HOMEBREW Digest #2990 Mon 29 March 1999

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	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:
  Reference beers (ThomasM923)
  MI Beer Bars (Ted McIrvine)
  Homebrew Judging - why? (Ted McIrvine)
  Re: diacetyl (Jeff Renner)
  homebrew competitions (Randy Ricchi)
  Re: Home Growing (Roots now available) (RALPHBACON)
  big brew 99  milk stout (JPullum127)
  Re: one tier rims (dolmans)
  soapy taste ("dan cutcher")
  =?iso-8859-1?Q?That_=A2_symbol?= ("John Griswold")
  Guinness/real ale type taps ("Michael Maag")
  wheat lager (AKGOURMET)

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---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 27 Mar 1999 03:42:44 EST From: ThomasM923 at aol.com Subject: Reference beers In hbd #2989 Wade Hutchison asked: "Now theres a good question - is there a guide somewhere that lists what flavors can be found in some commercial beers? I don't really know what Diacetyl tastes like, so is there a reference beer that I can find to get an idea of the flavor without going to a beer doping kit? What would be a good example of diacetyl...?" This is a question that I've been meaning to ask for some time. I have never noticed a "buttery" flavor in any beer that I've brewed or tasted. Either I have a limited ability to notice this kind of defect or perhaps the description is lacking. Can anyone think of a few commercial examples that have a distinct diacetyl character? Or a better way to describe the odor/taste? I will try Pilsner Urquel again, however it is usually so stale by the time it reaches our shores, the diacetyl may be masked by other defects. Thomas Murray Maplewood, NJ Return to table of contents
Date: Sat, 27 Mar 1999 09:24:18 -0800 From: Ted McIrvine <McIrvine at ix.netcom.com> Subject: MI Beer Bars I'm answering on the list because I hope that the Michiganians will chime in with their favorite places that I've missed. Pearl and I often cover this ground when we go on vacation. You've got my two favorite breweries on your path: Bell's Kalamazoo Brewery in Kalamazoo MI and Great Lakes Brewing in Cleveland. Don't miss the Vienna lager at Great Lakes Brewing, it is exceptionally good. And try to go to Bell's brewery rather than getting it in the stores, because Larry will have things on tap that aren't commercially-available. He often makes an "eccentric" beer such as Coffee Stout or Cherry Larry. Many years ago in Traverse City I had an intensely-hoppy local micro called Manitoulin. I haven't seen it in recent years, but it was delicious. There is also a brewpub near Boyne City that was pretty good. Ann Arbor features a pair of good beer bars; Ashley's and Redhawk, just west of Campus. Redhawk often has a cask ale such as Fullers. And many places have Bell's on tap throughout Michigan. I didn't find any brewpubs in the UP other than one in the southwest corner. Does anyone know of any? We loved the UP and are going back this summer. Cheers Ted > From: "Matthew Hahn" <mchahn at earthlink.net> > Subject: MI Beer Bars > > I will be vacationing in St. Ignace, MI, on the lower part of the Upper > Peninsula (near Mackinac Island) this summer. Any good beer bars/brewpubs in > the area, or between there and Cleveland that anyone could recommend? TIA. - -- McIrvine at Ix.Netcom.Com College of Staten Island/CUNY http://www.csi.cuny.edu/academia/programs/mus.html http://www.csi.cuny.edu/arts/calendar.html Return to table of contents
Date: Sat, 27 Mar 1999 09:40:37 -0800 From: Ted McIrvine <McIrvine at ix.netcom.com> Subject: Homebrew Judging - why? Fred raises some more interesting points. Some of the issues that I raised apply more to the administration of the BJCP test --- and I suspect that I'll take the test sometime when George Di Piro offers it - --- and the AHA beer style descriptions, which get worse and worse as I learn more. Partly because the judging varies so much, I don't enter every contest that I can enter. The judging in the Homebrewers of Staten Island-sponsored New York City Regional is pretty good ever since they got rid of the guy who complained about a few yeast flecks that flocculated on the bottom of the bottle. Unfortunately HOSI members don't spend as much time drinking homebrew as some other clubs (such Foam-Blowers of Indianapolis and The St. Gambrinus Benevolence Society in Bloomington). Personally I think that a homebrew club with active brewers is the best way of getting feedback, and we've had some wonderful afternoons discussing beer when bottling for competitions. I enter homebrewing contests pretty much for the same reason that I occasionally take a trumpet lesson from a famous trumpet player: to get constructive feedback on what I'm doing. (OK, one is a hobby, the other is a profession, but I want to do both well.) There are people who try to make the same beer the same way over and over again. That doesn't sound like much fun to me; I'm still fascinated with the "what if?" aspects of brewing. Cheers Ted > From: MaltHound at aol.com > Subject: Homebrew Judging - why? > > So I ask the wise and experienced collective: > > What would make you enter into competitions fully knowing the limitations that > exist? > What makes those brewers that have multiple ribbons on their brewery walls > continue to enter? > Why do so many homebrewers in general feel the need to compete? > > Fred Wills - -- McIrvine at Ix.Netcom.Com College of Staten Island/CUNY http://www.csi.cuny.edu/academia/programs/mus.html http://www.csi.cuny.edu/arts/calendar.html Return to table of contents
