---

	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:
  Champagne Advice? (Michael Knauf)
  Brewpubs?!? in Greensboro, NC ("Brett A. Spivy")
  hardware notes (stencil)
  Re: typos (David Lamotte)
  re: typos (feldman)
  Berliner Weisse ("Eric R. Theiner")
  Wacky Thermometers ("John Robinson")
  swan necks ("Dana H. Edgell")
  easy summer ale recipe ("Curt Speaker")
  Re: typos (Tim Anderson)
  Fermentability of Sugars (Dave Burley)
  Cutting kegs (Rick Lassabe)
  yeastcakes to avoid. ("Stephen Alexander")
  ph of yeast starter (mike rose)


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

* 2000 MCAB Qualifier: Buzz-Off! Competition 6/26/99 
* (http://www.voicenet.com/~rpmattie/buzzoff)

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----------------------------------------------------------------------


Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1999 07:48:05 -0500
From: wolfman2 at gate.net (Michael Knauf)
Subject: Champagne Advice?


I've got what seems to be a very nice mango wine in the secondary, and am
considering doing the sparkling wine/champagne thing for the first time,
anybody got any pointers?

Michael

Michael Knauf
305-446-8453




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Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1999 07:48:48 -0500
From: "Brett A. Spivy" <baspivy at softdisk.com>
Subject: Brewpubs?!? in Greensboro, NC

I will be traveling to Greensboro, NC Saturday afternoon.  Can anyone
make reccomendations on pubs, brewpubs, great beerjoints, rest.,
homebrew shops, etc.

You can respond to my email if you like and I will digest with reviews
after the trip.

Thanx . . .
Brett A. Spivy



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Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1999 13:04:23 GMT
From: stencil at bcn.net (stencil)
Subject: hardware notes

I don't submit my beer for judging, so using any of these gadgets is
no assurance of improved product - just reduced labor and/or hassle.

I mash in a paper-thin stainless steel 20-qt stock pot ($18 at Ames
variety store.)  A plastic 1/2-in bulkhead fitting is let into the
side, right above the turn of the bottom.  An 11-in  piece of 1/2-in
PVC pipe and two PVC elbows are wedged inside.  The elbows permit the
pipe to lie flush on the bottom of the pot.  The pipe has been
bandsawed with a zillion parallel cuts, just deep enough to penetrate
the wall - the openings are maybe 1/16-in square.  The pipe is wrapped
with a piece of aluminum insect screen giving at least a double
thickness, secured with a couple of nylon tyraps, and capped with a
copper sweat-type cap.  Every now and then the elbow that lies hard
against the bottom shows signs of scorching.  Everything gets thrown
out and rebuilt every dozen batches or so - say, annually.  I've never
seen any sign of galvanic corrosion,  but a lot of husk ends up
embedded in the mesh.

Two flat 8-in square red rubber heating pads (American Science &
Surplus, $3.75) are secured to the outside of the pot with
cotton-webbing uniform belts.  They run on 115vac, and can cause
localized boiling of the mash in their vicinity (p-poor s/s heat
transfer) if  run for more than ca. 30 minutes. Guessing, they draw
5~6 amps each.  
The whole pot gets wrapped in what looks like a cervical collar, made 
of the legs from a pair of old dungarees, sewn end-to-end and stuffed 
with the polyfoam (not styrofoam) batts computer boards are shipped
in.

The heating pads are needed only only in deep winter, when cellar
brewhouse air temps approach 45-50F;  direct-heat steps are by way of
a propane range burner (hazard perceived, considered, tolerated.)  The
mash is constantly agitated by a bandsawed maple propellor, 10-in
diameter, 2-in blade width, driven through a dowel shaft by a
variable-speed  3/8-in hand drill clamped in a plywood bracket that
sits atop the pot lid.  The lid is from a plastic ferm bucket, makes a
plug fit to the stockpot, and supports a 1-in layer of styrofoam.

Boil is in a 10-gal stockpot, side drained through a 1/2-in brass
globe valve, and usually using a s/s false bottom.  This is fired on 
a Cajun ramjet that eats a pound of propane an hour.

