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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
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Contents:
  re: CC fermenters ... ("Stephen Alexander")
  RE: Scotch Ale ("Steve")
  Events Calendars ("Mark Tumarkin")
  Rennerian Breakdown ("Doug Hurst")
  Said nipple, meant coupling! (William Macher)
  food grade plastic fermentation bags ("Paddock Wood Brewing Supplies")
  O2 Regulator for BernzOMatic ("Kensler, Paul")
  Portland beer (Vachom)
  Temperature Uniformity in Cylindroconicals (AJ)
  1.024 sg and I already kegged it! Help!---Not from me ("Pete Calinski")
  Prickly Pear (John Clark)
  Singing the praises of ez-flip top (grolsch) bottles... ("H Stearns Laseur")
  taste of a bitter?? ("Czerpak, Pete")
  conical cooling (The Freemans)
  Mash questions ("Peed, John")
  Room-temp storage (Nathan Matta)
  Hefe - rest ("Peed, John")
  Oxygen regulator ("Peed, John")
  Trip to Germany - Dusseldorf ("Info")
  Conicals' (Mike)
  Brewing Calculators ("Steve")
  Whirlfloc vs. Irish Moss (You Bastards)
  bottling headspace - a data point ("elvira toews")
  BB&MB conicals ("Richard Sieben")


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Date: Mon, 5 Mar 2001 03:19:27 -0500
From: "Stephen Alexander" <steve-alexander at worldnet.att.net>
Subject: re: CC fermenters ...

I apparently did stir up a conversation re cylindro-conical fermenters.

Steve Claussen writes ...

>As far as cleaning the exposed valve, I
>agree that it must be done - but any method of harvesting will involve
>cleaning.

Ant Hayes adds his method of cleaning ports, and Richard Seiben on
deficiencies of ball valves. BTW the vendor G.Fix mentioned sells a 12.2gal
CC for about $400, and butterfly valves for another $100 ea.

I think Ant missed my concern.  If you don't clean the CC ports well *after*
withdrawing trub you have a lovely environment on the blind port for
infection - you will be flowing your harvested yeast past a dirty port.
(Re)pitching lots of 'slightly' infected yeast isn't a solution.

SteveC continues ...
>Before I had a CC, harvesting was such a PITA that I only did
>it a few times a year

?!!? Re-fluxing fresh wort over a clean secondary cake couldn't be easier.
More often when I keg I store slurry in 2qt canning jars - sterile water
washing before repitching if necessary.  Why is it so much more difficult to
pour from an emptied carboy to a jar than pour from a valve outlet to a jar
?

>Now, I ALWAYS harvest, and the entire

A hundred yeasts on the market, yeast deficits from high grav fermentation,
and well known suggestions about reculturing yet you ALWAYS harvest ?!!?  I
doubt I average even 3 beers from a built-up starter.

>process (set up, sanitization of the valve, harvesting and clean up)
>takes less than 30 minutes.

If you said 5 minutes I'd be impressed, but harvesting yeast when I'm
kegging doesn't add even 15 minutes and that includes a water based
wash(separation) before re-pitching.

>>>1) trub removal with the flick of a valve
>>"And constant attention looking for end-of-trub."
>I haven't lost sleep over the end-of-trub.

But it's not a 'flick of a valve' if you must monitor it.


>>"The sideport design [...]
>I usually lose between a pint to a quart [...]

That's a good figure, but doesn't it vary as the yeast level varies from
differing yeasts or brew volumes ?

(re cleaning & durability)
>>"Corny's would have the same advantages at 1/10th the cost."
>The CC is ten times better as a fermentor, so it's a wash.  ; -)

Cute comeback - but you haven't cited any advantages that makes CCs even 2X
better than cornies.   As for cornies - they fit nicely in a fridge for temp
control and the fittings lend themselves to fermenting with overpressure and
using CO2 or N2 for air free wort/beer transfer.

>Actually, it ran around $600.

For that I could buy a large freezer & temp controller and still have enough
left over for half a dozen yeast cultures and sacks of malt.   Just how do
you control temps for lager yeasts in a 12gal or Ant's 60L pointed CC tank
?

>>Have you never had three brews bubbling at once?"
>
>I do, however, look back with fondness/horror on the
>days when I was obsessed enough to have three beers brewing
>contemporaneously.  I am now happy to simply have three beers on tap at
>all times.

