---

	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:
  Let me hear you say CHEESES! ("Mercer, David")
  water loss during boil ("J O'Meara")
  Shopping by mail / aluminum brew pots ("John Stegenga")
  Thermometers ("Eric R. Tepe")
  Clarification ("A. J. deLange")
  Bier de Garde (Nathan Kanous)
  using enough yeast...good advice ! ("Darrell Leavitt")
  MWs ("Nathaniel P. Lansing")
  calcium/dextrins/hop skunkiness/ ("Alan Meeker")
  gunness acidity levels (Robin Griller)
  Re: Melanoidin Malt (YYZCLAYTON)
  Re: Aluminum Brew Pots (patrick finerty)
  Fermenter Lids (Kirk.Fleming)
  More fermenter questions... (Joseph Gibbens)
  Metric - was Re: efficiency & stuff ("Stephen Alexander")
  Re: Color; Overnight Mashing (Spencer W Thomas)
  nucleation and boiling (jafjmw)
  I See Everthing Twice ("Phil & Jill Yates")
  Re: Color; Overnight Mashing (LaBorde, Ronald)
  Re: Color (Bass Ale) (Spencer W Thomas)
  On-line brewing (Nathan Kanous)
  Someone to blame! ("Doug Moyer")
  Digital Thermometer (Joseph Kish)
  Belgian Pils ("Dan Senne")
  color, mash out, irish moss, iodophor (Dana Edgell)


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

* Entry deadline for the Mayfare Homebrew Competition is 3/15/00 
* See http://www.maltosefalcons.com/ for more information

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


Date: Thu, 3 Feb 2000 23:16:37 -0800 
From: "Mercer, David" <dmercer at path.org>
Subject: Let me hear you say CHEESES!

  From: Dan Listermann <72723.1707 at compuserve.com>
  Subject: Cheesemaking

  Jack Schmidling writes:

  < I just wish some of them would get interested in cheese making, we are
  still in the stone age there with the blind leading the blind.>

  Perhaps John at "Home Wine, Beer and Cheesemaking" can help.  I would be
  surprised if he didn't have an 800 number, but since he is a customer, I
  use (818) 884-8586.

  Dan Listermann   dan at listermann.com    72723.1707 at compuserve.com

My oh my. I can see it now: The EasyWheyer(tm) vs the CurdPhilter(tm).
Goodness gracious.




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Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2000 01:43:55 -0800 (PST)
From: "J O'Meara" <drumthumper_2000 at yahoo.com>
Subject: water loss during boil

Fellow Brewers,
I just brewed my 4th batch this evening, and I lost
about one gallon of water while the wort was boiling. 
Is this usual?  I did use 1 lb of cooked rice as one
of the specialty grains, so I'm wondering if the rice
absorbed some of the water.  Thanks in advance for the
answers.


Joe O'Meara

ICQ# 60722006
http://homebrew.4mg.com
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Talk to your friends online with Yahoo! Messenger.
http://im.yahoo.com


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Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2000 07:20:04 -0500
From: "John Stegenga" <bigjohns at mindspring.com>
Subject: Shopping by mail / aluminum brew pots

In HBD #3240, Marc wrote:

>Date: Thu, 03 Feb 2000 08:45:48 -0500
>From: Marc Sedam <marc_sedam at unc.edu>
>Subject: homebrew shops in Nashville

>Does anyone know of a GOOD hb shop in Nashville, TN?  I
>found one that sells gardening supplies and homebrew kits,
>but their selection wasn't great.

>Is there a place on the web to search for homebrew shops?

>-Marc

Marc -

I've done business with a place called  Hops & Dreams
(www.hopsanddreams.com), had great service (but that was almost a year ago),
and I can tell you that a local homebrew shop here in Atlanta will gladly
ship to your house as well.  The place is Marietta Homebrew Supply (no
affiliation, yadda yadda yadda) and the guy who owns the place is terrific.
His stuff is always fresh and he carries LOTS of stuff (just about any hop
you can think of, leaf, plug or pellet), white labs yeast, etc.

you can email him at: marietta.brew at juno.com

shipping from Atlanta to Nashville will be about as cheap as you can get,
mail order wise...

