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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
		Rob Gardner, Digest Coordinator


Contents:
  DeFalco's (Evelyn, A modified Dog)
  Re: Mash out (Pete Soper)
  Re: puzzling problem.. haze (Donald P Perley)
  RE: Cloudy brew (Dave Johnson)
  Re: Re: Priming (Dr. T. Andrews)
  Toasted Malt (Wayne Allen)
  Siphoning after Dry Hopping (John Polstra)
  re:	coffee in stouts (florianb)


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Date:    Thu, 1 Feb 1990 2:49:05 CST
From: RML3362 at VENUS.TAMU.EDU (Evelyn, A modified Dog)
Subject: DeFalco's

Good Evening All,
In the listing of Mail order places I noticed that my primary shop is Defalco's
in Houstan.

It's a nice little shop whith a good selection and the people are very friendly
and helpful.

From what I ahve seen the prices are fairly rasonable (off hand the only thing
I remember is the malted grains, 1.09 for most and 1.59 for specialty)

I will post address etc. if interested.

Oh yeah right next door is a neat little Brewpub, Gingerman's iif you are ever
in Houstanand get to Rice village I urge you to check it out.
(I shall always have fond memories of that place.. first place I ever tasted
Anchor steams christmas ale :_) )

 -Michael
RML3362 at rigel.tamu.edu

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Date: Thu, 1 Feb 90 10:02:28 EST
From: Pete Soper <soper at maxzilla.encore.com>
Subject: Re: Mash out

  The one hazard you risk is a final gravity lower than expected. This
is because beta amylase keeps munching away until it is finally 
denatured by heat or the temperature drops low enough. So, if you spend
a long time getting your sparging going, your tun is uninsulated, you 
don't reheat your recirculated runoff, etc. etc. you will see more 
dryness than you'd like. I wouldn't sweat it, even though I had an
extreme case of this last year (OG 1.050, TG 1.006 - torpedo fuel that
only I could drink). Just make yourself a checklist for next time.

- --Pete Soper

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Date: Thu, 1 Feb 90 10:24:30 EST
From: perley at glacier.crd.ge.com (Donald P Perley)
Subject: Re: puzzling problem.. haze

>I have been having a problem lately that I would appreciate some suggestions
>on what to try to correct it.  It's cloudy beer.  Before everyone starts 
>saying to be more careful with sanitizing let me explain what the process is
>that I go through.  
>
>First of all, I never used to have much of a problem with cloudy beer until
>one batch and it hasn't changed since.  I thought that my original primary 

There are a couple of possibilities.. First I will harp a little more on
sanitation.  You may have a problem with your environment rather than the
brewing equipment itself.  Some homebrewers go quite a while without an
infection problem, and then some malt loving bug finds their kitchen and
is encouraged to stay by frequent brewing sessions.  Make sure the 
whole kitchen is cleaned and/or sanitized.  counters, sinks,tables, floor,
no dirty dishes, take out the garbage and leave the bin out until after
you're done, used dish rags or sponges out of the kitchen. 

From your posting you have probably covered most of this.

If you are using grain, some books say not to grind it in the kitchen,
because the grinding throws a lot of malt dust in the air which will
settle all over the place and keep your bugs happy until next time.

Of course, it may not be an infection at all, so look for a change in 
procedure.  The first thing that comes to mind is you may be doing full boils
now instead of topping up with cold water in the fermenter.  The slower 
cooling will make your beer hazier.  Did you recently start using grain
adjuncts or mashing?  Incomplete conversion or not doing protein rests in
the mash will haze things up.

If you are doing single stage, you might want to try 2 stage.  It has a 
little more chance of infection, but barring that the beer usually comes
out clearer.

Another possibility: some municiple water supplies vary a lot from one
season to the next as they put in more chemicals to deal with algea blooms,
or the reservoir gets low and they go to another source.  Is your friend
on the same system?  Try some of his water.

 -don perley

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Date: Thu, 1 Feb 90 08:56:01 mst
From: Dave Johnson <davej at hpdml90>
Subject: RE: Cloudy brew
Full-Name: Dave Johnson

John E. Greene writes:

>I have been having a problem lately that I would appreciate 
>some suggestions on what to try to correct it.  It's cloudy beer.
>	    	.
>    		.
>I use gypsum in the water.....
       ^^^^^^

I have never had cloudy beer 'til I brewed a batch and added two
teaspoons of gypsum (just to see what would result) at the start
of the boil.  The result was cloudy beer with a asprin-like
aftertaste -- yeak!  After 4 weeks in the bottle, the aftertaste
is starting to soften and the beer is becoming more translucent,
but not clear.  Also, I follow very sanitary procedures.

