was overkill.

>    On a quick second note, anyone have an extract recipe for an oatmeal
>stout, if such a thing is possible?

Someone last week was asking for an extract recipe for a CAP.
Sorry guys, but these styles require non-malted adjuncts (oatmeal and 
corn). The only way to use these adjuncts is to mash them with some
malted barley. That way, the enzymes in the barley will break down the
starches in the adjuncts. Can't be done with extracts, unfortunately.

*******
Someone wrote to say that people should be supporting their local
homebrew shop, and implying that the savings for buying malt in
bulk is $3 per sack.

In my neck of the woods, the wholesale price of grain is $23 
(domestic malt) a sack, just under 50 cents per pound. Most 
homebrew shops that I know of sell malt for about $1 per pound.
Maybe a tad less if you buy by the sack.

I can buy at wholesale prices either direct from the wholesaler or
from the local pub at cost. The savings is much more than $3
per sack.

One area that the local shop could help me in is its hours. I brew
on weekends, generally early. I never brew on Tues, Wed, or Thurs.
Yet my local shop is open all week but closed on Sundays...

  - Bryan

Bryan Gros
Oakland CA



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Date: Mon, 15 Mar 1999 11:31:23 -0600
From: Greg Remake <gremake at gsbalum.uchicago.edu>
Subject: Split session brewing

Hello all,

As I saw suggested in the HBD, I tried splitting my brewing session into
two parts this weekend, and it was a great success.  Even with a late start
on Friday night, I still got to bed at a reasonable time after mashing and
sparging, then boiled the wort and filled the primary on Saturday morning
(after squeezing in a charity pancake breakfast).  Two shorter brewing
sessions were actually more fun than one long one, and I had more time left
over for my family and other weekend projects.  If you're having trouble
finding the time you need for brewing, I highly recommend trying this
approach.

My only question is in regards to the appropriate temperature at which to
keep the wort overnight.  Are there any problems with letting it sit on the
stove (like I did), or is there a benefit to cooling it and keeping it
chilled until the boil?  Since I'd be boiling it anyway, I wasn't worried
about bacterial growth overnight, but for those of you who postpone the
boil, what is your procedure?

BTW, I brewed a CAP (Jeff Renner's bug has bitten me) and tried first wort
hopping.  I was amazed at the smooth hops character I tasted in the wort,
which tasted wonderful.  It could just be the recipe, but perhaps steeping
the hops overnight contributed to the nice flavor and aroma.  I'm hoping
the finished beer lives up to expectations.

Cheers!

Greg


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Date: Mon, 15 Mar 1999 13:27:48 -0500
From: "Bayer, Mark A (Boeing)" <BayerMA at navair.navy.mil>
Subject: homebrew shops vs. backdoor black market

collective homebrew conscience:

pat wrote:

>When a "reallife business" finds itself non-competitively priced, a "real
life business"would >normally narrow it's margins to recoup the traffic, and
accept that they just aren't going to >make that much on that particular
product, or they stop carrying it altogether. Like evolution, >you adjust to
the environment -- or you die.

there is one other thing they can do, and that is to offer services that the
backdoor specialists cannot.  free crushing?  *accurate* malt analysis?
there are bound to be other ways that a homebrew dealer can exceed the
capabilities of the back door pirates, but they have to make the effort and
be more than just a supplier.  some homebrewers will always go for the
lowest prices no matter what, but others appreciate and will patronize hb
shops that make the effort to retain their business.  the customer has to
perceive added value in the product and services, though.

keith asked about adding roasted grains after the saccharification, to avoid
low mash ph's and enzyme problems.  the other thing to consider is the ph of
the wort.  you may need to adjust your sparge water ph a bit higher to avoid
a too-low ph in the boiler, which can result in poor hot break formation and
lower hop utilization.  

where in the world is alk?  he didn't suffer a mishap re: the basement
propane vent project, i hope.

does anybody else see the humor in fouch's escort service postings in light
of the name of his brewery?

brew hard,

mark bayer
great mills, md
leaving for stl in two weeks.


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Date: Mon, 15 Mar 1999 13:15:37 -0600
From: rlabor at lsumc.edu (LaBorde, Ronald)
Subject: RE: Backdoor Dealings...

