---

	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:
  micro investigator (Tom)
  Here's Another Thermometer (Randy Shreve)
  Gelatin Finings and Pale Ale ("Steve Postek")
  Re: water loss during boil (RobertJ)
  RE: Bier de garde eau de cork / oak beans ("Sherfey")
  Color ("A. J. deLange")
  Corkiness, 6d nails, brewing language, blue brew (Dave Burley)
  Heads-up for Valley Mill owners. (Wes Smith)
  Practical Brewer download (zimurgist)
  Hot break ("Mike Maag")
  Foam stopper's affect on yeast culture?! (Pat Babcock)
  Lauter water deflector (Matthew Comstock)
  yes they are out there! (JPullum127)
  Brewing in the Readers Digest... (Pat Babcock)


* 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

Send articles for __publication_only__ to post@hbd.org

If your e-mail account is being deleted, please unsubscribe first!!

To SUBSCRIBE or UNSUBSCRIBE send an e-mail message with the word
  "subscribe" or "unsubscribe" to request@hbd.org FROM THE E-MAIL
  ACCOUNT YOU WISH TO HAVE SUBSCRIBED OR UNSUBSCRIBED!!!**
IF YOU HAVE SPAM-PROOFED your e-mail address, you cannot subscribe to
  the digest as we canoot reach you. We will not correct your address
  for the automation - that's your job.

The HBD is a copyrighted document. The compilation is copyright 
  HBD.ORG. Individual postings are copyright by their authors. ASK 
  before reproducing and you'll rarely have trouble. Digest content 
  cannot be reproduced by any means for sale or profit.

More information is available by sending the word "info" to 
req at hbd.org.

JANITORS on duty: Pat Babcock and Karl Lutzen (janitor@hbd.org)



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


Date: Sat, 05 Feb 2000 00:54:45 -0600
From: Tom <tco at mindspring.com>
Subject: micro investigator


Today I brought a bottle of an infected batch of mine
to a microbiologist I know.  She stained to see
yeasts (blue stain I think) and we noticed two distinct
types of yeast.  There were plenty of both of them.

I pitched Wyeast Irish Ale XL into 5 gallons of Irish amber.
Fairly long lag, about 16 hours before airlock movement.

Question 1.) Is this culture a mixture of two strains? 
       Sort of like whitbread which is a mixture of three 
       strains of yeast..

The two types of yeast looked like... 
a.) a larger perfectly round yeast that stained dark blue and
    evenly   
b.) slightly smaller and slightly oval/football shaped, 
stain was concentrated on center of cell, the outer edge 
appeared white/clear and had a thickness of about 1/5th 
of the diamter of the cell.

Question 2.) Anyone know if one of these yeasts are 
             not S. Cerev.? Champagne yeast maybe?

I also had some kind of cocci swimming in the brew.
The beer has been bottled for 3 weeks, so what ever the
little boogers are they are living anaerobically, she 
says.

Suprisingly the beer isn't awful, just phenolic
and estery.  I suspect yeast B is a wild one. If you 
know this one, I'd like to hear it. Private email is fine.

Tom Meier
Decatur, Alabama - a fur piece from that Renner feller






Return to table of contents


Date: Sat, 05 Feb 2000 07:53:31 -0500
From: Randy Shreve <rashreve at interpath.com>
Subject: Here's Another Thermometer

I thought I would throw in my two cents worth on thermometers.

I use a VWR Scientific digital thermometer.  This unit has high/low temp
alarms with a built in timer.  It has a 7 inch stainless probe with a 36
inch cable.

This is probably the best "store bought" item in my brewing equipment
repertoire.  No affiliation, yada, yada.

For those interested see www.vwrsp.com and look in the general catalog.
Current price $42.75.  Part number 61161-274.

Peace and Long Life
Randy
Luvvin my (self motorized) MaltMill in Salisbury, NC
You just keep on bustin' those momilies Jack!!



