---

	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:
  mash tun design (Doniese)
  Brew Mac? ("Fab & Simon")
  Does a "Self-Run Business" interest you? (homebiz003)
  dyslectic doctor ("Dr. Pivo")
  Has anyone seen Skotrat's Page? ("David Blaine")
  Sight Glass (tube) Components/Sources ("H. Dowda")
  Wyeast Cell Counts ("Paddock Wood Brewing Supplies")
  Digest frequency et al. (Some Guy)
  Thermo ("Sean Richens")
  Fred Garvin (fred_garvin)
  weizen and lager yeast ("Mark Bayer")


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


Date: Sat, 18 Mar 2000 02:35:52 EST
From: Doniese at aol.com
Subject: mash tun design

I have a question concerning mash-tun design for those who know about these 
things...

I would like to build a new mash tun that will be capable of making a 10 
gallon batch with no problem.  However, I will still primarily brew 5 gallon 
batches, mainly because like most of use here, I like to experiment with 
styles, ingredients, yeast, etc.  I have several nifty stainless steel 
vessels available to me for this purpose, and I'm trying to pick the best 
size.  My questions are these:

First, what is the "optimum" grain bed depth?  What is a safe minimum grain 
bed depth?  What problems will result from a grain bed that is too shallow?  
Assuming for a moment that heat loss wouldn't be a problem (large surface 
area, shallow depth), I wonder about extraction rates and clarity of run off.

Second, is there any difference with respect to efficiency, channeling, etc., 
in the following manners of drawing off the sweet wort?

(1) port and ball valve located in the side, below the false bottom  (2) port 
and ball valve located in the side, above the false bottom, drawing through a 
dip tube assembly like most Sanke keg set-ups I've seen,  and (3)  port 
located in the middle of the bottom of the mash tun (plumbed out to a ball 
valve).

Again, I'm mainly interested in the flow and efficiency aspects.  One thing 
that may (or may not) be important for (3) is that the bottom of the vessel 
is flat, not curved to a low point like a keg.

I'd really appreciate any help or input.  Personal Email is fine, or post 
here if you think others could use the info.

Thanks!
Craig in WA state


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Date: Mon, 04 Jan 1904 09:21:46 +1100
From: "Fab & Simon" <bluetrees at picknowl.com.au>
Subject: Brew Mac?

HBD,
    AAARRRHH!!! After the death of my former computer it has been better
than six months since I last saw HBD. Try holding your breath for that long.
Good to be back.
    Quick question for the collective. I previously used and loved Suds 4,
is there anything similar for Mac? I'd also love to here about good brewing
sites out there as I lost everything when old faithful melted down.
Private email ok.

Simon




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Date: Sat, 18 Mar 2000 07:08:07
From: homebiz003 at talk21.com
Subject: Does a "Self-Run Business" interest you?

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Your ISP is bound by the U.S. Federal Privacy Act and must comply
with your request if you are paying for their services.

This mailing is done by an independent marketing company. We
apologize if this message has reached you in error. Save the Planet,
Save the Trees! Advertise via E-mail. No wasted paper!


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Date: Sat, 18 Mar 2000 15:16:39 +0100
From: "Dr. Pivo" <dp at pivo.w.se>
Subject: dyslectic doctor

My reading ability has come into question:

Most recently Steve A. has opined:

> Dr.P.IXI - apparently he is not able to accurately read

and further:

>   Little wonder that someone
> who cannot read or reason rejects my posts

little wonder, indeed. (little Stevie wonder?)

Alan Meeker was a little less sure, but implies the same:

> Huh? Did you learn to read in school doc?

I would like to respond to this right now by saying:
"Quite frankly, no."

Neither is it a skill I've acquired since leaving school.

It just seems to be beyond me.

Fortunately, my mummy still reads me bed-time stories.  I keep hounding
her to read me that real "neat" one where Captain Nemo goes sailing all
over the world under water..... but she insists on reading me the HBD.

I think this stems from the fact that I can't seem to break my habit of
eating all the cigarette butts in the ashtrays, nor the "snail bait" in
the garden, and the pomposity exhibited here is very efficacious at
causing forced vomiting.

>  My
> God, his arrogance knows no bounds! Next he'll be claiming he came up with
> :)

OF COURSE I DID!.... and I shall be expecting a royalty check for your
recent use of it.

As to "(*)", I shall allow anyone to use it freely, but shall now begin
collecting my proprietary rights whenever anyone BEHAVES like one (I can
smell an impending retirement).

Dr. Pivo


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Date: Sat, 18 Mar 2000 09:38:44 -0800
From: "David Blaine" <dblaine at mailandnews.com>
Subject: Has anyone seen Skotrat's Page?

Haven't seen hide nor hair of the Beerslut page in awhile, anyone know if
Skot's working on a new server?  E Mail me. i.brew2 at beer.com
Thanks.