Fermentation is in 6-1/2 gal plastic buckets that have a plastic
bulkhead fitting let into the center of the bottom.  A thread-to-barb
elbow makes up to a length of 5/8-in tubing long enough to extend up
the side to the bucket's rim where it's secured with duct tape.  The
bitter end is protected by aluminum foil until it's time to rack to
secondary (Wohrle's, the local meat packer, has a retail store where
they sell dispenser boxes of 10-in squares of foil for the deli trade.
Fine stuff.)  Sturdy-enough wooden legs, secured with duct tape, keep
the plumbing off the deck.
A layer of "florist marbles," flat glass pellets from American
Sci&Surp, and a stainless steel scrubby, hold back virtually all the
solids when racking. A quart of marbles displaces a pint of liquid.

Lagering is in carboys and the beer is drawn from them by "assisted
siphoning," racking cane thrust through a two-hole stopper,
pressurization from a miniature aquarium pump, ca. 1/2~1 psi. (Hazard
perceived, etc: this is not enough to force the stopper out.)

This _batterie_ has been stable for about two years now.  Some day
when I get too feeble to snatch 50-pound buckets up onto the
counter I'll build a pumpless RIMS with a resistance-heated 
recirc tube.  
Till then I'll keep the faith:  I believe I'll have another beer.

stencil sends



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Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1999 23:09:58 +1000
From: David Lamotte <lamotted at ozemail.com.au>
Subject: Re: typos

While I enjoyed Tim's post greatly ....

He who Lives by the sword Dies by the sword..

>tim
>(Who lives in Portland Oregon and now feels morally 
> obligated to by an Easy Masher.)

To BY an EasyMasher ... BY ....... surely you mean BUY !

Sorry  couldn't help myself.

David Lamotte

Brewing Down Under in Newcastle, N.S.W. Australia



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Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1999 09:34:46 -0400
From: feldman at lexmark.com
Subject: re: typos

I found it odd that when Tim Anderson picked on Jack and Jeff for their spelling
mistakes he ended his post with:

>tim
>(Who lives in Portland Oregon and now feels morally obligated to by an
>Easy Masher.)

I think I will also by an Easy Masher, or maybe I'll go ahead and BUY one.......

Bobby Feldman
B.O.C.K. Member
Brewers of Central Kentucky

Not even your beloved spell-checker can save you now!!!!!!! :-)




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Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1999 09:48:42 -0700
From: "Eric R. Theiner" <logic at skantech.com>
Subject: Berliner Weisse

I'm interested in brewing a Berliner Weisse.  Anyone have some ideas on
where to find a lactobacillus delbrucki culture (if that's the right
one).  Step by steps on what to pitch and how would be greatly
appreciated.

Rick Theiner



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Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1999 11:31:33 -0300
From: "John Robinson" <robinson at novalistech.com>
Subject: Wacky Thermometers

Hi all,

I've got an interesting experience to relate.  I've got an alcohol 
thermometer (red line for temp) that is of the long thin lab style.  It 
is not a total immersion one, in fact it only requires about 73mm or 
some such thing for an accurate reading.  I've been using this 
thermometer quite satisfactorily over the last year, and have 
correlated its readings with other thermometers.

All was well until this last weekend.  My first clue was when boiling 
wort read 220F!  Later, a sample drawn off for an SG check read 
120F!  A subsequent check with another thermometer revealed a 
wort temp of 80 (still higher than I like, but water temps have been 
quite warm here lately).

There are no obvious cracks, nor did this device suffer any trauma 
that I am aware of.  It just started reading strangely.  Any 
suggestions (beyond the obvious of buying another one!).  Any idea 
what may have caused this?

- ---
John Robinson              "The most basic rule of survival in any situation is:
Technical Architect         Never look like food." - Park Ranger. 
NovaLIS Technologies       
robinson at novalistech.com    
                           


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Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1999 09:52:52 -0700
From: "Dana H. Edgell" <edgell at far-tech.com>
Subject: swan necks


Mark Sedam copied from Gillian Grafton...

