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FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
Digest Janitor: janitor@hbd.org
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Contents:
non carbonating beer. still no fizz (Christopher Chow)
re: microwave RIMS? ("Stephen Alexander")
Microwave RIMS, Hmmmmmm? (Rod Prather)
The truth of Phil beers, Lambics (craftbrewer)
krausen ("Micah Millspaw")
mash flow question ("Todd M. Snyder")
Hops and Horses ("Jim Bermingham")
Re: Spent Grains (james r layton)
Re: Microwave Rims (Marc Donnelly)
Re: Wild Hops: Alpha Acid Determination? (Jeff Renner)
Re: Canadian Recipes (Jeff Renner)
Re: Hops and horses... (Jeff Renner)
re: Hops and horses... (Bob Devine)
Electric HLT ("Kevin Eggemeyer")
Alpha Acids (AJ)
WLP099- Super High Gravity Yeast (JGORMAN)
Yeasties ("Jeffry D Luck")
Repitching yeast and trub. (Craig MacFarlane)
RE: kettle spigot/hop pellets (Eli Daniel)
'Cherries in the Snow' (Wes Gibson)
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Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 00:28:57 -0500 (EST)
From: Christopher Chow <chow at engineer.com>
Subject: non carbonating beer. still no fizz
Hello everyone! Happy New Year!
A few weeks ago I posted a message about my first batch of brew that did not
carbonate. Well I took all the tips and suggestions and decided to wait it
out. The first time i tasted the flat beer was 2 weeks after bottling. Now
its been about a month and a half and still no bubbles. What should I do?
Should I add some yeast to each bottle? Add sugar? Both? I think the yeast
just died and didnt get to the sugar. Thanks!
Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 00:22:16 -0500
From: "Stephen Alexander" <steve-alexander at worldnet.att.net>
Subject: re: microwave RIMS?
Rick Wood says ...
>I am interested to know if anyone has considered the use of a
>Microwave Oven for a RIMS implementation?
...
>Seems like a plastic coil could be placed in the oven with the prewort
being
>pumped thru, [...]
Tho' not a RIMS I had used a microwave to perform step mashes as part of a
mini-mash design. My intention was to create very reproducible mash results
on modest sized batches. Also for creating starter & krausen wort without
firing up a sanke.
I used 1.1gal Rubbermaid container with up to 2# of grist in a 1KW micro.
Maytags (maybe others) have a temperature probe that can be used to hit &
hold control temps(calibrate the unit).
My initial suspicion that microwave heat may denature malt enzymes appears
to be false, at least for the amylases. I got good conversions.
I didn't use 'thru the door' piping and I caution you to purchase or
construct proper microwave baffles and also measure the power escaping
before you use a modified M-oven. You can make baffles from conventional
copper plumbing parts but my liability insurer prevents me from suggesting
this.
Personally I'm not in love w/ microwave heating for brewing which is why
this was just an experiment. The heating is very superficial, like a pot,
and requires a lot of circulation. Unlike a pot the heating pattern doesn't
promote natural convections. Big units (>1.5kw) are hard to come by.
Caramelization is decidedly different. They *may* denature some enzymes.
They are IMO more dangerous to jury-rig than a water heater element, and a
lot less powerful and power efficient. The only good news is they are not
expensive and can be had with a temp control probe & timers built in -
neither of these help your design much.
If a wall outlet is your power source, then for ease of control, (relative)
safety, power, efficiency & simplicity conventional RIMS are hard to beat..
-Steve
Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2001 01:35:16 -0500
From: Rod Prather <rodpr at iquest.net>
Subject: Microwave RIMS, Hmmmmmm?
A microwave RIMS sounds almost workable. Almost?? Well, because you still only
have 1200 watts in a micro wave. Also, microwaves aren't really that good at
boiling water. It takes a new 1200 watt oven 2 minutes to boil 8 ounces of
water for my morning cup of instant Java. To boil 5 gallons? About 160
minutes but considering that you aren't brewing in a giant coffee cup and the
thermal conductivity of Stainless steel is a bit higher than ceramic, probably
never. Perhaps you could use a ceramic chamber and make the microwave more
efficient. You could gang 4 microwaves together and run parallel heaters and
lower that boil time to 40 minutes. By this time you would have $600 tied up in
modified Microwaves not to mention another $200 in hose, fittings and expensive
ceramic thermal transfer chambers. Bottom line is there are better ways of
heating water.