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Date: Sat, 18 Mar 2000 07:17:06 -0800 (PST)
From: "H. Dowda" <hdowda at yahoo.com>
Subject: Sight Glass (tube) Components/Sources

Want to add a sight glass to my keg wort boiler.  What
is the collective using for fittings?  What is a
source (material) for the tubes?  Are there commercial
'drill and mount' assemblies available?  Thanks.
Harold Dowda

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


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Date: Sat, 18 Mar 2000 10:46:19 -0600
From: "Paddock Wood Brewing Supplies" <orders at paddockwood.com>
Subject: Wyeast Cell Counts

I'd just like to thank Lynne O'Connor of St. Patrick's of Texas, Brewers
Supply http://www.stpats.com for the very helpful posting regarding Wyeast
XL pack cell counts.  The independent lab test confirms Wyeast's published
counts of 40-60 billion cells for an XL 175ml pack fully activated.

Like others, I've let the pack swell too much before, it is best to pitch at
1" thick.  We use 4 month old packs, but keep our stock fresh at no more
than 3 months to help ensure faster swell times. A more swollen (attenuated)
pack works, but has much longer lag times (36-48 hours)

Thanks Lynne,


Stephen Ross -- "Vitae sine cerevesiae sugat."
______________________________________________
Paddock Wood Brewing Supplies, Saskatoon, SK
orders at paddockwood.com  www.paddockwood.com



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Date: Sat, 18 Mar 2000 11:53:06 -0500 (EST)
From: Some Guy <pbabcock at hbd.org>
Subject: Digest frequency et al.

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

First, there will never be an undigestified or "interactive" version of
the mailed HBD ever again. This event of the past was the single-most
destructive act ever performed on the DIgest. Yes, there was gobs and gobs
of Digest everyday, but the quality was incredibly poor and the volume
spiraled quickly out of control as those on the "undigested" version
rushed to answer postings the minute they were received, while others
posted answers the next day. The Digest became to voluminous for most to
follow, and those on the undigested version tired of threads in minutes
rather than days resulting in flames thrown at those responding from the
Digested version. In effect, it made anyone on the Digested version a
casual observer. Even I unsubscribed during that time. Never again.
Absolutely out of the question.

Second, there are still many who are limited in what they can reasonably
receive in email. Many companies and ISPs put a "per item" limit on mail.
50K is a reasonably sized, not-too-horribly huge piece of mail. If the
daily mailing was "unlimited" or large enough to give that impression,
"bandwidth" would become less of a concern, and there'd likely be far more
"drivel" included in each one.

Third, we are hosted gratis by O&E Online (oeonline.com). As a
well-mannered guest, there are certain things we must do: 

(1) We can't hog their bandwidth. With 3000+ mailings each issue, we could
easily do just that if we were to "take the governor off".

(2) We must pretty much be done with any mass mailings prior to their
opening their business operations in the morning, and mustn't start them
prior to their day's end. This prevents our loading down their network
while they're trying to earn the cash which allows them to HAVE the
network, let alone host us!

(3) We can't make demands on them. That should go without saying, but
there are some out there with funny ideas about what the HBD is and what
their relationship is to it. The HBD, effectively, is a parasite on a
host.

Don't take this that O&E overly restricts us - quite the contrary! They
have allowed us to do FAR more than had been agreed to when we originally
came onto their network - the club pages, the beer site pages, club
mailing lists, allied lists - the list of their support goes on! But if
your good friend lets you borrow things, you don't want to constantly
return them all used up; if you're invited for dinner, you don't eat the
whole turkey yourself. Capice?

Fourth and finally, without a delay between receipt of postings and their
publication, we can not effectively filter the spam out of it, as you have
seen a couple of times last month. Digest postings do not get to the
Digest through the Janitors. No - they go DIRECTLY into the queue, and it
is up to us to spot and eliminate spam. Unfortunately and contrary to what
many think, I'm not a piece of code written by Karl to monitor the 'gest
and send out wise-cracks now and again. I sleep, eat, and spend time away
from the internet - just like some of you. (Karl is a human, too - but I
think everyone knows that.) Without that delay, the content of the 'gest
would contain quite a bit more unwanted commercial content.


Though we strive to be fair and evenhanded in the administration of the
Digest, you can see that the conditions under which the HBD exists flat
out prevents it from being run as a total democracy. Many things are
decided for the Digest readership rather than by the readership. I think
our track record in making these decisions speaks for itself. Please rest
assured that the reasons we run the Digest in the manner you see are the
best case for keeping the Digest around and up to snuff. We do appreciate
suggestions; however, we rather they came directly to us rather than a
discussion piece to choke the bandwidth of the daily HBD.

Thanks!

 -
See ya!

Pat Babcock in SE Michigan         pbabcock at hbd.com
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..."