Three on tap is about right, but that means there are always 1 or 2
dwindling and my brewing schedule becomes clustered because of my work.  Two
beers in fermenters perhaps a week apart isn't unusual around my place.
Hi-grav & small beers and side-by-side controls/comparisons are common here
too.  I need 2 fermenters, and prefer 3.

>>"It's still just a racking cane alternative to me."
>Like a Porsche is just an alternative to a Yugo.

Very apt - if you drive frequently on the autobahn or on well paved roads in
Montana you'd probably find a Porche's qualities desirable.  If OTOH you
live in Boston or a city east of Plzen you'd find the Porche impossible to
navigate,  park or keep from being stolen.  A Yugo is a dud, but there are
many applications where a Hondas qualities exceeds those of a Porsche and of
course there is the opportunity cost of investing $100k vs $20k.  If you are
looking for a status symbol the Porche and the CC fermenter 'work' but that
isn't my goal.

Home brewing is (for me) only about beer quality and the sense of
accomplishment, and makes no fiscal sense.  When you tell me that you have a
method that costs $500 per fermenter and has no impact on beer quality and
saves me a little cleanup and a few minutes at yeast harvest per brew,  I
tune out. It doesn't help accomplish my brewing goals or match my brewing
needs.

The CC fermenters appear to me to fail a very basic test.  No one has yet
advanced an argument here that it improves beer quality, much less improves
it *more* than alternative expenditures.   I look forward to hearing about
George Fix' experiments and results.

>if one does not have practical
>experience with a piece of equipment, one should limit one's criticism
>of said equipment.

I did limit my criticism.  I said they were ghastly expensive and gave no
demonstrated fermentation performance improvement.   Also, you don't have to
own the Porsche and Yugo to understand the basics and make critical
decisions.

- --
Frank Tutzauer writes ...

>>would you really tie up your only
>>fermenter for many weeks w/ 3.5 gallons of barleywine ?
>
>No, of course not.  You put the 3.5 gallon barleywine in a carboy and
>save the CC for other brews.  And:

If a CC fermenter had any quality advantages you'd certainly want to use it
on all of your beers Frank.   Would you really spend all that time making a
barleywine and then compromise the quality by not using your CC ?

>If you've
>got a CC fermenter, that doesn't mean you're not allowed to ferment in
>anything else.

Having a car doesn't mean you can't take a bus, and having access to brewing
yeast doesn't mean you can't brew with bread yeast - but you won't find many
doing it exactly because the extra cost is justified by the quality or
convenience.   If you could get a *justifiable* amount of improvement or
convenience from a CC fermenter as compared to their cost then we would use
these exclusively too.  My point remains that the cost of a CC fermenter is
probably not justified for most of us.

 -S




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Date: Mon, 5 Mar 2001 06:59:46 -0500
From: "Steve" <stjones1 at chartertn.net>
Subject: RE: Scotch Ale

Don Price has some problems with a high terminal gravity on his Scotch
Ale.

I don't have any answers for how to fix it, but just wanted to elaborate
on Wyeast 1728 yeast. I recently used this yeast on a barleywine with an
OG of 1.107. It fermented down to 1.021  at  55F in 5 days, so the yeast is
definitely capable of fermenting at low temperatures and high gravities.
I did rack the bw onto the yeast cake from an 80 shilling Scottish Ale
fermentation, so there was plenty of yeast. The Scottish Ale was a 1.044
and finished at 1.011.

Steve Jones
State of Franklin Homebrewers
Johnson City, TN
http://users.chartertn.net/franklinbrew





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Date: Mon, 5 Mar 2001 07:45:17 -0500
From: "Mark Tumarkin" <mark_t at ix.netcom.com>
Subject: Events Calendars

Shane Saylor writes:
"Do we have some kind of Calendar of events to refer to? I suspect the AOB
does. If so, do you think we could see this calendar posted to the list at the
beginning of each month? "

The HBD does have an events calendar - look under Competitions on the Home
page.
The URL is http://hbd.org/cgi-bin/competitions/calendar.pl
I don't think it's necessary to post this info to the HBD every month. Just
bookmark the URL and check it out as needed. The calendar would be more useful
if all the competition organizers on the HBD would add their events to it.
There's an Add an Event box at the bottom of the calendar.