>>>>
How do you think a restaurant would do if you could bring
your own ingredients and just have them cook it?  Same thing
<<<<

Actually, in New Orleans, we have many small business restaurants, doing
quite well.  The cost of a liquor license and yearly renewal is prohibitive
for the small volume of drinkers in these small restaurants.  These
busisnesses have taken the stance that customers can bring in their own wine
or beer.  This seems to work well, they will provide glasses, and some will
even provide openers for you.  This is encouraged, because they rather sell
you their food services and make a profit, than pay high licensee fees, and
probably loose money.  It works out well for homebrewers, (ever price wine
in a restaurant?), as we can bring ours in and enjoy.

What does this have to do with the discussion on homebrew shops?
It means that if they cannot compete on grain prices, they must find a way
to compete in other areas that will compel customers to patronize their
business.  Normally, if I go and get advice, tips, and don't forget the
convenience of a local shop, I will pay more if I consider it a fair price.

If I find a great low price for base malts, then I feel that I should
purchase it for my personal benefit.  After all, what can the homebrew shop
offer with base malt other than tell me - yeah, use it.  When it becomes
useful for me to purchase the specialty malt and other not so large volume
items, then I patronize the homebrew shop.  Like it or not, this is the free
market system, the system that has beaten back the ugly head of Communism,
and the system we are all into.

>>>>
However, if they just sit back and cry about competition -- no matter the
source, they're whining.  If they react to it in such a way that they
remain COMPETITIVE, they're treating their shops like "real life
businesses."
<<<<

Right on, Pat.

Happy milling

Ron

Ronald La Borde - Metairie, Louisiana - rlabor at lsumc.edu



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Date: Mon, 15 Mar 1999 14:26:24 -0500
From: AJ <ajdel at mindspring.com>
Subject: Correction/Minimashs/Water/Iodine

Kevin wrote:
>AJ wrote:
>>Jeff Renner (from whom I am currently more distant than ordinarily)<<
>that is true of most of us as Jeff is in England this week.

OK. It should have read
"Jeff Renner (from whom I am currently less distant than ordinarily)"
    AJ, 20 km south of Theakstons.

I'm mainly bringing this up as an opportunity to tell you all what a
wonderful beer draught Old Peculier is. If you ever get a chance to try
it, don't pass it up! World class.

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

Keith had a couple of questions on mini mashes.
I am always amazed at how much acid there is is patent, roast barley
etc. My recall is that a kilo of good black malt is equivalent to a few
mL of hardware-store-strength hydrochloric acid so that yes, if you mash
a couple of pounds of dark malts with a couple of pounds of pale malt
the pH is going to be too low and conversion efficiency will not be what
it was if the pH were maintained at a more proper level. On the other
hand, maximum conversion is not the reason people do partial mashes. It
is flavor extraction. There certainly isn't much sugar in the high
kilned malts anyway. If the maxiumum amount of sugar is wanted a brewer
could,  as Keith suggested, do the pale and colored malts separately or,
as some folk do, add the black malts at the very end of the mash.

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

Tom Barnett asks whether he should get involved with water treatment
"..will it significantly improve my beers, or simply make things more
complicated?" The answer is "yes". As many of you know I have studied
this question to the point of absurdity over the years and have
concluded
1. Most homebrewers don't have much  knowledge about the whys and
wherefores of brewing water chemistry.
2. Most small scale commercial brewers don't seem to either.
3. Neither really has to.

Both know that hard water is good for some beers and that soft water is
required for others. Most know that water can be softened by boiling it
or adding lime and hardened by adding gypsum and calcium chloride. Most
know that gypsum accentuates hops and calcium chloride body. Armed with
this knowledge I believe that a brewer can improve his beers by tweaking
water parameters in the same way he tweaks hopping rates, percentages of
patent malt etc. This is what the small commercial breweries appear to
do. I've heard them say things like "We started adding some calcium
chloride to see if it would improve the body of Old Overshoe."
Commercial operations have an advantage in that they typically brew only
a handful of types of beer and they brew them over and over again so
that small incremental changes can be made and evaluated. There is no
reason why home brewers can't procede the same way. It will just take
them longer to get there. Understanding the fundamentals is, of course,
a help. I believe the fundamentals consist in understanding:

1. The flavor effects of chloride
2. The flavor effects of sulfate
3. The relationship between alkalinity, hardness and mash pH.