Return to table of contents


Date: Sat, 5 Feb 2000 08:56:55 -0500
From: "Steve Postek" <spostek at voicenet.com>
Subject: Gelatin Finings and Pale Ale

I used gelatin finings for the first time in my most recent batch
that I have asked several questions here about in the last month.
The brew was an American Pale Ale.  When I racked into the secondary
I dry hopped. Three days prior to bottling I added the gelatin
finings as instructed on the package (combine with warm water and
let stand for 10 minutes before pouring in the fermenter).

I sanitized my bottles as always.  Rinse with B Brite.  Rinse with
plain water.  Stick in dishwasher with no soap and hot air dry.  Then
I usually rinse again with filtered water before bottling.  I have
never had a problem.

Now two weeks post bottling if I hold a bottle up to the light I can
see something grainy on the sides of the bottles.  I have never seen
this before.  Is it the gelatin sticking to the sides of the bottles?
The beer is crystal clear and tastes great but I am just a bit stymied
by the stuff hanging on the sides of each and every bottle (I checked
all 29 22oz bottles).

Steve Postek
Nuclear Brewing Company
Limerick, PA



Return to table of contents


Date: Sat, 05 Feb 2000 09:16:55 -0500
From: RobertJ <pbsys at pbsbeer.com>
Subject: Re: water loss during boil

"J O'Meara" <drumthumper_2000 at yahoo.com> wrote

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.

___

I plan on .75 - 1.5 gal loss per hour of boil. Factors that effect loss
would are; how vigorous the boil, open or covered pot, relative humidity.

Don't think cooked rice absorbed much of the water.




Bob
Precision Brewing Systems URL http://pbsbeer.com Manufacturer of 3 Vessel
Brew Systems, HERMS(tm), SS Brew Kettles, SS hopback and the MAXIchiller


Return to table of contents


Date: Sat, 5 Feb 2000 09:38:58 -0500
From: "Sherfey" <sherf at warwick.net>
Subject: RE: Bier de garde eau de cork / oak beans

OK, asuming that it's the cork that adds that final touch to BDG, is anybody
out there willing to admit they have tried dry corking their beers?.  Sounds
like a fun thing to do.  Perhaps even toasting the corks a bit could bring
out more cork character.  It's worth a try.

On a similar topic, has anyone used oak beans that can compare the results
to chips, etc?  The "beans" I am referring is oak that appears to have been
toasted and then cut up into 1/2 inch cube.  I have never used oak of any
kind before, but these things looked to be so close to the real (barrel)
thing that I couldn't resist getting some to try.  They are available in
French and American oak from the Home Wine and Cheesemaking shop
800-559-9922.  No affiliation....

David Sherfey
Warwick, NY



Return to table of contents


Date: Sat, 05 Feb 2000 16:36:29 +0000
From: "A. J. deLange" <ajdel at mindspring.com>
Subject: Color

Spencer wrote:
 >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 think it's really a matter of semantics. The cameras pick up RGB,
gamma correction is done on the RGB signals and the gamma corrected
signals are then "matrixed" into the Y, I and Q signals which are
amplitude modulated onto the main carrier in the first instance and, in
the case of I and Q, in quadrature on the color sub carrier. The inverse
is done in the receiver and it is RGB which is presented to the color
guns.

The FCC-NTSC system does specify RGB primaries  located at x= 0.67, y =
0.33 (R); x= 0.21, y=0.71 (G) and x = 0.14, y = 0.08 (B). It is in fact
these primaries that I used in the example numbers I published a week
ago so that when Spencer later writes in response to that  post...


>> 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.

 ... he is very close to the right explanation (to which level of depth I
didn't think we'd get). The example beer color  cannot be modeled  by a
system whose primaries are the NTSC-FCC primaries. If the three FCC
primaries given above be plotted on a chromaticity diagram and joined by
straight lines the example beer chroma (x = .5640, y = .4927) would plot
outside the triangle so formed.  Note that had I used the CIE RGB
primaries, the example beer would have fallen within the primary
triangle and the B value would have been a small positive number. The
limitations of the NTSC system with respect to the reds and purples (the
parts of the chromaticity diagram that the FCC primaries lop off) are
well known and widely lamented. Darker beer colors fall in this
region.Note that in TV sets newer phosphors which are brighter but which
are even more restricted in their ability to produce the full gamut of
color are now in use.