With tongue implanted firmly in cheek....
- --
Rod Prather, PooterDuude
Indianapolis, Indiana
Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 21:24:00 +1100
From: craftbrewer at telstra.easymail.com.au
Subject: The truth of Phil beers, Lambics
G'day All
Well its time to finally shut up the BUGGER well and truely.
People its time for the truth about his so called brewing
mantelpieces, that is the infamous rice lager, and the peach
wheat.
Now remember this is the man we have found out cannot
brew even out of a tin, a person that enlists help from over this
country and overseas just to make a tin beer.
yet he has the gall. to say things like this
Date: Sat, 30 Dec 2000 22:22:54 +1100
From: "Phil & Jill Yates" <yates at acenet.com.au>
Subject: Mixing Fruit, Pommes And North Queenslanders
After he poured a truck load of used strawberries into his
wheat beer instead of the recommended raspberries,
I might well have assumed he was in fact Irish.<<<,
Now to take Phils advice up front just proves why most of us
the mother country in chains. We wanted to make sure we
get back. Fancy a Pom actually believing this man could brew.
Yes pommie bastard takes on a whole new meaning.
But i digress. Lets take about the peach wheat.
>>>Now he has decided to take his wrath out on my peach
wheat beer. In short he gave it the big thumbs down. He
stopped just short of telling me I should have used mangoes
instead.<<<
Mangos might have saved it but I doubt it. WHAT A
DISAPPOINTMENT. I'll first sue him on the misrepresentation
of the name. Peach - nope nothing there, wheat - well I've
seen a better head in the bathroom (thats in the mirror people,
minds out the gutter), Beer - well i doubt it.
And next in court is my ravaged taste bids, thy may never
recover, I experienced tastes I thought you could never get
in a beer.
But he has let in how he makes his Rice Lager
>>>There is just no telling with these temperamental parochial
Queenslanders. Next I'm going to send him a Tooheys New
cleverly disguised in a PET bottle and see what he thinks of
that.<<<
Now that explains what i tasted. It was a Bud with saaz hop
oil added. Nice trick mate.
But it was asked about lambics
From: Keith Busby <kbusby at facstaff.wisc.edu>
Subject: Lambic pitching schedules
There seem to be enormous variations on pitching schedules.
Any advice? <<<<
Ok Keith, being the brewer of the my famous Longing for a
Longan Lambic I'll offer this advice and amounts. You are right
is a lot of variations but more there is very little on volumes to
pitch. I have had many disasters til i got it right. Note the low
volumes here too by the way.
For 22 litres
400ml mild ale yeast starter at pitch.
(some say neutral, but a little complexity is nice)
Week one add about 5kg of fruit
(I add early to allow the sugars to be fermented early on to set
up a more favourable environment and stop secondary infection.)
Week two add 300ml pediococus
(you dot need much to get the desired effect.
Week four add 300ml Bret yeast
(by now the ph and fermentables are right for this to do its trick)
Week eight transfer to corny keg for secondary.
Bottle after a year, drink six months after that.
My latest is a banana, pineapple and passionfruit. I have just
added the Bret today. It smells wonderful.
Shout
Graham Sanders
oh
And Phil did say one thing right
>>>Or maybe Tony could send him a strawberry wheat to
really confuse him!<<<
Oh please PLEASE DO mate. I would like to taste a real fair
dinkum fruit beer, even if you are an Irish Welshman.
to restore my faith in fruit beers.
Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2001 07:15:01 -0600
From: "Micah Millspaw" <MMillspa at silganmfg.com>
Subject: krausen
I may be quite late with this and you have a 100 or
so suggestions
But here is how I handle krausening at home.
BTW, I always do this.
I plan my brew length to be 1 gallon more than needed.