The particulars of Tom's water: Calcium 11.8 mg/l, Sodium   2.1 mg/l,
Magnesium 2.0 mg/l, Alkal. (as CaCO3) 24.0, Hardness 37, Sulfate 16.13,
Chloride 6.7, pH 7.8 are such that he can brew lagers with out needing
to do anything i.e. this water is soft. Ales on the other hand will
probably benefit from some gypsum for hops amplification and/or calcium
chloride for body. Dark ales may require some carbonate to offset the
acids of the dark malts used.

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

Mike asks about a red iodine indication. This is from the presence of
dextrines and indicates that while starch lysis is extensive many of the
fragments are larger than triose. Thus it is a desireable indication if
one is attempting a dextrinous (full bodied, sweet)  and an undesireable
one if maximum maltose (dry, highly alcoholic) beer is sought.





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Date: Mon, 15 Mar 1999 12:27:12 -0700
From: Paul Gatza <paulg at aob.org>
Subject: What the AHA is for

Dan Cole asked:
<Can someone remind me what the AHA is for?

Hi Dan. Here is our mission:  "To promote the public awareness and
appreciation of the quality and variety of beer through education,
research and the collection and dissemination of information; to serve
as a forum for the cross-cultural aspects of the art of brewing; and to
encourage responsible use of beer as an alcohol-containing beverage."

I responded to Steven Mallory's editorial privately, pointing out my
concerns about the Homebrew Publicity Campaign. Steven replied to me
about participating in the campaign, and I am considering using up to
$1500 of member funds for this effort. Steven has allayed some of my
concerns regarding the program.  

One example of how we are promoting homebrewing is the AHA on the Road
Tour, the first leg of which generated dozens of newspaper articles and
several tv reports, which was directly aimed at getting potential
brewers involved. Another is a featured piece we worked on for a recent
Sunday paper with a 300,000 circulation. Our events such as the AHA
Conference and the NHC and Big Brew also bring attention to homebrewing,
but not as much as they could. We are anticipating that the scheduled
website redesign of beertown.org will also make the hobby more
accessible. Zymurgy and techtalk help people keep their enthusiasm and
help them brew better beer.

Regarding the AHA assiting in legalization in a minor way. I am working
to help members who want participate in a transition to making this a
grassroots association. The AHA is not out to push legalization on
states, we are here to assist homebrewers in those states wanting to
make that change happen. In Idaho, the person there had her campaign
quite together and a handful of e-mails between us led to our contacting
other Idaho AHA members. In Iowa, I was asked for more help with the
language of the bill. In Maine, I have been told that the AHA is not
needed and a legislative change is not sought, and I have repected that
request. I take the strategy that a background support role is most
appropriate for the AHA on the legalization issue. 

You have strong enough feelings about the AHA and/or the hobby of
homebrewing to post on the HBD about it. Although the title of your post
does not want "to awaken the AHA thread again..." I'd like to ask you or
anyone with an opinion to respond to me (privately is fine, for AHA
members I encourage you to use the TalkBack forum), as I find that some
of our critics have great ideas and interesting visions for our hobby.
In your opinion, how can the AHA become a better national homebrewers
association? (Please assume that answers using the word "defunct" are
not helpful for me.) If you have thoughts on that or other issues
affecting the homebrewing community now and future, I'd be interested to
hear them.
- -- 
Paul Gatza
Director
American Homebrewers Association	(303) 447-0816 x 122
736 Pearl Street			(303) 447-2825 -- FAX
PO Box 1679				paulg at aob.org -- E-MAIL
Boulder, CO 80306-1679			info at aob.org -- AOB INFO
U.S.A.					http://www.beertown.org -- WEB


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Date: Mon, 15 Mar 1999 11:49:51 -0800 (PST)
From: Tim Anderson <timator at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Fred Garvin Seminars

I found Eric Fouch's post regarding the "fist round for the American
Homebrewers Association National Homebrew Competition" to be in very
poor taste.  And very funny!  Thanks, Eric, you made my day.

tim


==
Please ignore the advertisement below.  Thank you.