The AOB (AHA) has an events calendar as well, at
http://www.beertown.org/calendars.htm
There are actually calendars for homebrewing events and for professional
brewing events (as well as a master view of all events). There is also a
calendar on the BJCP site -  http://www.mv.com/ipusers/slack/bjcp/compsch.html

Mark Tumarkin
Hogtown Brewers
Gainesville, Fl




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Date: Mon, 5 Mar 2001 07:42:11 -0600
From: "Doug Hurst" <DougH at theshowdept.com>
Subject: Rennerian Breakdown

Bjorn Thegeby
Waterloo, Belgium
Rennerian, Schmennerian, Five Miles from Lembeek

It seems to me that Rennarian coordinates must break down when in
Belgium.  How could you be so far yet, at the same time, so close to the
center of the brewing universe?

Just my .005 cent.

Doug Hurst
Chicago, IL

P.S.  Went to the Real Ale Festival on Saturday 2/3.  It was a giant
success, had a great time (until the cops came).  Wish I had been there
on Friday too.  Thanks to all organizers and supporters.


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Date: Mon, 05 Mar 2001 09:38:10 -0500
From: William Macher <macher at telerama.lm.com>
Subject: Said nipple, meant coupling!

Hi All,

When describing for Jeff how I made my bulkhead style keg fittings, I wrote:

"Take a pipe tap and run it into the brass nipples a bit, to make it 
possible for the nipple to go in further."

Naturally, the pipe tap can only go into the female couplings, not the 
threaded male nipples!

Sorry for the confusion.

Related to the brass couplings, I have seen two types locally. One is cast 
and the other is machined, like a piece of pipe with a thread inside. Find 
the cast type, as they have a nut-like hex end that offers more surface 
area to squeeze the teflon tape against the keg wall.

You may also want to take a file, our use a sheet of abrasive paper, to 
smooth down the end of the coupling that will contact the keg wall to 
ensure a tighter fit. It only takes a few minutes and may help make a 
tighter joint.

Bill Macher	Pittsburgh, PA		USA






  Pipe threads
are tapered, that is way this is necessary. You should have no problem once
this is done. A 3/8 pipe tap is much cheaper than a half inch one. That is
why I decided to go with 3/8 inch valves and couplings, even though the
rest of my system uses half inch copper tubing.



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Date: Mon, 5 Mar 2001 08:43:40 -0600
From: "Paddock Wood Brewing Supplies" <orders at paddockwood.com>
Subject: food grade plastic fermentation bags

Don posted about food grade liners for fermenting in.

We have them, but there's not much feedback yet.

They sound like a great idea though.  We're experimenting with two
thicknesses.  I suspect the thinner ones will give a better seal with a bung
in the neck of the carboy.

We'd love to hear details from folks who are using them.


cheers,

Stephen Ross -- "Vitae sine cerevisiae sugant."

Paddock Wood Brewing Supplies, Saskatoon, SK
orders at paddockwood.com  www.paddockwood.com




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Date: Mon, 5 Mar 2001 09:49:58 -0500 
From: "Kensler, Paul" <Paul.Kensler at Cyberstar.com>
Subject: O2 Regulator for BernzOMatic

>Does anyone know of a regulator that fits the standard 
>Bernz-O-Matic 1.1 cu. ft. oxygen cylinder?

Bob,
Liquid Bread (the guys that make the Carbonator cap) sells a regulator that
fits on the BernzOMatic cylinders.  I've got one and it works great.  It
even came with an inline connector, so you can easily detach the airstone
and hose for boiling.  I can't remember where I bought it, but I know I've
seen these particular regulators via mail order (try Beer, Beer and More
Beer, HopTech, Brewers Resource, St. Pats) if you local shop can't order it.


Hope this helps,

Paul Kensler
Gaithersburg, MD


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Date: Mon, 5 Mar 2001 09:10:06 -0600 
From: Vachom <MVachow at newman.k12.la.us>
Subject: Portland beer

Alan:

Happy travels to the balmy south!  If the weatherman has it right, you may
find Porland under several feet of snow.  Travel safely.

I recommend going to the Portland Public Market to look for beer.  I think
you'll find most of what you want there.  I recommend stocking up on
Allagash Brewing's products.  This Portland micro-brewery brews a wit, a
dubbel, a tripel, a Grand Cru and one other.  They are outstanding American
attempts at Belgian beers.  If I were you, I'd bring them right back home
and sit down for a Unibroue/Allagash taste test.  I also recommend snapping
up a bit of the Smuttynose Brewery's (Portsmouth, NH) Shoals Pale Ale.  This
brewery also has a Big Beer Series; their barleywine is very nicely done.