Now whether my monitor can reproduce the example beer color or not is
another question altogether. I have no idea as to where the primaries
for this little laptop's screen lie. As the light emitters are
transistors and not phosphor dots I immagine the primaries are not the
FCC primaries found in readers' color TV's (or should I put "colour" and
see if I can rile the Ozzies and Pommies again). I very much doubt they
are close to the CIE primaries whose lower boundary kisses the alychne.

The points about gamma correction are well made. I, an obnoxiously proud
Mac user, would never have thought of this and was quite puzzled when
some correspondents reported setting RGB values greater than 100 (Mac's,
with the gamma correction built in, have controls which range from 0 to
100%). If you double the color levels on a machine, such as a Mac,
which does automatic gamma correction (wonder if the laptops have it),
the color not shift  but only appear brighter.

With respect to the transformation I used: in the field I suspected I
had bobbbled a factor of 10 in the green Z coefficient, corrected it and
that's what I published. A check now that I am home reveals that I was
correct in my surmise and that the coefficients I posted are correct.
Note that they are for transforming from XYZ based on Illuminant C
(which appromixates northern daylight) to the FCC-NTSC RGB primaries. I
think these are the best transformations to use as I expect most
computer monitors are cloer to the FCC primaries than the CIE.

I'd like to reemphasize that it is very difficult to reproduce beer
color on the screen of a computer or TV. This is because the dynamic
range of beer light transmission is large. When you look at a beer with
a view to assesing its color you supply enough light that you can
readily see the color even if this means shining a flashlight through
it. On the computer, the equivalent is increasing the luminance to the
point where the color can be seen but you can only do that for one beer
at a time or for a group of beers that have very close to the same level
of light attenuation.

Quoting from ASTM E-308 Paragraph 5.1 "The CIE colorimetric systems
provide numerical specifications that are meant to indicate whether or
not pairs of color stimuli match when viewed by a CIE standard observer.
The CIE color systems are not intended to provide visually uniform
scales of color difference or to describe visually perceived color
appearances." Nonetheless it is exactly the CIE system that is the basis
for color broadcasting throughout the world. It is made to work as well
as it does because scene illumination is adjusted to limit dynamic range
and because things like gamma correction are applied to compensate for
the dynamic range limitations.

Taking all this into account consider Dana's question as to whether a
photograph of beer could be used as the source for data for computerized
patches. Remember that a photograph's job is to present a metamer of the
color of an object, not the color of the object. Thus a spectral scan of
the film of a photograph only reveals the absorbtion spectra of the
three dyes (magenta, cyan and yellow) which are used to control,
respectively, the amounts of green, red and blue light refelected from
or transmitted by the photograph. Also, the photographer will have
arranged lighting and exposure so that the beer looks the way he wants
it to. I could photograph a glass of Guiness so that it looks jet black
or ruby red depending on how I illuminate it. I can't put ruby red
Guiness and Amber Pilsner Urquel in the same photograph in a way that
makes comparison meaningful. It is, therefore, IMO, best that we think
of these color measurements as comparative numbers, just as we do SRM
now.

A couple of other small points: Gamma correction is indeed driven by the
CRT, not the camera. In the US the gamma correction value is 2.2, in the
rest of the world it's 2.6.
Color blindess effects  8% of us males and 0.5% of women. Of the males,
only 2.5% are true protanopes (all colors can be matched two primaries)
and only 0.003% can see no color at all.

If anyone wants data to play with this stuff, drop me a line.