>Beer Engine
>     This is the correct term for the device commonly seen in British
>pubs which pumps beer from the cask to
>     the bar. Also known as a handpump or beer pump.
>
>     It can't be emphasized enough that you should use the correct beer
>engine for the style of beer. Beer
>     engines have two styles of neck, the swan neck and standard neck.
>Swan necks do untold damage to
>     beers with a flowery hoppy aroma knocking the aroma out of the
>beer. The second feature which affects
>     the beer is the sparkler. Sparklers force the beer through many
>small orifices producing a tight frothy head
>     on the beer. Northern style beers (eg Tetley) should be dispensed
>through beer engines with a swan neck
>     using a sparkler and produce an excellent pint that way. Southern
>style beers (eg Fuller's London Pride)
>     should NOT be dispensed via a swan neck and certainly not through a
>sparkler. The result of this is of
>     course, that Southern beers are not served with a head. Southern
>beers served in the northern manner are
>     lifeless travesties of beers, whilst served in the proper manner
>they are a revelation, a wholly different beer.
>     So the moral is get the beer engine appropriate to the style of
>beer you have brewed.

I can see a sparkler releasing most of the aromatics in a beer at once but
how can a beer be subject to "untold damage" by just a swan neck. Wouldn't
it act simply like a tube similar to the beer lines? If anything I would
have assumed that a swan neck would preserve aromatics as the beer can be
slowly dispensed right at the bottom of the glass.

Dana

- --------------------------------------------------------------
Dana Edgell              mailto:edgell at cari.net
2939 Cowley Way #G       http://www.quantum-net.com/edge_ale
San Diego, CA 92117      (619) 276-7644




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Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1999 14:34:09 +0500
From: "Curt Speaker" <SPEAKER at SAFETY-1.SAFETY.PSU.EDU>
Subject: easy summer ale recipe

If anyone is looking for a quick and easy "lawnmower beer" recipe, 
I am pretty pleased with one that I whipped up:

Spring/Summer Wheat Ale
********************************
6# 2-row pale malt
6# wheat malt
0.5# munich malt
0.75 oz. Fuggles (full boil)
0.5 oz. Fuggles (30 min)
1 t. irish moss

Wyeast #1056 or similar clean ale yeast
single step infusion mash, conversion at ~153F - 90 minutes
S.G. - 1.044 (YMMV)
F.G. - 1.006 (ditto)

A nice clean, quaffable beer for the warm summer months.
Cheers!

Curt


Curt Speaker                         
Biosafety Officer 
Penn State University                
Environmental Health and Safety    
speaker at ehs.psu.edu                   
http://www.ehs.psu.edu
^...^
(O_O)
=(Y)=
 """


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Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1999 12:03:16 -0700 (PDT)
From: Tim Anderson <timator at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: typos

At the very end of a post poking fun at the spelling errors of others,
tim (yours truly) wrote the following:

>>>
tim
(Who lives in Portland Oregon and now feels morally obligated to by an
Easy Masher.)
<<<

This is the REAL reason not to pick on spelling, grammar, etc.  I'd
love to claim I did it on purpose, but I could never forging myself.

tin
(Just kidding.)

_________________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Get your free  at yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com



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Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1999 17:45:22 -0400
From: Dave Burley <Dave_Burley at compuserve.com>
Subject: Fermentability of Sugars

Brewsters:

I found this table in M&BS in the Beer Quality
section and thought it might shed some light
on what yeast can and cannot ferment and
what oligosaccharides remain in some beers
and not others. What you will find on
examination of these *commercial* beers
analyses is that certain yeasts ( lager)
can ferment maltotetraoses and some cannot
( ale) *if* the category of the beer
corresponds to the type of yeast used.

I will copy part of  the text section devoted
to the subject, since it is necesssary to
understand the table, especially how
fermented beers can have glucose in them.
It is because they have been primed.