Mike
New Orleans




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Date: Mon, 05 Mar 2001 11:36:43 -0400
From: AJ <ajdel at mindspring.com>
Subject: Temperature Uniformity in Cylindroconicals

Temperatures within a cylindorconical should be reasonably uniform as a
mixing of the beer is one of the features of the design. Whether the
chilling be from glycol (usual) or the Peltier coolers appearing on some
of the smaller HB units, the "cold" is applied at the outside of the
fermenter. Beer in contact with the walls is thus cooled and sinks
forcing a welling up of warmer beer through the core. Thus there is
constant circulation whenever the chill band is activated and this is
augmented by the heat produced in the core when the yeast are at the
height of their activity. Yes, there will be a gradient - it wouldn't
work if there weren't but it should amount to no more than a couple of
degrees F if that.

A.J.





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Date: Mon, 5 Mar 2001 09:56:00 -0500
From: "Pete Calinski" <pjcalinski at adelphia.net>
Subject: 1.024 sg and I already kegged it! Help!---Not from me

Don,

A few weeks ago, I posted a similar problem.  I bottled a Scottish Ale with
an SG of 1.032.  I can't get it to carbonate and it is like syrup.  I got a
few good suggestions but none  that would solve my overall problem, reduce
the gravity and increase the carbonation

My first hypothesis was that the yeast had given up because of the high
alcohol level.  It had started at SG=1.101 and ended at, as I said, 1.032.
I opened one bottle,  added a little rehydrated champagne yeast, and put a
balloon over it.  Nothing, the balloon inflated a little from the small
amount of CO2 in solution but that was it.

Next hypothesis, the champagne yeast was old and ineffective.  I had a fresh
1056 yeast cake so I added some, about the size of a pea.  Nothing again.

Next hypothesis, on the outside chance that it was a lack of O2 that was
keeping the yeast from acting, I shook the bottle, first to release all the
CO2 then more until it wouldn't take up any more air.  Still no action and
still syrupy.

My next hypothesis is, perhaps all the fermentables have been consumed.  I
plan to add a little sugar and see if it will inflate the balloon.

If that is the problem, I guess I'll take Domenick up on his offer of Prime
Tabs,  pop open all the bottles and add the prime tabs.  Maybe the syrup
texture will be easier to take with more carbonation.

If that fails, I need some more ideas.

Pete Calinski
East Amherst NY
Near Buffalo NY
0^45'49.1" North,  5^7'9.5" East of Jeff Renner .


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

WebPage moved to http://members.nbci.com/firstrenman/Pete.htm

Brew related:

        Label spreadsheet for 60 labels per page.
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Income tax:
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                Form 2210
                + Worksheets
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                IT201
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***********************************************************************





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Date: Mon, 5 Mar 2001 07:41:49 -0800 (PST)
From: John Clark <a.jclark at rocketmail.com>
Subject: Prickly Pear


Hi,
 
 I have been siting on the side line reading and
learning from you all.  Thanks.  I have been searching
the archives for any information on using Prickly Pear
in my ale.  Can anyone give me a recipe or tell me
when I should add the fruit.

Thanks!



Return to table of contents


Date: Mon, 5 Mar 2001 09:38:20 -0600
From: "H Stearns Laseur" <h_stearns_laseur at email.mobil.com>
Subject: Singing the praises of ez-flip top (grolsch) bottles... 



<These bottles make bottling so simple, and I had a bottle overprimed, it>
<simply hissed for a bit, and once the pressure got down to an acceptable>
<level, carbonated up nicely..>

<This is a no-go wrong solution imho, I purchased 12 1-liter bottles for>
<around $25, and have about 50 20oz grolsch bottles that i emptied myself..>
<very nice indeedy>