>Date: Thu, 3 Feb 2000 22:50:30 -0600
>From: "Ed Howell" <edhoel at hal-pc.org>
>Subject: Aluminum Brew Pots

>In the near future I am planning on building a three
>level system using converted kegs. In the meantime
>i want to go to all grain brewing. What are the pros
>and cons on using aluminum brewing kettles? I have
>read that the only problem is durability. Has anyone
>in the collective used aluminum and what was the
>results?

>Thanks,
>Ed Howell


Cons:  Aluminum is softer than steel, and requires a bit more care.
Pros:  Conducts HEAT much better than steel, costs less than half /vessel
for vessel.

For example, My brewpot is an 80qt (yes, you read that - 20 gal!) aluminum
restraunt NSF certified stock pot.  A damn good one too.  Cost me a whopping
$90.00 US including shipping from Ohio to my home here in Georgia.  So now
with my $50 worth of mash/lauter gear, and my $40 burner I'm doing 10gal all
grain batches....



John Stegenga
Woodstock, Georgia, USA
Bigjohn's Basement Brewery





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Date: Fri, 04 Feb 2000 07:26:47 -0500
From: "Eric R. Tepe" <erictepe at fuse.net>
Subject: Thermometers

To Ted McIrvine and the collective, 

I am a long time reader and minor contributor to the Digest. If you are
like Ted and need a quality thermometer, I work for one of the largest
lab supply companies in the work and can get Certified digital
thermometers that are very nice. If you would like to see a picture of
one go to http://store.yahoo.com/cc1979/6346---440767-.html for a
picture of a Polder thermometer that is just like the one I can sell
only mine will come with a certificate of calibration. The price is
$21.00+shipping, they are light enough that I can send USPS for $3.20.
If anyone has an interest please let me know at erictepe at fuse.net.
Believe me, I am not trying to make money here, I am only try to help
out brewers who want a quality thermometer.

Eric Tepe
Cincinnati OH


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Date: Fri, 04 Feb 2000 12:46:20 +0000
From: "A. J. deLange" <ajdel at mindspring.com>
Subject: Clarification

I hope it is clear than when I posted

Calories/355 mL (12 Oz) = (cal/100)*[(355*sp_gr)/100]

(cal/100) meant cal per 100 grams, i.e. the result from the previous
calculation, not cal/100 grams divided by 100.

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

Lou Heavner wants to culture bugs. That's certainly easy to do. What's
not so easy is to distinguish between them at the second grade level.
You might want to try pouring some plates and then exposing them in the
kitchen, outside, in the bathroom, in the guest room etc. and then
incubate them. You'll be surprised at the number and diversity of
colonies which will grow and perhaps just that would be sufficient for
second graders. Not all of the colonies will be bacteria, though - some
will be molds. You will see differences in colony morphology which vary
with the bug involved. At this time of year you'll probably see lots
more bacteria of different types indoors than out and that might be of
interest. You may see more bugs in the kitchen than in a room in the
house which is not used so often.

As you have the microscope, it would be well worth it to buy a Gramm
stain kit and learn to use it. This will allow you to sort the bugs into
four major categories Gramm positive (stain purple) rods (bacilli), Gram
positive cocci (Pediococcus, for example)  Gramm  negative (stain pink)
rods (lactobacilli) and gram negative cocci (Pseudomonas aeruginosa is
everywhere). You may be able to tentatively identify some bugs by their
appearance under the microscope after Gramm staining. Gram positive
chains of cocci are probably streptococcus. Those that look like
clusters of grapes may well be staphylococcus (staphlys = grapes). Gram
negative rods from a plate dusted with particles of malt dust may well
be Lactobacillus delbrukii.

If you subculture (by streaking the individual colonies onto separate
plates) you may be able to draw a distinction by the odor (not
necessarily pleasant) of the plates .

Beyond this level it gets exponentially more difficult with distinction
being made on the basis of subsequent culturing in selective media often
with a test for a key metabolic product. You might be able to illustrate
this with L. delbruckii if you can grow some from malt dust. It will
produce lactic acid whose presence you can detect by smell and a drop in
pH.

If there is a doctor's office supply firm somewhere in your area you may
be able to buy "blood agar" plates pre-made. These, as the name
suggests, contain some blood in the medium which hemolytic bacteria
break down so that colonies of these will have a bright, clear ring
around them.