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



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Date: Mon, 15 Mar 1999 14:56:47 -0500
From: "Marc Sedam" <marc_sedam at unc.edu>
Subject: backdoor dealings, con't.

Pat (and my sincere apologies to Dan, who's a HB store owner!),

You're missing the point.  Of course, every homebrew shop wants 100% market
share.  Who wouldn't?  I was making the assumption that the brewery isn't
going to sell you grains at cost--no one is that fiscally bereft.  It's not
like you're likely to buy a ton of their beer.  If you homebrew and need to
buy hundreds of pounds of grain, you have your own product to consume.  What
I am suggesting is that if you have to give SOMEONE a profit, why not
support the local store?  Now let's get down to the nitty gritty.

I'll play devil's advocate and ask why *should* you buy from a store?  Will
the local brewery supply you with hops?  Maybe...but you may only get
two-four options.  Will they provide you with yeast?  Maybe, but you'll
likely only have one option there as well, and THAT will probably be 1056.
How about specialty grains?  I doubt anyone buys 55lb sacks of Special B.
So, you're heading out to the local brewery to pick up your pale malt.  So
what?  Let's further assume that the profit margin on a sack of grain for a
homebrew shop is 30% (a fair estimate...some higher, some lower).  The grain
costs $25/sack and is sold at $32.50.  That's a loss of $12.50/sack for each
sack not bought at the local shop, assuming both a constant rate of grain
sales in any given shop and a reasonable purchase rate from the grain
supplier.  If the amount purchased goes down, bulk rate is lost and the
wholesale price goes up.  Let's also assume that the average bear DOESN'T
buy grain by the sack, but by the pound (5, 10, 20lbs, whatever).  The
result of losing volume to the backdoor deal means the average price per
sack goes up which means the price for smaller quantities goes up effecting
a much larger percentage of brewers.

Maybe the cost of grain is already at the maximum your market will bear.
So, in order to meet the minimum monthly profits required to keep a small
business in existence you have to bump the price of other products up a
little.  Hops go up 10 cents an ounce.  Carboys are up a couple of bucks.
Yeast goes up a buck.  Suddenly you're effecting a MUCH larger clientele.
Maybe they're dedicated and willing to put up with the increases and maybe
they're not.  Eventually you hit a point where the prices you have to charge
to stay open and live above the poverty line are no longer economically
feasible.  The shop closes and homebrewing suffers.  Some will never pick up
the hobby again.  Others will have to travel or pay shipping costs or other
expenses which previously didn't exist, making the hobby even more expensive
and leading to further attrition.  One grain leads to a silo of problems.
OK, basic capitalism and economics state that competition depresses prices.
This much is true.  That's why Home Depot and Lowes have crowded out local
hardware stores.  CVS crushed the local pharmacies, and single-owner grocery
stores barely exist.

Competition is more than just price.  It's service, reliability, and
customer satisfaction.  Try to find those at the local brewery.  I'm sure
they're nice, but I've heard plenty of micros in several states bitch about
the number of petulant homebrewers who complain when they can't stop a
production process to fill up their Ball jar with fresh yeast.  Pro brewers
are as nice as the next guy, but their job is to commercially produce
beer--not serve as your homebrew store.  Just like a restaurant provides a
service and isn't just a place to cook food.  People call the HBD a great
homebrewing club, but serving solely selfish interests like bulk grain
buying winds up limiting products and overall choice.

If your boss told you that they could easily fill your role with a temp and
not pay benefits, you'd be out the door like a hot potato.  Why don't they?
Because loyalty, in its many forms, has a benefit that far outweighs the
cost.  Be loyal to your local establishment and think about its benefit to
the overall homebrewing community.  Otherwise we'll all be back to Pabst
Hopped Malt Extract as the only choice around.  Remember, it's good to be
passionate and emotional about brewing.  If homebrewers were interested in a
homogenized economy where everyone got everything as cheap as possible, we'd
all be drinking MGD Light or Milwaukee's Best.  It's not like (even with
bulk buying) you could EVER make beer as cheap as the big boys.  If you want
cheap beer, drink swill.  If you want to be able to create product of
unparalleled depth and creativity, homebrew.