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Date: Sat, 18 Mar 2000 11:14:29 -0600
From: "Sean Richens" <srichens at sprint.ca>
Subject: Thermo

A.J. deLange writes with a totally straight face...
==========================================
The chemical potential of a gas (or anything
else for that matter) in a dilute solution is u = u0 + RT ln{xi} where
xi is the molar concentration of   gas i (u0 is a constant that depends
on the gas and the solvent). In the gas above the liquid the chemical
potential of gas i is v = v0 + RT ln{Pi} where Pi is the partial pressure
(or really the fugacity, if you want to get fancy)
===========================================

Holy smokes!  If I want to get fancy?!?!  Are you still in school or are you
from planet Kgyzpx?  I finished my Master's in chem eng. 7.5 years ago and
I've opened my thermo text twice in that period!  =:o)

Sean Richens
srichens.spamsucks at sprint.ca



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Date: Sat, 18 Mar 2000 18:43:28 -0500 (EST)
From: fred_garvin at fan.com
Subject: Fred Garvin

Mr. Giek syas of Fred Garvin:
"Come on now, some of you are as easy
as Fred Garvin is in an Atlanta gay 
bar or the men's bathroom in the 
Steelcase atrium."

Fred Garvin doesn't go to gay bars.
Fred Garvin doesn't work at Steelcase.
What Fred Garvin does in the bathroom
is Fred Garvin's business.

Fred Garvin is a bit scarred from the 
time he spent at the '94 Auburn Corn 
Festival ducking the 6'8" dude that 
asked him to dance.  While Fred Garvin
was not retired at the time, he was in
fact, "off duty".

I hope this helped.

Fred Garvin
Bagley's Feed and Grain, retired.
Kentwood MI

- ---------------------------------------------------------------------
Get free email from CNN Sports Illustrated at http://email.cnnsi.com/


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Date: Sat, 18 Mar 2000 18:33:28 -0600
From: "Mark Bayer" <mark_bayer at mindspring.com>
Subject: weizen and lager yeast

collective homebrew conscience_

i just got around to catching up on a few back issues, (mba school will do
that to you), and i noticed george de piro commenting on weizen and yeast,
thusly:

>More importantly, why would you bother
>to condition the Weizenbier with lager yeast?  The only value I can think
of
>is that lager yeasts are more resistant to autolysis than Weizen yeast, but
>why should that concern a homebrewer?  Homebrewers have complete control
>over their beer from inception to serving.  Keeping the beer cold and
>drinking it fresh will help much more than adding a lager yeast.

here's a somewhat related story:

i brewed a weizen last spring and decided to try kraeusening it with a lager
yeast. i used a lager yeast only because i happened to be planning a helles.
i was not using the kraeusen to carbonate the beer, per se, since it was
being force carbonated in a keg; it was more just to assess the flavor
impact. you know how kraeusening has this great reputation, etc. it was
65/35
wheat to pils malts and starting gravity 1.054. i bittered it to about 14
ibu (by tinseth), as i normally expect these beers to finish around 1.015 or
a little higher (saccharification is at 160 deg fahrenheit).

well, i pitched a large, active starter of yeastlab w51 and oxygenated the
wort, and got a really strong fermentation that was essentially over in
about 5 days. i ran the primary fermentation at 70 deg f.\ at day 10, i
started ramping the temperature down a few degrees a day, until on day 13 i
made the last adjustment to the thermostat at 54 deg f.\ 10 days later, i
kraeusened it with 850 ml of active hellesbier, in high kraeusen (it was 22
hours into its ferment).

the hellesbier was being fermented with wyeast 2124.

the weizen finished at 1.011, which is quite a bit drier than what i
normally aim for. in fact, it dried out so much that i considered the
bitterness to be a little too high. i was told by our resident beer expert
at the stl brews that it tasted more like the weizens in the central and
northern areas of the fatherland, as opposed to the bavarian styles (which
is what i shoot for in the bayer household). the other thing i noticed about
this beer was that it got progressively "cleaner" tasting as it continued to
age in the keg, at 34 degrees fahrenheit. it was gradually losing a lot of
the weizen yeast-induced character, like the phenolics and the estery aroma.
i attribute this effect to the lager yeast only because it's the only thing
i did differently than batches in the past. at 34 deg f, it really didn't
seem to be getting any of the tell-tale "staling" symptoms that i've
experienced with room temperature storage.

i don't think i will kraeusen a weissbier again, unless i use a weizen
yeast.
the lager yeast cleaned it up and dried it out too much for my taste. i got
roughly 79% apparent attenuation from a combination of yeasts that i
wouldn't expect to attenuate the wort that much, if one or the other had
been used individually. maybe the w51 is more attenuative than i was
thinking. i wouldn't have estimated it at more than 75 to 77% apparent. plus
i mashed at 160 deg f.

now, i had asked doc pivo about this very topic before i tried the
kraeusening, and one of the things he wrote me was that the kraeusenbier
would have a big flavor impact on the beer. he was right. i admit i did not
believe that 850 ml of young helles could dramatically change 5 gallons of
weiss, but it did (it was more dramatic as time went on). pivo 1: me 0. the
only better way i could have assessed it would have been to split the batch
and only kraeusen half so i could do a side-by-side. but, i've done enough
of
these in the past (without the kraeusening) to know that it changed the beer
significantly.

south german pils in the morning (double decocted with the budvar pils
malt). 4 am comes early.

brew hard,

mark bayer
stl mo (hey, who's coming to mcab?)




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