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Date: Fri, 04 Feb 2000 07:55:52 -0600
From: Nathan Kanous <nlkanous at pharmacy.wisc.edu>
Subject: Bier de Garde

I would have to agree about the "earthiness" in this style being due to the 
corks (in one fashion or another).  Although I haven't made it a practice 
to drink many of this style (so many beers so little time) I feel the same 
complexity is missing in many of the "trappist" ales that are not 
corked.  Just my $0.02.
nathan in madison, wi


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Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2000 09:24:43 -0400
From: "Darrell Leavitt"<Darrell_Leavitt at esc.edu>
Subject: using enough yeast...good advice !


For those who know this, page down <cr>

  For others, who like myself, frequently try to make good beer with just a
smack-pack or a vial of yeast:  I have been either making starters, and/or
reusing my yeast over the last few months (well , most of the time) and I
can say unequivocally that the brews that have the larger yeast population
are superior.  There is no doubt.  Thanks to Jeff Renner, George DePiro,
(and all of the others) who have repeatedly stressed this crucial factor
here!  Thanks also to Pat and the others who maintain this excellent forum.
 ..Darrell




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Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2000 09:36:40 -0500
From: "Nathaniel P. Lansing" <delbrew at compuserve.com>
Subject: MWs

Dave says,"I'd like to see ( if possible) someone
open a microwave door at the speed of
light to allow all those reflecting
waves into the room. My calculations
show an infinite amount of energy
would be required and the door might
even radiate!"

An infinite amount of power is virtually available;
the cavity is a resonant chamber and the caution of not
operating the oven empty is in the instructions because
of the power available, the waves will resonate till the power
builds up and destroys the magnatron. "Reflecting" is the key
word here, if there is minimal mass in the cavity to absorb the
waves, those reflecting toward the door when it is opened do escape.
Take your Sencore microwave leakage meter set to fast response and
try it, the needle will jump. Like I said this has been measured,
I've certified more microwave ovens than you've ever cooked in.
Leakage is allowable, at one manufacturing facility I was told by
a design engineer that a design was rejected because of too little
leakage, it would cost too much to produce that "tight" of oven.
The spec on leakage is 0.5mw/cm US, 0.2mw/cm Canada.
 ......................
>From the chief engineer at Lockheeds satelite developement center;
"One good measurement is worth a thousand expert opinions."
 ......................

still pesky in Pittsburgh,
 Del Lansing


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Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2000 10:08:15 -0500
From: "Alan Meeker" <ameeker at welch.jhu.edu>
Subject: calcium/dextrins/hop skunkiness/ 

A.J. wrote:

>For Marc: I think malt does indeed have plenty of calcium for
>conversion. Remember that the Congress mash which establishes the
>practical upper limit of conversion in the laboratory is done with
>distilled water. In the brewery no one ever reaches the extraction
>levels of the...

This is a great point A.J!
I imagine low free calcium might become an issue if one uses a high
proportion of non-malt adjuncts?


Dave Burley wrote:

>The beta chops many of these dextrin
>pieces into shorter chain sugars. Some
>brewery yeast can ferment some or
>a portion of a dextrin molecule made
>up of three sugar molecules
>(e.g. maltotriose) of a dextrin molecule,
>but maltotetraose and higher
>oligosaccharides are not fermentable
>by brewery yeast and are truly dextrins.

Your wording is a bit misleading here Dave, beta amylase works from the
/ends/ of the dextrins to liberate the disaccharide maltose. The only higher
order sugars produced in the reaction comes from whatever is left over after
the beta has done all it can. Brewer's yeast can't digest dextrins or any
portion of a dextrin unless it is first broken down to either a mono-, di-,
or tri-saccharide. Maltotetraose (a four glucose polymer) is NOT a dextrin,
at least not in the scientific sense. You have to get a bit larger than a
tetraose to be considered a dextrin...

>Components in the hops are
>the source for this skunky odor when
>struck by UV light.

Note that it is supposedly not UV that causes the skunkiness but rather
light in the visible range, roughly blue-green.