Note that this table and comments deal
with commercial beers. Filtration, chilling
and the like can alter these percentages
of higher oligosaccharides which
participate in the "secondary" fermentation
and disappear slowly.The brewer can
allow sugar to remain  in the beer if he
so chooses (part of the style)
by terminating the fermentation by chilling
and or filtration.  HBers can
potentially have lower levels of these,
perhaps, since we tend to allow
fermentations to go longer than is feasible
commercially ( or at least I do).  


Unfortunately, the format of the HBD in
 which line length is limited will make
the table clumsy and I suggest you
print it out and piece it together.

M&BS (1971-77) p611 1st edition:

"CARBOHYDRATES

Of the carbohydrates present in wort,
glucose,fructose,sucrose,maltose and
maltotriose will normally be fermented.
Unattenuating yeast strains will not
ferment maltotriose and the
superattenuating strains will partly
ferment maltotetraose, but in general
beer will contain low levels of sugars
other than those added as primings
( Table 22.5)  Nevertheless trace
amounts of many sugars have been
characterized. [and a list of sugars
and comments follows that does not
relate to this subject - DRB]

Representative analyses of the
carbohydrates in beer are given in
Table 22.5  [What follows is a
discussion of the analytical techniques
employed all of them separation
techiques not chemical analyses - DRB]

As mentioned earlier the residual
carbohydrates in beer account for
its sweetness. The relative sweetness
of various beer constituents is given
in Table 22.7 [what follows is a
comment on sweetness and artificial
sweetners]"

[DRB -Note the use of the term SG
in the following table and not FG,
since I assume these measurements
were made on commercial beers,
not the end of the fermentation in
which the term FG would be appropriate.]

"Table 22.5     

Sugar content of commercial beers
                        Sugar as w/v%
Type    OG      SG      Fructose        Glucose
1.Pale Ale      1050    1011    nil     0.06    

2.Brn Ale       

(primed)        1032    1012    1.0     1.0
3.Stout
(primed)        1033    1013    0.53    0.61
4.Sweet
 Stout
 (primed)       1045    1022    0.6     1.2                     

5.Pale Ale      1068    1019    0.01    0.01
6.Strong
    Ale 1085    1026    trace   trace
7.Lager 1032    1007    nil     trace
8. Lager
     Export     1045    1008    nil     nil
9. Stout
conditiond      1044    1008    nil     nil
10 Ale  1038    1002    trace   0.8
11Lager 1040    1003    trace   0.8
12 Lager        1046    1003    nil     trace
13 Lager        1045    1004    nil     0.27
14 Lager        1052    1011    trace   0.15
15 Lager        1045    1008    nil     nil

[To save space, I left out the "Sucrose" column
which was "nil" for all except the three primed
beers for which it was "trace" amounts. - DRB]

Second section
        Sugar as a %(w/v) of sample
Type    Maltose Malto-  Malto-  Total   

        (hydrate)       Triose  tetraose
1.Pale Ale      0.54    0.28    0.04    0.92
2.Brn Ale
 (primed)       trace   0.2     0.4     2.6
3.Stout
 (primed)       trace   0.08    0.06    1.28
4.Sweet
  Stout
(primed)        trace   0.6     0.3     3.6*
5.Pale Ale      0.7     1.7     0.4     2.9
6.Strong
   Ale  0.16    0.21    0.12    0.49
7.Lager trace   trace   trace   trace
8.Lager
    Export      trace   0.28    0.18    0.46
9.Stout
(conditnd) nil  trace   nil     trace
10Ale   nil     trace   trace   0.8
11Lager nil     nil     nil     0.67
12 Lager        trace   trace   trace   trace
13 Lager        0.17    0.24    0.09    0.77
14Lager 0.13    0.16    0.14    0.58
15Lager 0.25    0.33    0.20    0.78

* also contained lactose(hydrate) 0.9%" 


What does all this mean?