Return to table of contents


Date: Sat, 5 Feb 2000 12:31:55 -0500
From: Dave Burley <Dave_Burley at compuserve.com>
Subject: Corkiness, 6d nails, brewing language, blue brew

Brewsters:

Although I suspect the earthiness being
referred to is microbiological in origin
(perhaps Brettanomyces), "corked"
wines occus about 5% of the time from
bad corks. Often chlorine bleaching has
been blamed for this and is no longer
done by quality cork manufacturers.
You might try bleaching some corks in
chlorine bleach and rinsing them well
to a neutral pH before corking. Although
I don't think this works with every cork,
this may give you an idea if you like this
musty, corky taste and if this is for what
you are searching - if you get a bottle
that has a corked taste.
- -----------------------------
If you want to be really confused, in
the US we still talk about 6 penny nails
and the like and label them with a
"d" which is the defunct symbol for the
old British penny in the old non-metric
money system and may have related
to the cost of a pound of these when
spending a penny meant something
else.

I still remember the "hay'pney" 
( half penny), but don't remember
 seeing one, the" thrup'ney" or
"thrup'nce" (3 pennys),
six'p'nce ( six pennys),
shilling (two six'p'nce and 1/20 of
a pound), the Pound and the 
Guinea ( a pound and a shilling which
was a mythical ( or at least ancient)
 coin, I believe, often used for
advertising the cost of renting flats
and in higher priced clothing stores
as a sign of "class". 

Although the British monetary system
was  confusing to the uninitiated,
I remember an old dear staring into
a Marks and Sparks store window,
thoroughly puzzled by the recently
introduced digital monetary system
and asking me "how much is that in
pounds, shillings and pence?"

A young worker I hired to help me
went to the Home Depot and kept
talking about "6d" nails which is how the
box is labelled. I didn't  correct him
until we were alone, but I didn't get
the impression the clerk knew that
the 'd' is pronounced "penny" either.

BTW the old British Penny ( not
the modern pence) was about
the size of a half US dollar
(about an inch and a half or 3.79
cm +) and made from copper
alloys. "spending a penny"
meant going to the public toilet
( "loo") which took this coin.
Who says we don't speak the 
same language? 
- ---------------------------------------
Speaking of language, in the 
spirit of modernization and in
line with the "modernization" of the 
counting system, why don't we 
stop using these antiquated terms
like tun, lauter, wort. grist, mash
and the like. Why not reaction chamber,
extraction, fermentable solution,
comminuted reactants, reaction
mixture?
- --------------------------------------
Dana Edgell asks if starting to 
boil as soon as the wort comes out
of the lauter is too soon and if it 
will cause a problem.

I also do it this way and don't
have a problem, although it takes
several minutes and often never
boils until the sparge is just finishing.
I was just pointing out to avoid too
hot a mashout ( and even gave
the wrong temperature. Damn
this metric system. I should have
said 176 F ( not 180F)  or 80C)
as others may not realize
some alpha amylase is needed
to clean up any starch which was
not saccharified during the normal
mash routine at lower temperatures
but may dissolve as the temperature
is raised to mashout.

It is important to check the lautered
wort with iodine to be sure you do 
not have what Kuenze calls a
"blue brew" which indicates you
have residual starch, even though
the mash had earlier given a negative
iodine test. Blue brews likely result
from poor milling, too short a mash
and/or too high of a mashout
temperature. This will result in a
potential for starch haze.

If you get a blue brew then you
will have to remash it with some
additional malt or add an extract
with some diastatic capability
and hold it in the 160s F (71C+/-- )
range to avoid additonal beta
amylase activity. 


Keep on Brewin'

Dave Burley


Return to table of contents


Date: Sun, 06 Feb 2000 11:22:25 +1100
From: Wes Smith <wessmith at ozemail.com.au>
Subject: Heads-up for Valley Mill owners.