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Date: Fri, 04 Feb 2000 11:24:20 -0500
From: Robin Griller <rgriller at chass.utoronto.ca>
Subject: gunness acidity levels

Hi,

According to Roger Protz and Graham Wheeler, Guinness Foreign Extra
Stout (NOT Guinness Exprot Stout) is made by blending two beer versions,
one of which is aged in unlined oak casks. Here is what they say about
it:

Guinness Foreign Extra Stout
og 1.073, 65 ibu

'A world classic, its roots in the early porters and stouts of London
and Dublin. The beer is a blend of regular stout and a second beer that
is matured in unlined oak vessels for around two months. It has the
"horse-blanket" aroma that is the result of attack from wild
Brettanomyces yeasts in the vats, a rich and spicy fruitiness and great
depth of hop bitterness. Dark fruit and hops dominate the mouth, while
the finish is full of complex sour fruit, malt  and hops.' 

p. 109 Brew Classic European Beers at Home

In the very interesting appendix on soured beers in the same book,
Wheeler writes 'Old-time porter, Rodenbach, Guinness Foreign Extra
Stout, and some Belgian soured ales are a blend of two beers; a beer
that has been aged for a long time and is very sour, and a fresh beer
that is not sour. This blending technique enables beers to be produced
with the right degree of sourness, and is a very economical way of
making soured beers because only a fraction of the brewer's output needs
to be matured for any length of time...' p. 174

Also, on p. 172 'all the soured beers of this type that survive today,
includig Guinness, Rodenbach and the Lambics, the maturation still takes
place in oak.' 

Hope this helps,

Robin


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Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2000 12:25:34 EST
From: YYZCLAYTON at aol.com
Subject: Re: Melanoidin Malt 

In HBD 3239 Fred M. Scheer(TKBFRED at aol.com) wrote:

>>scott wrote: 
>>Subject: how much melanoidin malt is too much?

>We made some test brews (15 gal while I was brewing in
>Frankenmuth,MI, and from my experience, I would
>recommend to go to 2.5 Lbs. of Melanoidin 
>Malt.
>But, I did not used it in a doppel bock, our Bock Beer 
>was brewed with
>* 80% 2-row Pilsener Malt (Briess)
>* 5 % wheat Malt (Briess)
>* 10% Dark malt (400*L) (Briess)
>* 5 % Munich Malt (Briess)
>By the way, the people at Briess do not pay me for 
>mentioning their name!

>Fred M. Scheer

Fred,

Your Frankenmuth Bock was one of my favorite beers in 
its day. Awesome! 

A while back the subject of how to use recipes
expressed as a percentage was discussed and I am not 
sure if a consensus was ever reached in this forum. In
your recipe, are your percentages expressing the 
ingredients ratio by weight or by extract?  In your 
experience, which is the preferred method?

Cheers,

Joe Clayton
Farmington Hills, MI USA



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Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2000 13:20:51 -0500 (EST)
From: patrick finerty <zinc at zifi.psf.sickkids.on.ca>
Subject: Re: Aluminum Brew Pots

howdy Ed,

so, you like to stir up trouble here, huh? 

i've used a 15 gal Al kettle for several all grain batches and it
works great. AFAIK, there is no reason not to go with Al unless you
really like having shiny brew equipment and spending a lot of cash.
i'm not sure what 'results' you're asking about. my brew tastes great
and others really like it so i guess i'm getting a good result.

also, the primary concern with Al is its poor resistance to strong
bases and acids. this is really no concern for the home brewer since
we don't need to wash our equipment with 'caustic'. an Al kettle will
be as durable as any other pot as long as you follow simple rules:
don't soak it in strong acids or bases and don't scrub off the layer
of oxidized Al after brewing.

there, i've managed to work Al and caustic into the same post! i think
i've got a winner...

 -patrick in toronto


On February 3, 2000, Ed Howell wrote:

 > In the near future I am planning on building a three
 > level system using converted kegs. In the meantime
 > i want to go to all grain brewing. What are the pros
 > and cons on using aluminum brewing kettles? I have
 > read that the only problem is durability. Has anyone
 > in the collective used aluminum and what was the
 > results?
 > 
 > Thanks,
 > Ed Howell


- -- 
       "There is only one aim in life and that is to live it."
 Karl Shapiro,(1959) from an essay on Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer
	      finger pfinerty at nyx10.nyx.net for PGP key
		 http://abragam.med.utoronto.ca/~zinc


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Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2000 12:28:59 -0600 
From: Kirk.Fleming at born.com
Subject: Fermenter Lids

In #3240 Joe Gibbens asked about beer keg fermenter design.  I had fun using
the Pyrex lid from a cast iron deep 'casserole' (commonly called a Dutch
Oven).  When I initially used it I was concerned about a seal, and I laid a
nice bead of food-grade silicone around the lip of the lid, let it dry
completely.