Thanks for putting up with my diatribe.

Cheers!
Marc

Marc Sedam
Chapel Hill, NC



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Date: Mon, 15 Mar 1999 15:37:37 -0500
From: Dan Listermann <72723.1707 at compuserve.com>
Subject: Decline of Homebrewing

Wayne  of Big Fun Brewing  ( WayneM38 at aol.com)         writes:

<With our hobby, as one gets better and after one moves to all grain, the

investment in materials and expense actually drops!!  >

This is true, it would be absolute folly to try to discourage someone 
from
advancement.  I have to look at it this way.  The guys who advance to
all-grain brewing are your long term customers.  They will be around for
years.  To them it is not just a passing fancy.  Further these guys are
your evangelists.   They are out there talking up the hobby to the
unwashed.  They should be nurtured, never discouraged.

When I took up homebrewing again, it was difficult to find interesting,
inexpensive and most of all, fresh beers in the States.  The micro brew
revolution has changed all this.  It is now possible to find very
interesting, inexpensive and, if you are carefull where you buy it, fresh

beers.  Here is another irony.  Most of the brewers at the micros are
former home brewers or were trained by former homebrewers.  The 
homebrewing
industry trained the people who are displacing some of the demand for 
their
products.  Again this could not be avoided or discouraged.  


I believe that our market will decline to those who really enjoy the
process of making beer.  I am not so sure that this is so bad.  Like I 
said
before, I really like these people!

Dan Listermann            dan at listermann.com           or         

72723.1707 at compuserve.com

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Date: Mon, 15 Mar 1999 12:42:52 -0800 (PST)
From: Alan Edwards <ale at cisco.com>
Subject: Where to get 6oz bottles for barleywine

Thomas Murray asks:
| 
| quoting someone else?:
| > "Does anyone know of a source for 6oz bottles.  It's about time to
| > bottle my barleywine.  Thanks for the help."
|  
| It's the perennial barley wine bottle question.  I know that there are
| small beer bottles manufactured in the US, I bet someone could make a
| decent amount of money selling them to desperate home brewers (I'll
| take a few cases).  I understand that a manufacturer would probably
| require a large purchase of bottles, but couldn't the larger mail order
| home-brew suppliers (or the wholesalers that supply them) deal with
| that?

If some kind store owner would do that, it would be great!

However, it is quite rewarding to collect these yourself!  I've been
spending the last year or so collecting these bottles for my barleywine
batch (which takes almost a year to age properly anyway) by making an
extra effort to buy and drink Old Foghorn (twist my arm!), which is the
best malt beverage in the history of humanity...of all time...of all
space!!  (in my not-so-humble opinion ;-).

I'm not sure how available it is outside the Bay Area.  I'd try looking
in a large-wherehouse type liquor store.  We used to have these places
called Liquor Barn, then they went out of business.  Now we have "Beverages
and More" in the Bay Area.  You might call Anchor Brewing to find
out where it is distributed in your area.

 -Alan in Fremont, CA


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Date: Mon, 15 Mar 1999 15:57:50 -0500
From: "Robert C. McDonald" <Bob.McDonald at abanet.org>
Subject: Food processing grain

Greetings
I've been an extract brewer for about 6 years, and apropos the recent 
thread on homebrew shops (thanks, Pat, I couldn't have written it better 
myself), I'd like to get away from the high prices, inconvenience and 
pompous attitude of my (barely) local homebrew shop, and order grains for 
steeping and partial mashes in bulk (5-10 lbs).  Since my homebrew shop 
usually mills the stuff for me, milling my own grains hasn't been an issue. 
 Not wanting to invest in a mill for this purpose, methinks why not use a 
foodprocessor to grind small amounts of grain -- say 1/2 lb at a time? 
  Anyone try it?  Results?  Flames for disrespecting my pseudo-monopoly 
semi-local homebrew shop?  TIA for any input.
Bob McDonald
Washington D.C.



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---