I totally agree with your assessment on the grolsch bottles. I use the liter
version which is more forgiving when stirring up sediment while pouring. Another
bottle I like to use is a plastic green liter sprite bottle. The indentations on
the bottom are excellent in trapping sediment while pouring. Don't be afraid of
oxygen getting into your beer. I've used both the glass "grolsch" type and
plastic liter coke bottles for years now, and I have never been able to tell the
difference in taste or fizz. In fact the plastic bottles are more dependable for
keeping the beer fizzed. No leaking gaskets to deal with. Now beer in my
household only lasts about a maximum of six weeks per 5 gallon batch so maybe I
don't keep the beer long enough to tell any difference. Another neat trait about
plastic bottles are that they get hard when they are primed. There is a lot of
play in the bottle when it is freshly filled with beer. You can thump the bottle
on its side when it's ready to drink and the gas in the beer takes the softness
out of the plastic and the bottle sounds like a ripe watermelon. You can't do
that with the glass bottles. Plastic is also more forgiving than glass when you
over prime. This said, glass is cosmetically more visual when you serve beer to
friends than the plastic bottles.
Remember Goliad!




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Date: Mon, 5 Mar 2001 11:18:41 -0500 
From: "Czerpak, Pete" <Pete.Czerpak at siigroup.com>
Subject: taste of a bitter??

I brewed a bitter maybe 6 weeks ago using Wyeast 1968 that went from about
1.036 down to 1.006 -1.008.  All british hopping to perhaps about 35 IBU.  I
don't have my notes on the grain bill and the batch was mashed to 154F.  It
was batch sparged also per my normal procedure. The aforementioned 1968 then
went on to brew an ESB and then a imperial stout.

The bitter brew smells malty and has a decent bitterness.  It was mash
hopped by the way.

My question is that the brew tastes a bit on the thin side. It was just
barely carbonated and normal fridge temp (upper 40s) when I tasted it.  I
have been to the UK and it doesn't taste like a normal british bitter.  any
ideas? Does bitter normally taste thin if not drawn on a hand pump?  Perhaps
a few more days of conditioning under gas...  I haven't had a homebrew
bitter so don't know quite what to expect.

Its time to find a new england beer festival for the month of March.  I got
to the Winter Ales Festival in the UK in January.  And the Tornado Barley
Wine festival in Feb.  Hope March brings another good one.  Incidently, the
barley wine festival was excellent.  We were there the first day and it was
crowded due to rainy SF weather.  My group did sample all the barley wines
atleast once.  many were tried multiple times.

another quick note, I managed to pick up a new counter pressure bottler (not
Phils) a few weeks ago at a competition.  Anyways, I already have a Phils
version and was wondering if anybody might be interested in this new one I
recieved.  I prefer some sort of trade for it but might accept money for it.
make me an offer off-line if you would like a CP bottler.  It still needs
lines and keg fittings though. otherwise, its brand new and never used.  2
valves at the top for beer and CO2. third valve just above where the bottle
would go for purge/foam relief. 

Have fun brewing and tasting,
Pete czerpak
albany, NY

PS. I think that with all the interest in carafa malt lately, perhaps
NOrthern Brewer might start carrying it.  I would certainly try to get it
from them first if they did.  Hint, hint....


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Date: Mon, 05 Mar 2001 10:35:58 -0600
From: The Freemans <potsus at Bellsouth.net>
Subject: conical cooling

First let me say that I purchased the 12.2 gallon stainless conical from
Beer, Beer, and More Beer (NAYY) several years ago.  I did this for a
variety of reasons, not the least of which is that glass fermenters and
I simply do not play well with each other.  I, for one, do not regularly
try to save yeast, but instead choose to retain all my fingers and toes.

At the time, There was no cooling option available from B3.  They now
have two alternatives to solving that problem.  B3 is using a series of
Peltier effect cooling units.  Peltier effect thermoelectric cooling is
not a new discovery having been first realized in the early 1800s. This
thermoelectric cooling (or heating BTW) refers to the reversible heating
or cooling which occurs at the contact point when current flows from one
connector to another.  B3 uses this technology in the form of 2
Coolworks type "ice probes" placed through the conical wall (read $390)
or by a series of Peltier junctions placed on the outside surface of the
conical (read $790).  An insulating blanket is supplied to help retain
the cool.  The conical is not "jacketed' in the formal sense of the word
as personified by glycol jackets.

Now, I am considered by brewing friends as the ultimate "gear head"
(with the possible exception of Zymie and his IGOR) when it comes to
brew gear.  "the perfesser" incorporates two PIDS, an electric HLT, and
a heat exchanger system.  It also has a mash tun mixer similar to but
much smaller than a commercial unit.  Put this together with an in-line
aerator and a grant and there is little else I can think of to add.