To hold it down tight, I put the lid in place, then passed a steel bar
across the diameter of the keg, through the handle openings at the top of
the keg (this was a new Sankey--cylindrical keg).  I then just wedged some
available object between the center 'knob' of the lid and the steel bar.

The diameter of the Pyrex lid is about 30-33 barleycorns, but welding on the
interior bottom of the keg through a hole that diameter might require a
fairly innovative welder.

Finally, there's really no need to seal the lid, in my experience (a few
hundred batches with no problems).  This obviates the need for the silicone,
and the Other Chef then doesn't get disturbed with modifications to the
kitchen equipment.

Kirk Fleming
FRSL, FRSE, MSRP


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Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2000 12:55:04 -0600
From: Joseph Gibbens <jgibbens at umr.edu>
Subject: More fermenter questions...

Hello,

does anyone know what the optimal angle should be for a conical bottom 
fermenter? Just to avoid confusion, I'm looking for the angle that the 
side of the cone makes compared to vertical.  Also, does anyone know what 
alloy the new (no bung) SS kegs are fabricated from?  I'm fairly sure 
they're all austenitic stainless, but I want to know which alloy when I 
select a filler for the welds.

Joe Gibbens


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Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2000 16:06:42 -0500
From: "Stephen Alexander" <steve-alexander at worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Metric - was Re: efficiency & stuff

David Lamotte  says ..

>If we so
>choose, we can design a recipe in our heads ( lets see 4kg malt using
>2.5 ltrs/kg needs 10 ltrs strike water).  See all metric.  Uses less
>brain cells, [...]

Or 8lbs at 1.5 qt/LB, so 12qts.  It actually takes the same number of brain
cells David - it just seems like fewer in metric units.


>Some of us, particularly if we remember the day that we went metric
>(14th Feb 1966), even freely pass from one system to the other, even in
>the same sentence.  "Can I please have a kilo  of  2 inch nails".

Shoulda been 'a pound of 5cm nails' - No ?  Perhaps you switched
the wrong way.

 -S





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Date: Fri, 04 Feb 2000 16:29:13 -0500
From: Spencer W Thomas <spencer at engin.umich.edu>
Subject: Re: Color; Overnight Mashing 

Ron,

RGB are NOT the primaries in the NTSC ("never twice same color")
standard.  The NTSC primaries are Y (luminance), I (R-G) and Q (Y-B).
I and Q are encoded at lower bandwidth than Y, with Q having the
lowest bandwidth.  These shenanigans were done for two reasons:

1. To remain compatible with existing B&W systems and
2. To fit the signal into a 6MHz bandwidth.

It's really quite clever, but when combined with the scheme used to
encode the actual signal, results in a system in which it is almost
impossible to get the same color out of your TV as went into the
camera.

The Europeans, coming into the game later, decided that #1 was
unimportant, and came up with a better scheme (PAL for most of Europe,
except France, which of course had to do things its own way.)

And sill, the only way to ensure that everybody *sees* the same color
on their screens is to control everything:

* No brightness knob.
* No contrast knob.
* No "tint" control.
* No "color" (saturation) control.
* Windowless room.
* Standard room lights, set at specified positions relative to the screen.
* No brightly colored objects in the room.
* Standard wall and floor color in the room.
* Internal color calibration circuits with photometric feedback from
  the screen.

Why?  Well, the first 4 are obvious.  As soon as you give the viewer a
control over brightness and contrast, the notion of "white point" and
"black point" are out the window.  The "tint" control lets you turn
faces purple or green, obviously screwing up the color.  The "color"
control lets you turn reds into pinks or flaming scarlet.

The next 4 are less obvious, but it is a fact that ambient lighting
and adjacent colors will affect your perception of a color.

And the last one accounts for the inevitable drifting of color and
brightness as components heat up, cool down, and age.

Next, for the >10% of the population who are color-blind, the
standard RGB phosphors may not accurately reproduce their perception
of a color, in any case.

Of course, there are colors in the world that lie outside the gamut of
the television screen and even more colors that lie outside the gamut
of the NTSC encoding.  (Ever check out the "safe color" option in
Photoshop?)

So, the TV *signal* may do a reasonable job of encoding color in a
standard way.  But I would in NO WAY claim that the end user has a
hope of viewing colors that are identical or even very close to the
original colors.

(Note: none of the above is intended to indicate that computer
graphics displays do any better at color reproduction.  But I already
DID that rant.)