When all of my wort is in the kettled, hoppped and boiling,
I draw off 1 gallon into a clean (food grade ) plastic jug
(wear gloves while doing this). Let the jug of wort cool and
put into the freezer. while the rest of your brewing goes as
normal. After the primary slows or stops, thaw out your
saved wort, reboil it, add either fresth yeast or some
cropped from your primary ferment. As soon as it gets
going rack you beer into its secondary or keg and add the
krausen. I do this going into a sealed secondary that will
hold pressure, this way my carbonation is natural and I
can rack to corny kegs right out of the secondary and
have finished beer in a short time. PLus you get you full
volume of beer back to make up for sedimentation and
racking losses
Micah Millspaw - brewer at large
you write
Date: Thu, 21 Dec 2000 17:51:47 +1100
From: Pat Casey <patcasey at iprimus.com.au>
Subject: Krauesening questions
I would like to krauesen my bottled beer. As I am not in continuous
production of the one beer, krauesening with pitched wort is not really
feasible. However it would be interesting to try krauesening a pilsner
with an IPA or vice versa if I could get the timing right.
The alternative seems to be to freeze 10 per cent of the original
pitched wort to add back later for bottling. To see if this would work I
made up 600ml of 1045 SG malt extract wort, pitched it with scavenged
Saflager yeast from secondary fermentation (about 1 cm in the bottom of
a 330 ml bottle), and froze it in a PET bottle which was squeezed to
remove the air and to allow for expansion of the frozen wort.
After 12 days in the freezer I let it thaw a bit, then stuck an air lock
in it and let it go. From when it completely thawed it took about thirty
hours to start bubbling in the air lock. Once under way, the bubbling
was steady but never vigorous, petering out after about six days with
still the occasional bubble when I threw it out today on the seventh.
Despite the 30 degree C heat of the last days it still tasted OKish, or
at least not off.
Obviously not all the yeast would survive the freezer, but given the
heat and the volumes of wort and slurry, I expected a more vigorous
fermentation - yes an ale yeast would have been better but I had none
handy.
So some questions:
- what is the approximate survival rate of frozen yeast, and is this
time dependent?
-would the survival rate be sufficient to make the krausening
worthwhile? ie it is not simply wort priming.
- what does freezing do to wort, pitched or not ?
- would yeast that died in the freezer have an impact on taste, or would
this be outweighed by the alleged taste benefits of krauesening?
- what stage after pitching would be a good time to draw of the 10 per
cent to freeze it?
I would be grateful for any answers, comments, suggestions etc. drawn
from either experience, theory or both.
Pat Casey
Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2001 10:14:58 -0500
From: "Todd M. Snyder" <tmsnyder at buffalo.edu>
Subject: mash flow question
Pete Czerpak wrote to John Palmer:
>Have you ever thought about generating a residence time distribution based
>on color/adsorbance of the liquor threough the bed for different lautering
>rates to determine how much back mixing is going on to effect the simplistic
>modelling of the bed as plug flow?
What you're asking for is a tracer flow study, and would yield a lot
more useful information than dye flow observations in a fish tank! These
are commonly done to look at flow dynamics in virtually any process and
will give you _quantitative_ results for the system studied. For
instance, you'd get a number for effective dead volume in the mash; the
portion of the mash which has not been sparged due to the design of the
outflow device and the lauter tun geometry. Also, the 'back mixing'
you're referring to is dispersion, and is also quantified by the tracer
study.
I like the idea of it, and actually already have a series of runs
planned with a friend for two weekends from now. Hopefully the results
will be interesting enough to post back here. I wasn't planning on
varying flowrate however, only outlet devices. But based on the fact
that the grainbed can change due to compaction as a result of higher
flow, it seems like a good idea to try at least 2 flowrates per outlet
device.
The outlet devices planned are:
1. slotted manifold (mine)
2. EZ masher-type
3. False bottom
4. Small outlet area approaching a point-sink at the edge of the tun.
#4 is a worsed-case scenario that will (hopefully) show up as such, it
should show lots of dead volume.
The lauter tun is going to be my 10 gallon Gott cooler. What I don't
have are #'s 2 and 3 above. Any volunteers in the Buffalo, NY area?