All this leads me to the fact that I find the cooling alternatives
available for the conical as being out of the range of even my brewing
investment capabilities.  With the addition of Peltier surface units, we
are talking about an investment of $575 for the conical plus $790 for
cooling.  While I can justify the conical in terms of fingers and toes,
(I really am a klutz) I cannot justify the thermoelectric cooling.  I
will however entertain any offers of a cooled conical for "test"
purposes".

I solved the cooling business much as Richard Sieben suggested.  I put
the whole conical in a big 6 1/2 foot tall by 6 foot wide recycled
Beverage Air cooler I obtained form the local Pepsi distributor for the
sum of $100 (guaranteed to run) plus I added a digital temp control.  I
may not get 1 degree C accuracy from this set up, but hey, it works for
me.  Most of my brewing during the summer is done with cooling in order
to get below the ambient 90-95 degree weather.  It may cost a bit to run
this cooler, but I can buy a lot of electricity for $790.

http://www.coolworks.simplenet.com/coolproducts.htm
http://www.brewrats.org/hwb/er

Bill Freeman aka Elder Rat
K P Brewery - home of "the perfesser"
Birmingham, AL



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Date: Mon, 5 Mar 2001 11:45:30 -0500 
From: "Peed, John" <jpeed at elotouch.com>
Subject: Mash questions


I bought the ProMash program and am familiarizing myself with it.  I'm not
sure I understand everything I know about it just yet, and it has raised
some questions in my mind.  

First, is it OK to have an extremely thick mash when doing a protein rest?
It had better be, because if the sacrification temperature is to be reached
by infusion, you don't want to start out with anything less than a very
thick protein rest mash.

Second, even with an extremely thick protein rest mash, the temperature of
the infusion water required to reach sacrification temp is going to be on
the order of 180 to 190 degrees.  Most of my past reading says not to exceed
170 degrees for strike or sparge water, due to the probability of leaching
tannins from the husks if hotter water is used.

I have a RIMS system, so I can heat and recirculate and make the step that
way, but it will take 15 to 20 minutes.  I have read that you want to make
the steps as quickly as possible for various reasons (avoid thinning out the
body, etc.).

So which is the lesser of the two evils?  Quick temperature boosts at the
expense of high water temps or RIMS temperature boosts at the expense of
speed?

John Peed
Knoxville, TN


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Date: Mon, 05 Mar 2001 12:17:17 -0500
From: Nathan Matta <whatsa at MIT.EDU>
Subject: Room-temp storage

I understand that it is preferred to store beer at low temps (close to 
freezing)
in pretty much all cases.  What sort of problems would be anticipated
from storing beer at room temp (~70 F)?  I have 2 batches that were
brewed consecutively, reusing yeast from one to the next.  Both of them
were quite tasty, but have now developed (at about the same time) an
off flavor that most often manifests as alcohol bite.  The only thing I can
think of that might have caused this would be the fact that they were
not kept below room temp.  They're still drinkable, but definitely not as
enjoyable as before.  Bummer...

Nathan
========================================
Nathan Matta
Fuzzy Beer Home Brewery
Randolph, MA, US



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Date: Mon, 5 Mar 2001 13:33:06 -0500 
From: "Peed, John" <jpeed at elotouch.com>
Subject: Hefe - rest


Darrell asks if a reference to a diacetyl rest for hefe wizen is some sort
of mistake.  Probably not.  My understanding is that fermenting with wheat
can lead to diacetyl production.  And I've tasted brew pub beer that reeked
of diacetyl.

John Peed
Knoxville, TN


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Date: Mon, 5 Mar 2001 13:52:03 -0500 
From: "Peed, John" <jpeed at elotouch.com>
Subject: Oxygen regulator


Williams Brewing (http://www.williamsbrewing.com/welcome.htm) has an oxygen
regulator for around $20.  I can't find the thing using their search, but I
know they have one.

John Peed
Knoxville, TN



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Date: Mon, 5 Mar 2001 18:24:35 -0300
From: "Info" <info at alean.com.ar>
Subject: Trip to Germany - Dusseldorf

I'm leaving in Argentina and next week I'll fly to Dusseldorf.
I would like to buy some wheat malt in Germany. 
Does any one one know a homebrewer shop there, perhaps web site address?
Also good places to drink a weissbier ?
I would appreciatte private e-mails.