In fact, one might claim that the fact that computer displays started
out as modified television sets caused one of the PROBLEMS of the
computer display -- the gamma correction problem.  TV sets have a
gamma of 2.2 to 2.5, because the NTSC signal is pre-corrected to this
gamma (probably really the other way around -- the gamma comes from
the physics of the CRT tube).  If computer graphics displays had been
designed from the ground up, someone would probably have figured that
it would be a good idea to design in gamma compensation, so that the
overall system gamma was 1 (linear).

At the end, RGB values relate to the voltages applied to the grids in
a color picture tube.  The brightness and color out of the tube depend
on too many variable factors to claim that colors can be accurately
specified with RGB values.  For accurate reproduction, use a
*calibrated* system, such as the CIE tri-stimulus values.

Back to beer color:  After all this ranting, I realized that the
predicted color of a batch of beer (which is where the discussion
started) is probably far enough from the actual color, that an
approximation displayed on a computer screen is at least as close.

As Gilda Radner used to say "never mind!"

=Spencer


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Date: Fri, 04 Feb 2000 21:45:36 +0000
From: jafjmw at wlsfn.force9.co.uk
Subject: nucleation and boiling

> [snip] A boiling stone (a couple of
> pieces of sanitized aquarium gravel maybe) in the erlenmyer (qt jar,
> whatever) will help when boiling starters in the microwave --you will have
> enough time to stop the microwave before a boilover occurs if you watch it
> very closely.  I need boiling stones in the 1 lt erlenmyer I have, even
> when boiling on the electric range, or I will get a boilover every time.
> It all erupts at once without the stones.
> - --Brian Pickerill, Muncie IN

Would a few boiling stones in my brewpot (boiling malt extract, sugar 
and sometimes honey in water) keep it from boiling (frothing) over?
- -- Adam Funk



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Date: Sat, 5 Feb 2000 08:59:47 +1100
From: "Phil & Jill Yates" <yates at acenet.com.au>
Subject: I See Everthing Twice

Sorry, that was a line from "Catch 22". I meant to say "I see everything ten
times!"

I see Steve Alexander (swelling with national pride) had to take me to task
on my scoffing of the USA's failure to let go of Mother England's care. What
measurements will they use in the Brave New Brewery Steve? Pounds? Ounces?
Gallons? etc etc?

Come now Steve. A scientific man like yourself is surely not going to get up
on the dais and swear allegiance to a dusty and illogical imperial measuring
system?

Now I have heard everything!

The only piece of logic in the imperial system that I have seen is that one
gallon of water weighs ten pounds. But then of course in the USA you decided
to make up your own gallon. So that sunk that little piece of logic.

In actual fact, what Steve has to say about the irregularities of the metric
system is quite true. But in homebrewing we are generally not concerned with
measuring vibrating atoms or space time calcs. Come to think of it, perhaps
some of the people in here are!

Now Steve, I don't mind jibes about us driving on the left side of the road,
but leave the metric day well alone. This twenty hour watch Jill bought me
for Christmas works just fine. And divided by four equals the precise time
frame of my Burradoo brewday.

Like Jack, I was able to comfortably retire at age forty. I made most of my
money selling metric shifting spanners to gullible (and it is in the
dictionary) Australians. So the metric system has worked just fine and dandy
for me!

Phil Yates
Baron of Burradoo




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Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2000 16:12:03 -0600 
From: rlabor at lsumc.edu (LaBorde, Ronald)
Subject: Re: Color; Overnight Mashing

>From: Spencer W Thomas [spencer at engin.umich.edu]

>...And sill, the only way to ensure that everybody *sees* the same color
>on their screens is to control everything:

>...As soon as you give the viewer a
>control over brightness and contrast, the notion of "white point" and
>"black point" are out the window.  The "tint" control lets you turn
>faces purple or green, obviously screwing up the color.  The "color"
>control lets you turn reds into pinks or flaming scarlet.

>* Windowless room.
>* Standard room lights, set at specified positions relative to the screen.
>* No brightly colored objects in the room.
>* Standard wall and floor color in the room.

I agree with everything you said, Spencer.  However, the above points from
your list can also be said for an actual glass of beer.  It is not just for
computer displays and TV sets that the lighting is important. I mean, once
my wife could not find her red Honda in a parking garage because it looked
black under the pressure lamps used to light the place up!  Ever wonder why
meat in a grocery counter display looks better than when you get it home -
well, if you did not stop for an extra long session at your favorite pub,
the color change is from the different lighting used for the meat display at
the store (intentional).