My Valley Mill is motorised with a 12:1 reduction system powered by a 1/3hp 
motor. Heaps of torque...As a result of this little episode I now have a 
(almost) perfectly machined circumferential groove 3mm wide x 1mm deep 
approx. in the driven roller. Story goes like this:

 - Mill had been giving problems last couple of times used - idler roller 
would stall and need "prod" from end of PVC brewing spoon to get grain moving.
 - Decide to order bearing upgrade kit from Valley people
 - January 25 - late PM, decide to prepare for Great Brewing Day on 26th 
(Australia Day) Heady thoughts of a great "Federation Wit" come to mind.
 - All goes well until mill decides to stall again with full hopper. More 
prods with spoon. Bit more grain runs then stalls again.
 - Charlie's mantra comes to mind so stop and sample earlier brew.
 - Nothings changed - damn thing still wont run properly and still have 
about half the grain bill (10kg) to run.
 - Mill is starting to make more noise than usual. Driven roller shaft quite 
hot (pinky test) Decide to turn off and let cool down.
 - Makes no difference -  at #%! of a thing still wont run properly.
 - Recognise pink mist rising, decide to change weapon of choice from PVC 
brewing spoon to long piece of hardwood 1/2" (sorry - 12mm) square. 
Actually the PVC spoon is getting much shorter.
 - Locate idler roller with end of new weapon and apply significant downforce.
 - Suddenly grain begins to run again. Sweetness and light return - Charlie 
was right - this is fun.

Fast forward to following week. The new bearing blocks arrive from Valley. 
I dismantle the mill to find the damaged roller! There is no sign of any 
foreign object - just a thumping big groove in the roller. Whatever caused 
the damage has gone - probably being rejected by the Kangaloon Reds (worms) 
in the compost bin (they love the spent grains).

My best guess at this stage is that something like a small self tapper 
found its way into the mill and had sat there for some time gradually 
grinding its way into the roller but remaining in the one spot. All the 
stalling problems were due to this object - not any stiff or seized idler 
bearing. When I finally attacked the idler roller with the stick, it 
finally caught the remains of the object and passed it through.

Lesson learnt? Be very careful with motorised units - especially where 
there is an abundance of torque. I had no way of knowing how much extra 
energy the motor was providing. Oh - I like the new bearing kit for the 
mill. Just wish it was easier to upgrade the idler roller from Nylon to 
ball bearings.

In the meantime I am pondering the impact of PVC and steel swarf  in a mash....

Wes Smith.
Not far from Phil in Burradoo.




Return to table of contents


Date: 5 Feb 2000 16:46:43 -0800
From: zimurgist at worldspy.net
Subject: Practical Brewer download

You can still download this at
mbaa.com/publication/pdf.html
This will take you directly to
the download site. (it was open
as of the writing of this post
2/5/00) it is worth the tedious 
download--Good luck

Daveman


______________________________________________________________
Get free Internet service and email at http://www.worldspy.com


Return to table of contents


Date: Sat, 5 Feb 2000 21:33:37 -0500
From: "Mike Maag" <maagm at rica.net>
Subject: Hot break

A while ago "Darrell Leavitt"<Darrell_Leavitt at sln.esc.edu>asked:
>I have a question about the "hot break":  >,...just as the wort starts to
boil I get scum on the top.  I have interpreted this scum as "hot break"
My question is: is this the hot >break/ large proteins?  and if so, can one
'over skim'...ie can one take
>too much thereby harming head retention?

To which Jeff Renner replied:
No, this is just some other coagulated protein.  Hot break is a white,
suspended coagulated protein.......I also skim that thin crusty brown crud
just because it looks nasty...
Jeff

I waited for someone to address this, but no one did, so...

Al Korzonas states in Homebrewing Vol 1 on page 76  "As the hot break forms,
it will create a brown film on top of the wort which I recommend you skim
off....I believe that waiting ten minutes (and skimming the hot break)
before adding the boiling hops increases the amount of bitterness you get
from them (hop utilization rate).  I hypothesize that, since the hops help
form the hot break, some of the hot break will coat the hops interfering
with the extraction of their bitterness."