Mauricio Wagner
Buenos Aires
Argentina



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Date: Mon, 05 Mar 2001 17:23:16 -0500
From: Mike <mroesch at bellsouth.net>
Subject: Conicals'

 >Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2001 21:29:03 -0500
 >From: "Joe Sheets" <jsheets at nc.rr.com>
 >Subject: Conical Fermentors
 >I recently purchased 2 plastic conical fermentors. They have lids but they
 >are not able to be "sealed". The lid does have a flange and fits snugly so
 >it will not fall off but I'm a little concerned about using a semi-open
 >fermentor. Does anybody have any experience w/these?
 >Joe

Joe,

I have two I bought used from another brewer who had upgraded
to a larger unit.  I currently have one brew (a Trappist Double and a half)
happily bubbling away in my cellar.  The soft plastic top seems to
seal fine at fermentation pressures.  I cleaned with hot water and
tested it by placing an airlock on it.  It sucked the top in when it cooled 
down
and when I opened the recking port valve it "sucked air" so I know I am getting
a good seal.  I'll keep you posted on how I like it, but so far so good!

Mike Roesch



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Date: Mon, 5 Mar 2001 18:52:50 -0500
From: "Steve" <stjones1 at chartertn.net>
Subject: Brewing Calculators


I posted the other day about the javascript Brewing calculators I have
on my site. It was pointed out to me that Netscape users had a problem
with windows being cut off at the bottom on some of my calculators. I've
fixed it so that windows can be resized. Thanks to all for the feedback.


Steve Jones
State of Franklin Homebrewers
Johnson City, TN
http://users.chartertn.net/franklinbrew





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Date: Mon, 5 Mar 2001 16:27:48 -0800 (PST)
From: You Bastards <dude_kennysdead at yahoo.com>
Subject: Whirlfloc vs. Irish Moss

Howdy, fellow homebrewers.

I'm hoping that I'm not the only one having this
experience.  I've just been turned on to a tablet,
Whirlfloc, which is a clarifier like Irish Moss.  I've
had a few batches lately that after cooling, I wind up
leaving more than a gallon behind in the brewkettle,
because of all this gelatinized blobs of trub that
won't settle out in the middle, and I'm afraid to rack
them into the primary.

I've quit using the whirlfloc, once I figured out that
that's what was causing this.  My question is, am I
the only one getting these weird globs, or am I just
paranoid about letting those compounds into the
fermenter?  I imagine they'd settle out, and I'm
pretty much bummed about having a scant 3 gallons of
my IPA ready to drink...

Thanks again for all the great advice!

brent
electric dog brewery
not sure of the exact coordinates, but pretty far W,
and probably a bit S Rennarian...



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Date: Mon, 5 Mar 2001 19:59:29 -0600
From: "elvira toews" <etoews1 at home.com>
Subject: bottling headspace - a data point

It's not my personal obsession, but since I was bottling a batch in PET and
other were hypothesising on the causal link between headspace and
carbonation, I figured I could help out by testing whether the O2 in the
headspace was responsible for the faster/better/higher carbonation compared
to no headspace.

I bottled a bitter using a very low level of priming (1/2 cup DME for 6 USG)
so this may not be generalizable to other beers or to glucose.  I usually
fill to 1/2 inch of the top, then squeeze all of the air out before capping
with the screw cap (that should make up for about 6 months' oxygen
permeation).  I left the air in two 600 mL bottles, and put aside two
identical bottles without air.

Carbonation of this batch was slow (10 days) due to low priming and the very
flocculent yeast giving me a low cell count for priming.

I couldn't detect any difference between the with-air and without-air
bottles as far as speed of carbonation or level.  So I am inclined to go for
the CO2 inhibition hypothesis until someone can debunk that too.

Sean Richens
srichens at sprint.ca




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Date: Mon, 5 Mar 2001 21:41:22 -0600
From: "Richard Sieben" <sier1 at email.msn.com>
Subject: BB&MB conicals

George Fix gives some interesting data about the actual temperatures in the
jacketed fermentor from BB&MB.  I must say I am quite impressed!  One final
question on this George, was the lower temperature probe down in the yeast
or above it?  My only real concern is the actual temperature of the yeast
itself so that it doesn't start to autolyze early.  (yes even i can live
with the blasted ball valve, though I am not real happy about that)  It may
well be that the volume is small enough to allow the cold to penetrate the
yeast, but I would like to know for sure.

Rich Sieben




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