With all the compromises involved with color display, it is possible to do
surprisingly well with a compensated and adjusted display.  That is my
gripe, that it could have been done SO MUCH BETTER	 with just a little
more planing and thought by the computer industry.  Sure, it evolved from
the TV set, modulated RF on a TV channel, but that was the beginning.  The
goof off was the next design, the step up to a real display for computers.

>Why?  Well, the first 4 are obvious.  As soon as you give the viewer a
>control over brightness and contrast, the notion of "white point" and
>"black point" are out the window.  The "tint" control lets you turn
>faces purple or green, obviously screwing up the color.  The "color"
>control lets you turn reds into pinks or flaming scarlet.

True enough, but with all this, I can tell you that in my older broadcasting
career, that the sponsors are quite picky and mostly satisfied with the TV
reproduction of their products - not perfect but good enough. In those days
(long ago), a pack of Kool had to look like a pack of Kool.

>Next, for the >10% of the population who are color-blind, the
>standard RGB phosphors may not accurately reproduce their perception
>of a color, in any case.

Yes, but in this case it does not matter.

>So, the TV *signal* may do a reasonable job of encoding color in a
>standard way.  But I would in NO WAY claim that the end user has a
>hope of viewing colors that are identical or even very close to the
>original colors.

>...If computer graphics displays had been
>designed from the ground up, someone would probably have figured that
>it would be a good idea to design in gamma compensation, so that the
>overall system gamma was 1 (linear).

Designed - that's the magic word. Exactly what is missing, a good design!

>Back to beer color:  After all this ranting, I realized that the
>predicted color of a batch of beer (which is where the discussion
>started) is probably far enough from the actual color, that an
>approximation displayed on a computer screen is at least as close.

Oh, heck with the color, let's all have another homebrew  :^)

Ron

Ronald La Borde - Metairie, Louisiana - rlabor at lsumc.edu
http://members.xoom.com/rlabor/



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Date: Fri, 04 Feb 2000 17:18:36 -0500
From: Spencer W Thomas <spencer at engin.umich.edu>
Subject: Re: Color (Bass Ale)


> 9.  Calculate B
>      B = 0.058*X -0.118*Y + 0.896*Z    [-0.73]

> Obviously,
> the negative value should be set to zero. It's a function of modeling
> error, roundoff etc. It's just telling you that beer isn't blue!

Actually, it's telling you that the beer color cannot be accurately
reproduced on your monitor.  It's a little *too* yellow.  But setting
B to zero is a good approximation in this case.  What you should
really do is move the whole color closer to your chosen white point
(you'd do this in (x,y) coordinates, holding Y constant).  If you
don't, the perceived hue will shift.  With such a small negative
value, the difference in this case is imperceptible.

AJ wonders about the accuracy of his coefficients.  I looked at some
old code of mine and found these:

R = 2.775 * X - 1.224 * Y + 0.1768 * Z
G = -0.864 * X + 2.095 * Y - 0.231 * Z
B = 0.0850 * X - 0.2358 * Y + 1.151 * Z

These differ slightly from AJ's numbers.  Why?  Probably because I
started with different phosphors than he did, or maybe with a
different white point.

Finally, unless your monitor is already gamma corrected (i.e., you're
using a Macintosh. :-) you need to pre-correct the RGB values so that
the color coming off the screen is the one you want.  The gamma
correction formula is

A' = 255 * exp( log(A/255) / 2.2 )

Where A is R, G, B in turn.  (The number 2.2 is an estimate.)  If you
don't gamma-correct, the color will shift as you change it's luminance
by making proportional changes to R, G, B.  That is, if you double all
of R, G, and B, the color you get will not be just a brighter version
of the color you started with.  Gamma correcting AJ's RGB values
gives:

original: R=122, G=76, B=0
doubled: R=166, G=104, B=0

I've made swatches of these colors with & without gamma correction.
See http://hubris.engin.umich.edu:8080/srm.jpg.  On a Windows machine,
I think you'll agree that the swatches on the right of each set look
more "beer-like" in color.  (SRM 10 is Bass Ale, if you want to do a
side-by-side comparison.)  Note also how the perceived color varies
with the background.  What you get on a Unix box or a Mac depends on
how your monitor is calibrated.  