Date: Sat, 27 Mar 1999 09:26:28 -0500 From: Jeff Renner <nerenner at umich.edu> Subject: Re: diacetyl Wade Hutchison <whutchis at bucknell.edu> asks >I don't really know what >Diacetyl tastes like, so is there a reference beer that I can find to get >an idea of the flavor without going to a beer doping kit? What would >be a good example of diacytel? phenolic? Any other consistant flaw? As I mentioned in HBD, Shepherd Neame's Spitfire and Bishop's finger have diacetyl . It is a butterscotch or buttery flavor. As a matter of fact, diacetyl is used in artificial butter or butterscotch flavor, I understand. Some people are less sensitive to it than others. I'm not sure I can call it an actual flaw as I think it is intended or at least accepted as a part of the house style of some breweries. One of our local brewpubs, a Pugsly/RIngwood one, pumps fermenting wort over in a frothing fountain on the second (I think) day to oxygenate the wort and reinvigorate the yeast, which has heavy O2 demands. This results in difinite diacetyl in all their brews. In some this is merely a flavor component, in others, I find it distracting. It is not as high as the Shepherd Neame brews we get here. I don't think there are any commercial brews that are consistently flawed with phenols or other actual flaws, or at least no very widely distributed ones. Phenolic flavors are typically band-aid like, medicinal, iodine, burnt plastic (bakelite), or spicey (clovey). Weizenbier and many Belgian beers have some of these flavors as a part of their normal flavors. Our other local brewpub had a terrible and frustrating phenolic problem in many (most?) of its brews during its first six months or so, about three years ago. I think is was a stubborn contaminated piece of equipment. Fortunately, it has not been a problem since and their brews are excellent now. Jeff -=-=-=-=- Jeff Renner in Ann Arbor, Michigan c/o nerenner at umich.edu "One never knows, do one?" Fats Waller, American Musician, 1904-1943. Return to table of contents
Date: Sat, 27 Mar 1999 10:13:20 -0500 From: Randy Ricchi <rricchi at ccisd.k12.mi.us> Subject: homebrew competitions Fred Wills asked: "What makes those brewers that have multiple ribbons on their brewery walls continue to enter? Why do so many homebrewers in general feel the need to compete?" That's easy. Ego. Return to table of contents
Date: Sat, 27 Mar 1999 10:15:00 EST From: RALPHBACON at aol.com Subject: Re: Home Growing (Roots now available) Hop roots (rhizomes) are now available from Homebrew Heaven in Everett, WA. Cascade, Saaz, Willamette, Hallertauer, Chinook, Centennial, and Tettnanger varieties are available for $3 each. ph (800) 850-2739 or order from website: http://www.homebrewheaven.com (listed under "Fun Stuff") Return to table of contents
Date: Sat, 27 Mar 1999 11:35:15 EST From: JPullum127 at aol.com Subject: big brew 99 milk stout i see that in the recipe for the collaborator milk stout they include flaked barley and flaked oats . do these need to be mashed or can they just be steeped like choclate malt ect.? thanks Return to table of contents
Date: Sat, 27 Mar 1999 08:52:31 +0000 From: dolmans at mail.tss.net Subject: Re: one tier rims Having just read the foregoing I think that I will post this to the HBD list in order to get maximum coverage. To the HBD readers I wrote Bill after his post about a counter flow chiller (March 23rd) he had just recently built to go with his new RIMS, I had a question about pumps. This started me thinking, with Porter in hand, and here are some questions for all of you. Hi Bill Thanks for the info on MovingBrews. If you don't mind can I share some questions and concerns with you since you are currently completing a system and I am just starting? Any help or advice would be appreciated. What follows is part questions, part worrying (needlessly?), and part philosophy/justification. I am not really attempting to build a RIMS system as I understand it, no in-line heating element or re-circulating wort, rather a one tier brew set up with a burner under the converted keg to heat and maintain the mash. Perhaps I am making this more complex than it