This is the *last* time that I add gypsum to my beer.

+-------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Dave 'sorry, no cute signiture here' Johnson                      |      
+-------------------------------------------------------------------+

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Date: Wed, 31 Jan 90 21:21:27 EST
From: Dr. T. Andrews <ki4pv!tanner at uunet.UU.NET>
Subject: Re: Re: Priming

) [ prime with more dry malt than corn sugar; 3/4 made flat beer ]
I've been bottling with 1/2 to 3/4 cup of DME (boiled in about a pint
of water) for bottling, and it provides plenty of carbonation.  This
is for the standard 5-gallon batch in the standard 12-oz bottles and
pint bottles.

The storage temperature of the bottles makes a big difference,
though.  Leave ale in a cold (~60F) closet for a month, drag out a
bottle, and you may have flat beer.  Stash the rest of the bottles in
a warm place for a week or so, and your beer carbonates and is nice.
- -- 
...!{bikini.cis.ufl.edu allegra attctc bpa uunet!cdin-1}!ki4pv!tanner


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Date: Thu, 1 Feb 90 10:54:15 CST
From: wa%cadillac.cad.mcc.com at mcc.com (Wayne Allen)
Subject: Toasted Malt


Pete Soper writes:

>Is this really unmashed lager or pale malt?
>If so, surely this puts raw starch and complex proteins into the
>final beer, creating the potential for permanent haze, infection
>by starch gobbling creatures, etc?

Thanks for your concern, Pete.  My recipe refers to toasted pale malt
(sorry for being imprecise, my children trained me that way :^). It
remains in the water from cold start up to the boil, and is then
removed (as outlined in Papazian).  I've used this in 8 batches so far
with no noticable effect except flavor. I use Irish Moss in the boil,
which binds the proteins (or is it the tanins?). As to infections,
when you have 6 pounds of sugar, what's a few grams of starch?
Besides, it makes your kitchen smell good!  

wayne ("what, me worry?") allen


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Date: Thu, 1 Feb 90 11:03:41 PST
From: hpl.hp.com!polstra!jdp at hplabs (John Polstra)
Subject: Siphoning after Dry Hopping

[Er, did I say "siphoning"?  How un-brewerlike of me.  I meant "racking"
of course.  Gotta watch that, somebody might figure out what we're
talking about in this group.]

In HBD #348, Stuart Crawford <stuart at ads.com> asks:
> I'm making my first attempt at dry hopping, and have added the hops to
> the secondary fermenter.  My plan is to leave the wort in the secondary
> for about a week, then I'll bottle.  Should I attempt to filter out the
> hops prior to bottling, or is it sufficient to assume that I'll leave
> enough behind after racking that I needn't worry?

You don't need to do any special filtering.  As you're racking the beer
into the priming vessel, just try to keep the end of the siphon hose
from getting too close to the hops.  I use one of those plastic racking
wands that has a small sphere at the end with several holes in it.  That
helps to avoid clogging from the hops.  I only had it clog up once, and
even then it was pretty easy to dislodge the hops and resume racking.

If you can muster up the patience, it might be worth leaving the beer in
the secondary with the dry hops for, say, an extra week.  You'll get
more aroma out of the hops that way.

 -  John Polstra               jdp at polstra.UUCP
   Polstra & Co., Inc.        ...{uunet,sun}!practic!polstra!jdp
   Seattle, WA                (206) 932-6482


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Date: 01 Feb 90 17:02:03 PST (Thu)
From: florianb at tekred.cna.tek.com
Subject: re:	coffee in stouts

In #349 Mark Stevens asks about putting coffee in stouts.  I've done this
occasionally with good results.  I grind the coffee right along with the
grain (both pale and adjuncts), and mash as usual.  The 1/2 cup per 5 gal
batch is about the amount I use.  I prefer Sumatra coffee beans, since
they are mild and usually less oily.  In these stouts, I've also added
cocoa and brewer's licorice to form a good taste combination.

florian


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End of HOMEBREW Digest #350, 02/02/90
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