=Spencer


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Date: Fri, 04 Feb 2000 16:26:15 -0600
From: Nathan Kanous <nlkanous at pharmacy.wisc.edu>
Subject: On-line brewing

Thanks to Phil Sides for pointing out the on-line courses at Milwaukee Area 
Technical College.  I e-mailed Lauren and she sent me a link which has a 
couple of other interesting offerings.

One is a classroom course "Beer Tasting - Skills and Styles".  The other is 
"A Day in a Microbrewery".

Check them out!
nathan in madison, wi
http://148.8.128.17/maneyL/


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Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2000 17:42:28 -0500
From: "Doug Moyer" <shyzaboy at yahoo.com>
Subject: Someone to blame!

Tony Barnsley <tony.barnsley at blackpool.gov.uk> sez:
"OH NO NOT AGAIN!!!!  beer doesn't make you fat, I just gives you big
bones!"

Damnit! Now I know who is responsible for my "big bones". I'm suing.


Brew on!
Doug Moyer
Salem, VA

Star City Brewers Guild: http://hbd.org/starcity



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Talk to your friends online with Yahoo! Messenger.
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Date: Fri, 04 Feb 2000 14:55:25 -0800
From: Joseph Kish <jjkish at worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Digital Thermometer

  Ted was asking about a good thermometer.  You can't get
 a better digital thermometer than a Taylor 9930, that goes 
 from 14 to 230 degrees F, holds a single 1.5v AA cell, costs 
 about $25.00. It has a plastic sensor on a long 6' cord,
 and can be mounted on a panel. It measures every 10 seconds.
  Granger handles this unit.  It's the best I've ever used.
          Joe Kish


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Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2000 17:51:59 -0600
From: "Dan Senne" <dsenne at intertek.net>
Subject: Belgian Pils

My local homebrew shop has stopped carrying Belgian 2-row grains.  I've
never used them, being reletively new to all-grain brewing, but I had wanted
to try them.  When I asked the person there why they had discontinued them,
she was very vague.  Anyone here have opinions on Belgian 2-row?
So far I'm doing single infusions and would like an appropriately modified
base malt.
Would a German Pils such as Weyermann be a better choice?
I've used up my 50 pound sack of Briess 2-row and am looking for something
around the same "L" rating, but with a bit more characture.
Thanks for any suggestions,
Dan Senne
Collinsville, IL



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Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2000 19:15:06 -0700
From: Dana Edgell <EdgeAle at cs.com>
Subject: color, mash out, irish moss, iodophor

HBD,

1) I have been thinking about the computer simulation of beer color. How do
jpegs handle colors of photograpghs? The colors in jpegs seem to do a good
job of matching reality (i.e. flesh-tones etc. are rarely very far off,
unlike some simple rgb computer colors settings). Could a selection of the
digital information in beer photographs be matched/fitted to measured color
spectrums of the same beers to produce a range of pseudo-jpegs of beer
colors?


2) Dave Burley sez:

>Generally,a high mash-out temperature is used  which stabilizes the
>sugar/dextrin ratio by denaturing the beta completely and reduces the
>wort viscosity to make lautering faster and more efficient. The temperature
>is kept lower than boiling for the simple reason that some alpha amylase is
>desired to be around to clean up any starch which comes into solution as the
>temperature is increased. This helps prevent starch haze. Ultimately
>the alpha is also denatured in the wort boil if not before at around 180F.

As I sparge into my electric kettle I have the heating elements on. I do
this so that the wort will be boiling by the end of the sparge. If I don't
it can take a while to reach boiling, unlike a direct fired kettle. My
question is: Am I denaturing the enzymes too quickly doing this, resulting
in unconverted starches?


3) I have written on my brewing sheet that I should rehydrate my irish moss
in water at least 3hrs before using it. Unfortunately, I don't remember
what reference I used to get this 3 hr number. I also recall hearing that
instead of rehydration, irish moss could be added to the kettle at the
start of the boil. Does anyone know of any actual brewing studies to
determine the best way to use irish moss?

4) I have heard that as iodophor gets old, loses color & strength, it can
actually become a medium that feeds bateria. I also recal from this forum
that some brewers store their wort chillers with iodophor solutions in
them. How can we reconcile these two idea? Are the chiller ends closed
air-tight to prevent the breakdown of iodophor? Is some other sanitizing
solution used?


Dana




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