needs to be. I want one tier so that I can build a rolling, wheel barrow like base that can be stored in the basement (really can't set up in the flooded basement to brew during the winter) and rolled into the back yard on brew day without my making a million trips back and forth. I want one tier for stability given the hot liquids and grains. In order to reduce work and brew time i want to use pumps (guess I'm lazy ;). The only things holding me from proceeding further with this project is understanding pump mechanics and deciding on the most appropriate ones. My greatest concern is the pump between the mash/lauter tun and the boil kettle. Since I sparge at a trickle I worry about the pump being able to move very small quantities for an hour or slightly longer. It seems that most pumps require a several gallon per minute flow rate in order to not cavitate or to burn themselves out. I have considered the possibility of slowing the flow rate down behind the pump but that seems self defeating as it would hold the hot wort but the flow rate through the grain bed would be too fast to really make any extraction happen. Any thoughts on this? Or is it the case that once the pump is primed and the outlet behind it throttled down that the normal extraction and sparge flow rate will be established particularly if I recirculate the first 2 gallons of wort? Am i making this more complex than needs be and worrying too much? This worrying runs counter to my brewing philosophy but building a system like this is going to cost a fair bit of coin so i want to consider potential problems before they occur. One last question. I have found a fair number of websites but my Netscape program has fried on me, any that you know of I should visit and look at carefully? Rebuilding my bookmarks promises to be a tedious affair. Anyway thanks for reading this, hope to hear from you. Gerard Dolmans Dolmans at mail.tss.net Return to table of contents
Date: Sat, 27 Mar 1999 11:39:49 PST From: "dan cutcher" <dcutcher at hotmail.com> Subject: soapy taste Hi everyone, I am very new at this. I only have to batches under my belt....or should I say in my stomach. The first a strong stout and the second a brown ale. Both batches turned out pretty good...however they both had a filmy/soapy aftertaste. Does anyone have any suggestions? I would appreciate any help. Thanks, Dan Cutcher Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com Return to table of contents
Date: Sat, 27 Mar 1999 15:39:15 -0500 From: "John Griswold" <griswold at ma.ultranet.com> Subject: =?iso-8859-1?Q?That_=A2_symbol?= Bret writes: Date: Wed, 24 Mar 1999 11:24:51 -0500 From: "bret.morrow" <bret.morrow at cwix.com> Subject: buy a cheap mill! Greetings, With the many posts about mills and, independently, about efficiency, I thought I'd throw in my 2 cents (Hey, when did they take that "cents" symbol of my computer keyboard?). You can type Alt 0162 ;) Doesn't Mr. Gates believe in pennies? Return to table of contents
Date: Sat, 27 Mar 1999 16:58:39 -0500 From: "Michael Maag" <maagm at rica.net> Subject: Guinness/real ale type taps Is there a Guinness type tap, or a tap for a beer engine, or a sparkler tap that is designed to draw atmospheric nitrogen into the beer by a venturi tube or the like? If not, is there a style of tap that might be modified to do the job? I would like to dispense ale with CO2 and have the tap "suck" air (mostly nitrogen) into the beer stream. Any ideas? Cheers, Mike, In the Shenandoah Valley, VA. Return to table of contents
Date: Sat, 27 Mar 1999 18:41:14 EST From: AKGOURMET at aol.com Subject: wheat lager >From: "Mary Schramer" <maryschramer at excite.com> >Subject: wheat lager >anybody ever make a wit type brew using lager yeast? >if so what was the result and what strain did you use? >kevin F schramer I just tapped a wheat lager. Nothing special, just a good, light, drinkin' beer. Here's the recipe for 5 gallons: 2 cans (6.6 pounds total) Munton & Fison unhopped wheat extract (45/55 wheat/barley), 1/2 pound light dry malt 1 oz. whole Yakima Kent Goldings, 5% alpha, 60 minutes 1 oz. whole Yakima Kent Goldings, 5% alpha, 30 minutes 1 oz. Saaz pellets, 3.2%, 5 minutes. cooled with an immersion chiller to 50f. then racked onto the primary yeast cake of an all grain pilsner fermented with Wyeast 2007 Pilsen lager. Oxygenated with pure O2 for 2 minutes. OG 1.045 FG 1.012 Primary fermented at 50f. for 3.5 weeks and conditioned at about 40f. for another 3.5 weeks. Kegged and force carbonated to 2.6 volumes CO2. The result is a nice, clear, light amber colored beer with light to moderate bitterness. Very little, if any, wheat characteristic to it. In fact, if you didn't know it was made with 40% wheat, you probably couldn't tell. Bill Wright Juneau, AK Return to table of contents
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