Since reading this about 20 batches ago, I have skimmed the "pre-hot break"
off the wort before adding hops.  The perceived hop bitterness I get seems
to be much improved.  Head has not suffered one bit.  Just a data point.

Mke Maag, In the Shenandoah Valley 8*)




i



Return to table of contents


Date: Sat, 5 Feb 2000 21:53:19 -0500
From: Pat Babcock <pbabcock at hbd.org>
Subject: Foam stopper's affect on yeast culture?!

Greetings, Beerlings! Take me to your lager...

I noticed something interesting recently. I have what I'm beginning to 
refer to as "The Eternal 1056 Culture". I started it in November thinking 
that I'd get a chance to brew around Thanksgiving. Alas, I didn't. I 
continued to feed it and step it up thinking I'd get to brew near 
Christmas. Drat, I didn't - but I did manage to donate a spilt of it to a 
close friend in need of a quick starter. Anyway, it's now February. As you 
might imagine, this starter now lives in several flasks having been split 
from the original long ago.

With each split, I was careful to swirl the flask and ensure all the yeast 
was in suspension before pouring into another vessel. I'd expect that each 
of the three 2 liter Erlenmeyers it now lives in are as similar as a home 
brewer can get them. One culture is under one of Williams Brewing's  foam 
stoppers as I was short of one #10 stopper when I split into the three. The 
other two are under typical home brew store plastic 'S'-type airlocks. The 
observation: the culture under the foam stopper consistently comes to 
kraeusen faster than the other two when feeding, and has a very thick, 
close head when at kraeusen, and stays at kraeusen longer. The others seem 
to be a bit sluggish when coming to kraeusen, with rocky, large-bubbled 
heads.

Now, I haven't (yet) switched stoppers to see if I can move the effect 
around (I do intend to, though), but this has been pretty consistently 
observed over a period of almost three months now. Is there any reason why 
this SHOULD be? Perhaps the foam stopper is more "two-way" than the water 
lock? Or maybe the foam stopper doesn't cause a slight increase in head 
pressure as you would get from the weight of the column of water in the 
S-lock, so there is less CO2 dissolving into that starter? When pouring 
off, there are no flavors unlike any other starter I've ever sampled, so 
it's not an infection. Thoughts?

On a hopeful note, I finished welding together the base of my new brew 
stand a few minutes ago. With luck and no interfering occurrences, I should 
have the rack finished tomorrow evening. Once that's done and piped in, 
between that and my Motorized MaltMill Monstrosity [tm], I should think 
that I'd have to actually LOOK for excuses not to brew....

 -
See ya!
Pat Babcock in SE Michigan         pbabcock at hbd.org
Home Brew Digest Janitor           janitor@hbd.org
HBD Web Site                       http://hbd.org
The Home Brew Page                 http://hbd.org/pbabcock/
"Just a cyber-shadow of his former brewing self..."




Return to table of contents


Date: Sat, 5 Feb 2000 20:02:59 -0800 (PST)
From: Matthew Comstock <mccomstock at yahoo.com>
Subject: Lauter water deflector

Greetings

Different folks have described how they scatter
their sparge water over the grain during the
lauter.  Sparge arms, etc.  Tonight I used a
small Tupperware (no affil... ah gimme a break!)
lid and set it on top of the grain.  I poured
right on top of it until I had a goodly plug of
water sitting on top of the grain bed.  When I
stopped pouring, the thing floated.  No problems
with water having to creep around a big plate or
something. Just another idea.
- ------------------------
>From Mark Tumarkin in hbd#3226

I paraphrase his paraphrase

>SOLUTION OF THE SECRET OF ALCOHOLIC FERMENTATION
>because of the discharge if excrements. These
>animals evacuate ethyl alcohol from  their
>bowels and carbon dioxide from their urinary
>organs. Thus one  can observe how a specifically
>lighter fluid is exuded from the anus and rises
>vertically whereas a stream of carbon dioxide is
>ejected at very short intervals from their
>large genitals."
>by Fredrich Woehier and Justus Von Liebig
>Published in the annals of Chemistry Volume 29,
1839

Lighter fluid is exuded from the anus?