Lager yeasts do in fact remove all the
oligosaccharides ( including malto-triose and
malto-tetraose) if given a chance ( see numbers
7, 11 and 12).  I would interpret numbers for
Lagers 8, 13, 14 ,15 as either an ale yeast was
used  ( this was (is?) a not uncommon practice
in the UK) or the fermentation was terminated
after the primary fermentation by chilling and
filtering. This is a common brewery practice
today, as you know, especially with the
0.45 micron filters being used.

Numbers 13, 14, 15 look like even the primary
fermentation was terminated, since maltose
remains. Sweet lagers like Hamms and such
*perhaps* have these kinds of numbers,
I don't know, but suspect the remaining
maltose is there as a style of this type of lager.
Point is, the commercial brewer does not
have to totally finsh a beer to dryness. 


Both Pale Ales ( 1 and 5) have remaining
maltose, yet all the other simple sugars
have beeen fermented out.

Number 9 a conditioned stout has no 

remaining sugars (trace) is it possible
a lager yeast was used in the bottle?

The Primed Ales (2,3,4) all appear to have
been fermented to "trace maltose" but
brewer's sugar or invert sugar added
( 1-2%) as a priming to sweeten them.
In the case of the sweet stout, lactose was
also added. All of these show that
malto-triose and malto-tetraose remain as 

in all the other ales except the conditioned
stout. 


What does this mean? Commercial ales are
not always fermented to dryness. Sugar(s)
is added after the fermentation in some styles.
Given time, lager yeasts *can* totally remove
all of the oligosaccharides including malto-triose
and malto-tetraose, nevertheless,
commercial lager brewers do not always
allow the beer to ferment to dryness.

Keep on Brewin'

Dave Burley                             


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Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1999 21:04:48 -0500
From: Rick Lassabe <bayrat at worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Cutting kegs

Having used a circular saw for a great number of years, and used them to
do many task that they are not intended to be used for, I think I am
qualified to say that there is a lot of difference between cutting off
the top of a keg and cutting out the top of a keg. I have cut kegs with
nothing more than just a hack saw with a little oil applied while
cutting, again this is cutting off. I have used reciprocating saws,
saber saws and  a die grinder  to cut out the top of kegs, but I just
don't think I would like to tackle cutting out the top with an eight
inch circular saw. Now I am not saying it can't be done; just that a
circular saw would work fine to cut a keg in half, but a dremel would be
much easier and surely safer to cut out the top!
Rick Lassabe
Bayou Degradable Brewery



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Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1999 22:37:40 -0400
From: "Stephen Alexander" <steve-alexander at worldnet.att.net>
Subject: yeastcakes to avoid.

> I just tried re-using the yeast cake [...]
>I was somewhat surprised as to the relatively long lag time
 ...
>Wyeast 1098 (19 days old) from the secondary of a 1.084 batch of Old
>Took Barleywine, with a very thick yeast cake.

Check that OG.  You shouldn't really be reusing yeast after such an
abusively high OG.  They may not grow normally at all, and the viability is
likely to be low.  If you really want to reuse such a yeast you'll need to
regrow it w/ some normal/low gravity starter for a generation or more and
also separate out some of the dead cells.

>I'm just trying to understand this.  Was the lag due to (1) the yeast
>being in food deprivation dormancy, (2) sluggish due to the high alcohol
>content of the Barleywine, (3) shocked because of the gravity
>differential of the two batches, or (4) all the above?

The very high osmotic pressure on the yeast in barleywine creates metabolic
changes that does not favor normal growth.  Also yeast *may* experience
"excretion shock" when the environment is rapidly changed.

 -S




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Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1999 20:07:42 -0700
From: mike rose <mrose at ucr.campuscw.net>
Subject: ph of yeast starter

    I'm very meticulous about checking the ph of
the sparge, mash and wort, but while making a
yeast starter I realized that I don't check
the ph of my starters. Is the ph of the starter
important and if so what is the correct ph
for optimum yeast growth.
( I would assume that's its 5.2 but might
as well check since the queue is so short)

        Thanks,  Mike Rose  mrose at ucr.campuscw.net

Since Jeff is gone for a week I'm going to
wild and not put my home city.
Lets hope he doesn't check the archives :^)




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---