Todd Snyder
Buffalo, NY
Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 09:11:11 -0600
From: "Jim Bermingham" <bermingham at antennaproducts.com>
Subject: Hops and Horses
Some Guy asked if hops and horses got along. On brew day my horses and my
wife's jackasses line the fence eagerly awaiting the spent grains. I too
occasionally mash hop, and these grains are also given to the animals. No
ill effect noted so far. One difference may be is that my grains are eaten
by 5 horses and 12 donkeys, so each animal is getting only a small portion.
Jim Bermingham
Millsap, TX
Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 09:43:10 -0600
From: james r layton <blutick at juno.com>
Subject: Re: Spent Grains
>On a related note - leaving spent grist around for birds or deer in
winter
>is a nasty trick likely to kill. They're not clever enough to realize
the
>calories are missing and to forage elsewhere.
What is the basis for this warning? A published paper or personal
observation? It sounds plausible but my observations, regarding birds,
are different.
I live in a rural area and am able to observe a large variety of birds,
and lots of them. I have a large vegetable garden. I always pitch my
spent grains into the garden, none too carefully, where they lay until I
till them in. In the several years that I've been doing this, I have
never observed birds paying any attention to the spent grain. The piles
of spent grain are still there days, even weeks later. Meanwhile, 100
feet away, I have a great number of birds devouring sunflower seeds,
black thistle, and mixed grains at my three bird feeders. On occasion,
the feeders are emptied by the birds and they still ignore the spent
grains. These birds seem clever enough.
Jim Layton
Howe, TX
Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 2 Jan 01 09:54:39 -0600
From: Marc Donnelly <marc at deptstores.dhc.com>
Subject: Re: Microwave Rims
sounds interesting, however I wouldn't try it! As for those pesky
radiation leaks I would just setup a coil of copper in front of a
Microwave Antenna tower and start brewing. I bet you have heard those
urban legend stories about people cooking hot dogs in front of the
microwave tower.
Make sure you don't have any metal fillings before doing this at home.
Also what would you call you first microwave RIMS brew? Three Mile
Island Ale? China Syndrome Stout? Hanford Weizen? I should stop now...
Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 11:01:03 -0500
From: Jeff Renner <nerenner at umich.edu>
Subject: Re: Wild Hops: Alpha Acid Determination?
Aaron Gallaway <baseball_junkie at hotmail.com> writes from Japan about
his disposal of spent grain and discovery of wild hops.
What a neat story. Thanks for sharing it with the digest. I really
like the diversity that exists among homebrewers. Please tell us a
little more about yourself. I'm curious what you're doing in Japan,
since Gallaway doesn't sound like a Japanese name. How long have you
been there, and how long do you expect to stay? How easy is it to
find ingredients? Have you visited a sake brewery? A few years ago
we had a Japanese digester who brewed sake.
Your wild hops are beyond my knowledge. If they are truly wild, as
opposed to escaped cultivars, they may not even be the same species
as our domesticated ones, but what an opportunity for experimentation
next year. I think I'd just brew a batch guessing that they might be
3-4% alpha acid and go from there. I hope you'll report back.
On another (off topic) subject that I recently brought up on HBD, you
have a opportunity to mkae pioneer visits to intersections of integer
latitude and longitude lines for the Degree Confluence Project
http://confluence.org/. There have been no visits posted for any of
Japan, and 37N, 138E is just a few miles north of you between the
villages of Nou and Arai.
http://www.mapquest.com/cgi-bin/ia_free?lat=370000&lng=1380000&level=6.
Another really neat intersection is north near Akita, where 40N and
140E intersect right in the middle of an island
http://www.mapquest.com/cgi-bin/ia_free?lat=400000&lng=1400000&level=6.
If you have or can get a GPS receiver, it might be a fun way to
explore the countryside. There are some interesting accounts of such
visits at the web site.
BTW, Graham, have you visited that one enar you yet?
Jeff
- --
Jeff Renner in Ann Arbor, Michigan USA, c/o nerenner at umich.edu
"One never knows, do one?" Fats Waller, American Musician, 1904-1943
Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 11:07:54 -0500
From: Jeff Renner <nerenner at umich.edu>
Subject: Re: Canadian Recipes
"Bret Mayden" <brmayden at hotmail.com> asks
>Does anybody know of any recipes for Canadian brews? Microbrewery quality,
>not the megabrews. Thanks.