Where the heck is Fouch.  No really.  Did I miss
a comment here?
- -----------------------
>From Fred Wills in the HomeBurley Digest - that's
rich. 

>For what it's worth, my vote is that the most
>cause of Russ's low
>extraction is an incomplete grain crush. 
>QDA!!!  It's my *opinion* based on my own
>personal experience that it is impossible to
>overcrush malt when using a roller mill.  Unless
>you use a flour grinder (ie Corona), stuck
>mashes are due to lautering process not
>milling.

While I can't argue the first statement, in my
limited experience, the only stuck mash I've had
was when I had the mill set High Crush.  I think
a moderate crush is far more forgiving,
especially for new mashers.  While a real good
crush might not give an expert a stuck mash, a
new guy like me will stop things up pretty good
(Lighter fluid is exuded from ...?).  With a poor
crush we lose a few OG points but we have a
forgiving mash - no stuck mash headaches.  Fine
with me.  Also, I'm sure this question revolves
around what sort of set up you have. One guy's
great lauter is another guy's stuck mash.

Laters

Matt Comstock in Cincinnati


__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Talk to your friends online with Yahoo! Messenger.
http://im.yahoo.com


Return to table of contents


Date: Sun, 6 Feb 2000 10:20:06 EST
From: JPullum127 at aol.com
Subject: yes they are out there!

i just had my new washing machine delivered by the dumbest guy in the state. 
i had to write some of his comments cause they are so strange it was funny.
1. as he came into my furnace room he saw all my carboys, tubings, wort 
chiller ect, and asked"whoo boy what you got here a meth lab?" i politely 
told him it was for beer making as visions of the swat team invading my house 
flashed before me.
2. he then said" i was going to go to one of those microbreweries downtown 
once but friend told me it's all faggot beer,so i didn't go'.
at this point i quit talking to him but he just kept babbling as he connected 
up the hoses.
3.i like the bud lites but only in the bottles, the cans are a different beer 
and it's bad for you.
4. but only the brown bottles,i had some of those green bottles from canada 
once and they make you sick after drinking 7 or eight of em"
5. that german beers so expensive because they know guys only buy it to 
impress women with even though it tastes bad.
6. i like the 911's at guitars and cadillacs, it's aftershock,everclear and 
rumplemintz ,after 5 or 6 of them you'r legs don't work right.
7. and finally as he was leaving "you know you could probably refill old 
bottles with that homemade stuff and sell it to bars,if they served it late 
at night most people probably wouldn't notice"!

the really scary thing is this guys vote counts as much as mine! 


Return to table of contents


Date: Sun, 6 Feb 2000 17:55:35 -0500
From: Pat Babcock <pbabcock at hbd.org>
Subject: Brewing in the Readers Digest...

Greetings, Beerlings! Take me to your lager...

Perusing the February 2000 Readers Digest whilst upon the throne, I came 
across an article discussing Jim Koch's coming to be. A brief description 
of how his father didn't want him to be a brewer, how he dropped out of 
Harvard, joined Outward Bound, returned to Harvard, etc, etc - even how his 
"...dad had been cleaning out the attic and came across some old beer 
recipes on scraps of yellow paper."  (Neat bit of PR work there - true or 
otherwise.)

Anyway, it closes with Jim's advice to all young entrepreneurs: "Life is 
very long, so don't rush to make decisions. Life doesn't let you plan." Am 
I the only one who finds this oddly contradictory?

 -
See ya!
Pat Babcock in SE Michigan         pbabcock at hbd.org
Home Brew Digest Janitor           janitor@hbd.org
HBD Web Site                       http://hbd.org
The Home Brew Page                 http://hbd.org/pbabcock/
"Just a cyber-shadow of his former brewing self..."




Return to table of contents

---