My limited experience with Canadian microbrews is that they are
similar to many US microbrews, and across the range of styles.
however, I have had success brewing what might be called a Classic
Canadian Ale. It would be very similar to a Classic American Cream
Ale (search the archives for this or CACA), but I'd be sure to use
Canadian ale yeast. Yeast Culture Kit Co. (mailto:YCKCo at aol.com)
sells it on slants. Make a 1.050 or stronger ale with 25% corn and
hop with cluster for bitterness and maybe Goldings for later
additions and go for 30-40 IBU depending on your taste. I think I've
posted some more specific recipes in the past - check the archives
for Renner and Canadian ale.
Good luck.
Jeff
- --
Jeff Renner in Ann Arbor, Michigan USA, c/o nerenner at umich.edu
"One never knows, do one?" Fats Waller, American Musician, 1904-1943
Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 11:11:43 -0500
From: Jeff Renner <nerenner at umich.edu>
Subject: Re: Hops and horses...
"Stephen Alexander" <steve-alexander at worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>On a related note - leaving spent grist around for birds or deer in winter
>is a nasty trick likely to kill. They're not clever enough to realize the
>calories are missing and to forage elsewhere.
Neither the deer nor the birds around here seem interested in my
spent grains. This has always surprised me. Maybe Michigan wildlife
is smarter than Ohio wildlife?
Jeff
- --
Jeff Renner in Ann Arbor, Michigan USA, c/o nerenner at umich.edu
"One never knows, do one?" Fats Waller, American Musician, 1904-1943
Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2001 09:56:44 -0700
From: Bob Devine <bob.devine at worldnet.att.net>
Subject: re: Hops and horses...
>My wife's horse's vet said mixing spent grains into his feed (the
>horse's) is good for his digestion. He was unsure of hops..
Actually, mixing spent grains into YOUR food isn't too bad, either.
Try a little in some bread.
Hops probably won't be too well tolerated by horses. Here in
Utah (were it is still illegal to brew, shhhh), I live out in
a semi-rural area with plenty of horses. The two most recent
brewing events were finished by dumping the still warm spent
grains into the horse pasture. I now have a friend-for-life
from the horse!
Chickens are another great consumer of spent grains. My wife's
brother is an organic farmer who raises chickens for eggs.
After I dumped the grains in front of a rooster, that bird did
his calling-all-hens-I-found-some-food call. Twenty pounds of
wet grain dissappeared inside of ~60 chickens in less than 1 hour!
It seemed like a fair trade for me -- I get beer _and_ eggs.
Bob Devine
Riverton, UT
Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 12:58:24 -0600
From: "Kevin Eggemeyer" <KevinE at AccessTraining.com>
Subject: Electric HLT
In response to Steve Lanes <tbirdusa at hotmail.com> post regarding Electric
HLT...
There is a way to approximate how much energy is required to raise the
temperature of the water. This might help in selecting a heating
element/heating method and explains why it is taking so long for the water
to get to temperature:
First - Water has a specific heat of 4.184 Joules per gram per degree
Celsius. There are approximately 3,855.5 grams in one gallon of water (at
60 degrees Fahrenheit). Converting this to Fahrenheit from Celsius (1C =
1.8F), you get 8,962 Joules per gallon per degree Fahrenheit (you might want
to check my numbers - math class was a long time ago).
Second - A resistive water heater element rated at 1,500 Watts delivers
1,500 Joules every second (a Watt is a Joule per second). Therefore, the
water will receive 90,000 Joules per minute (1,500 X 60 seconds). The
heating element is 100% efficient (there is no loss between the element and
the water), but the HLT is not. Let's assume the HLT is well insulated and
only 10% of the energy escapes the HLT and is used to heat the garage. We
will then effectively get 81,000 Joules per minute from the element.
Third - If we have 15 gallons of water at 70 degrees and we want to heat it
to 170 degrees, we'll need 13,443,000 Joules (8,962 X 15 Gallons X 100
degrees). Divide this by 81,000 Joules per minute and we get 166 minutes (2
hours and 45 minutes).
Home Depot sells a 5400-Watt heating element (at 220V). Hooked up to 220V,
this would deliver 291,600 Joules per minute (5,400 Joules per second X 60
seconds X 90% efficiency). This cuts the time down to 46 minutes. A
propane burner sounds like a good idea. One BTU per second equals 1054.118
Joules per second - but the energy transfer is nowhere near 100% efficient.
I would use both a burner and an electric element to get up to temperature
and then use the electric element to maintain the temperature.
This is, of course, all theoretical stuff and isn't always that useful in
practice. However, I find it helpful when trying to make decisions
regarding gadgetry for my brewery.
Kevin Eggemeyer
KevinE at AccessTraining.com
Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2001 15:28:34 -0400
From: AJ <ajdel at mindspring.com>
Subject: Alpha Acids
For Aaron in Japan,
The hops are probably the decorative variety, japonicus. As this is
quite popular (at least in the US) I'd expect that you could take a
sample to a garden center there and get a reading. If they are indeed
brewing hops then yes, alpha acids can be determined in the laboratory.
I could do this for you but you are there and I am here and USDA takes a
dim view of importing plant material willy-nilly into the US. So you
will need to find a lab there. You will need a 250 mL flask, a shaker
which will take that flask, toluene and methanol and a little sodium
hydroxide. The actual measurement requires a UV spectrophotometer. If
you can round these things up (and get access to the photometer) I can
send you the procedure. As a starter I'd suggest tasting a hop tea to
see if it is bitter.
- --
A.J. deLange
CT Project Manager
Zeta Associates
Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 14:41:00 -0500
From: JGORMAN at steelcase.com
Subject: WLP099- Super High Gravity Yeast
Has anyone ever used Whitelabs WLP099- Super High Gravity Ale Yeast with
success?
Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 10:49:37 -0700
From: "Jeffry D Luck" <Jeffry.D.Luck at aexp.com>
Subject: Yeasties
My first forray into liquid yeast has left a bad taste in my mouth, both
literally and figuratively.
I figured to start with 1056, since the general consensus is that it's easy
and ferments clean. The only problem was that my ferment temperature
was in the 70F to 75F degree range. Trust me, at this temperature, 1056
doesn't ferment clean. This beer had a sour aftertaste that completely
ruined the batch. Down the drain. I tried two seperate smack-packs, and
different procedures with the same results before I figured out that my
temp was too high. Finally, I tried a ferment at 64F and things worked out.
The aftertaste was simply a flavor addition to the beer, not the overwhelming
sourness of before. But I've found myself that even with the toned down
flavor, I still can't stand that 1056 zing.
Back to Coopers dry yeast. No smacking, no waiting, start it in warm
water and pitch. And it ferments *clean*, much more forgiving of things
like temp. (Ok, I've learned my lesson and ferment colder now.)
But still, people sing the praises of liquid yeasts. Am I missing something?
Is there a liquid yeast that really ferments clean? All the web sites I've
seen that compare yeasts simply list krausening type and attenuation -- is
there a site that says something like "1056 - adds a slight citrusy zing to
the aftertaste"
Jeff Luck
Salt Lake City, UT USA
Having a wonderful wine, wish you were beer.
Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2001 21:54:36 +0000
From: Craig MacFarlane <craigm at chemconnect.com>
Subject: Repitching yeast and trub.
I spent New Years Day brewing and, for the first time,
racked fermenting wort into a secondary, and pitched
my new wort on top of the yeast in the old carboy.
4 hours later, I was at high krausen. Usually, with this
yeast, White Labs Edinburgh Ale, it takes 24-48 hours
with this particular recipe to get to high krausen.
I'm obviously pleased with the results.
Now to the newbie questions:
1) I poured the fresh wort directly onto the yeast and
trub from the last batch. Are there any adverse effects
of having the last batch's trub sitting there?
2) Within 12 hours, the secondary had a layer of trub at
the bottom of it's carboy. Is this yeast, or is it trub? If it's
trub where did it come from, I thought I left all that behind
when I racked.
3) HSA. I think this has been discussed at length, but
what's the general consensus? My local homebrew
supply guy says HSA is a myth. the author of
Designing Great Beers says it absolutely leads to premature
staling. Who is right? I've been collecting wort from the
sparge in a 7 gallon bucket and then pouring it into my
brewkettle. I'd collect straight into the brewkettle, but it's
occupied heating sparge water during lautering. Should I
really be spending the extra time to siphon into the brew
kettle?
Thanks all, and happy new brewing millenium,
Craig
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Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 18:49:56 -0500
From: Eli Daniel <edaniel at epesi.com>
Subject: RE: kettle spigot/hop pellets
> I've been thinking about adding a drain to my boiling kettle, but in
> searching the archives, the posts I found said this works only with
> leaf hops. No pellets, since the screen will be clogged. Is anyone
> out there using a kettle drain who brews with only pellets? What
> arrangement works? A screen such as an easymasher? Along the sides
> of the kettle? A full false bottom?
Kevin,
I have a 3/8" copper dip tube connected to the spigot on the inside of my
pot, and I've tried covering the dip tube with various things. The best
seems to be an Aluminum mesh sock intended as a washing machine lint trap,
which attaches to the dip tube with a hose clamp and extends across the
bottom of the pot. I haven't tried a brew with *only* pellet hops, since I
tend to use plugs when I can, but it seems to hold up OK even with a high
pellet-to-plug ratio.
HTH.
-Eli Daniel
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Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 20:02:24 -0800 (PST)
From: Wes Gibson <wesibson at yahoo.com>
Subject: 'Cherries in the Snow'
beaverplt asks about 'Cherries in the Snow'. Time for
me to chime in, I brewed this recipe, result was not
very good. Charlie not to blame. At best, I am a .333
hitter. So, here is what I did, hope some details
will help you. I tasted at 2 to 3 weeks old, very
little cherry flavor, nasty aftertaste. Just tasted
another bottle, been in the frig for weeks. Light
amber color, no head, slight cherry aftertaste. The
nasty aftertaste is slight but still there. This
aftertaste seems to ruin most of my brews, the .667.
Light carbonation, slight psst.
Brewing Date: Sunday August 20, 2000
Recipe: Cherries in the Snow
Batch Size (GAL): 5.00
6.00 lbs. Light Liquid Malt Extract 1.035
Hops
1.00 oz. Cascade Pellet 4.40AA 45 min.
0.50 oz. Goldings - E.K. Pellet 5.90AA 45 min.
0.50 oz. Cascade Pellet 5.60AA 0 min.
Yeast
White Labs WLP001 California Ale Yeast
No starter.
Mash Notes
8/20/2000 1 gal drinking water and 1/2 gal distilled
water in pot to boil. Added 1/4 ts gypsum and about
half a 1/4 ts of calcium chloride and two sprinkles
kosher salt. At boil, removed from heat added liquid
malt and stirred well. Back on burner, bring to boil,
add hops. Hot break.
Boil 40 minutes, add 1/2 gal warmed distilled water
from rinsing liquid malt bucket.
At 45 minutes, heat off, add hops. Pot to cold water
bath.
Wort to cool. Add 1 lb crushed frozen sweet cherries
and 9 lbs crushed frozen cherries. Cherries removed
from freezer at start of brew, slightly thawed when
hand crushed and added. Temp at 65F, add White labs
WLP001 yeast from tube.
Fermentation Notes
8/21/2000 At 7:15am, inner lock of air lock raised,
no bubbles. At 8:00pm bubble every 2 seconds. Put
ferment bucket in tub of 70F water.
8/22/2000 Water in tub at 75F. Add ice to 70F.
8/23/2000 Air lock bubble 10 seconds, tub at 73F, add
ice to 68F.
8/27/2000 Rack to carboy.
9/7/2000 Add packet of hydrated Nottingham to
secondary.
10/01/2000 At 1.007, bottled. Boiled 2 cups water,
add 10 tbsp corn sugar. Boil down to one cup. 34
bottles.
Both the plastic ferment bucket and glass carboy would
have been in rubbermaid tub and ice added each day to
maintain 68F. August is too hot in Texas.
This must have been a rushed brew. I normally would
boil and adjust tap water the evening before. And I
would prefer a yeast starter.
wes gibson
lewisville, tx
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