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FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
Digest Janitor: janitor@hbd.org
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Contents:
Euro Beer (Aaron Robert Lyon)
Re: GFI protection (Spencer W Thomas)
American ale (Alex MacGillivray)
I Can't Name My Dog Spot No More (" Jim Bermingham")
Re: What/If to Plant (Jeff Renner)
Many Q's ("Jay Wirsig")
Amsterdam Beer Bars ("Tomusiak, Mark")
RE: Refractometer Calibration ("Dennis Lewis")
Commercial Beer Recipes ("Andrew Moore")
Refractometers (Dave Burley)
Measuring pH (Brian Lundeen)
Fermentation And Cellar Temp Blues (Todd Bissell)
Re: Newcastle Clone Questions (Lance Levsen)
Oak and Soda (Drew Beechum)
Oxygen supply (Ralph Link)
Extract - dry vs. liquid ("Doug Moyer")
Graham's Disapearance (Road Frog)
Barrels and oakey doakey beer (Dave Burley)
my oak barrel story ("John Campbell")
flamethrowers ("Joseph Marsh")
Amsterdam Beer Drinking ("Fred Waltman")
flatulence and pitching yeast ("res0a8pl")
Sabco Little Squirt (mchahn)
Keg Carbonation (mchahn)
ProMash and Refractometers (Frank Tutzauer)
HOMEBREWERS IN UK ("Wilf Phoenix")
*
* Beer is our obsession and we're late for therapy!
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Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2001 10:31:19 -0500 (EST)
From: Aaron Robert Lyon <lyona at umich.edu>
Subject: Euro Beer
I have a few groups of friends going to Europe over the summer. One has a
couple of weeks, the other a couple of months. Both have the ability to
go anywhere within reason (they're both backpacking). For some reason,
after a couple of pints I promised them that I'd create a list of worthy
beer countries and places to hit within them. They're holding me to it.
Anyway, whatever input people could provide would be appreciated. Thanks.
-Aaron
Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2001 10:36:07 -0500
From: Spencer W Thomas <spencer at engin.umich.edu>
Subject: Re: GFI protection
>>>>> "Joe" == Joe Yoder <headduck at swbell.net> writes:
Joe> I think what [the other] Joe means is that if you have a GFI on a
Joe> circuit all the other outlets on the circuit are protected.
This is true only if the circuit was wired *through* the GFI. That
is, if the circuit comes from the breaker box to the "Line" side of
the GFI, and the rest of the circuit is wired off the "Load" side of
the GFI. If the GFI is wired in parallel with the other outlets, it
provides no protection to those other outlets.
=Spencer
Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2001 06:43:23 -0900
From: Alex MacGillivray <sockeye at kpunet.net>
Subject: American ale
I'm trying to come up with an idea on an American ale. I've never really
made one before and I'm wondering if I can get some feedback from you
with this idea for a 15 gallon batch.
22 pounds 2-row pale malt
6 pounds 40l Crystal
3 pounds cooked rice
1oz Chinook 10% for 60 minutes
1oz Chinook 9.6% for 2 minutes
Wyeast American ale 2
Rain water. Hops added after hot break. Full boil for 120 minutes.
I'm hoping that the longer boil will help to give it a reddish colour.
Thanks in advance,
Alex
Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2001 10:03:02 -0600
From: " Jim Bermingham" <bermingham at antennaproducts.com>
Subject: I Can't Name My Dog Spot No More
People are funny, we like to name things. We name our children, our pets,
boats, summer homes, my wife has names for all of our cows. The scary part
is she can tell you which one is which and there's over 70 of them. People
like to name their home breweries too. Since the 15th of this month I have
seen the following names in the Digest: Whistle Pig Brewing Company,
Smallaxe Brewery, Pizza Port Solana Beach Brewery, Ironhead Nano-Brewery,
Edge Ale Brewery, Fuzzy Bear Home Brewery, Ixnae of Blochead Home Brewery
and Yellow Breeches Brewery.
A few years ago I created a web page and included some pages on my brewery.
I named my brewery The JackA$$ Brewery. Most people think I named it that
because my wife raises jacka$$es. Not true, I named it that because that's
my wife's pet name for me. Hey Jacka$$! You Jacka$$! That Jacka$$! She's
always calling me Jacka$$. Ain't Love Grand!
Anyway, I created these web pages and joined some beer rings. Yesterday, 22
March I got an e-mail telling me to cease and desist using the name JackA$$
Brewery. This gentleman who sent the e-mail said he was going around the
circle of a beer ring and he came across my page. He went on to say he lost
two friends in a car accident, one being his brother. After this loss he
legally changed his name to Jack A$$. Don't know why, he didn't say, I
wonder if he is married and if so did his wife change her name to Jennie
A$$? Now this is the truth people I'm not just pulling your leg. Mr. A$$
went on to say he also brews beer and has a registered trademark for his
beer: Jack A$$'s Beer, and has a registered trademark for his brewery: Jack
A$$'s Brewery. He thought that I was infringing on his trademark and was
going to seek legal action if I didn't change my brewery's name. Now I
don't know if JackA$$ Brewery is an infringement on Jack A$$'s Brewery or
not. Seems to me he is referring to his Buttock's Beer and I to the animal
but who knows for sure in this sue happy world.
I'm asking two things please send me the names of your home brewery and how
much money you have. If you have lots of money I am going to change my
brewery's name to yours, register the name, then put a suit on your a$$ for
all your money.
Mr. A$$ if you're out there lurking you can join in now and tell your side
of the story.
Jim Bermingham
Looking for a name in,
Millsap TX.
[Janitor's note: Rather than belabor the issue regarding email filtering,
I have exchanged the double sibilants above for double dollar signs.
Hopefully that will allow the Digest this appears in to pass the filters
without interfering with Mr. Bermingham's humorous story...]
Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2001 11:07:45 -0500
From: Jeff Renner <nerenner at umich.edu>
Subject: Re: What/If to Plant
Bob Hall <nap_aca_bh at nwoca.org>, who remembers to include that he's
from Napoleon, OH, asks about hops
>I'm thinking about using the windmill on my farmstead as a hop trellace.
Fun that you should choose the windmill as planting decorative hops
on them was an old midwest farm tradition.
>1) Which varieties are best suited to the Mid-West climate, eg. hot
>summers, cold winters?
My Cascade hops grow like weeds. I never fertilize them beyond spent
grains during the winter (Dave Sapsis years ago said that fresh
(uncomposted) spent grains are too "hot" and will, burn the hops -
still true, Dave?). I water them if we have a dry spell, but not
very often. I figure they're pretty much on their own. Even the big
antlered, hoofed rats we have here don't seem to bother them.
>2) What about insects and disease control/resistance? I fought the good
>fight but finally turned over the grapes and raspberries to Japanese
>beetles. Won't even bother with the hops if JBs are a big problem.
Again, I've never had any trouble, but we don't seem to have a
problem with JBs in general.
>3) Is it best to use one or two rhizomes per hill?
Whatever you plant, they'll multiply quickly if they have a happy
home. I planted eight around a 18 foot lamp post and have to prune
out the extras each spring.
Good luck.
- --
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: Fri, 23 Mar 2001 11:15:21 -0500
From: "Jay Wirsig" <Jay.Wirsig at can.dupont.com>
Subject: Many Q's
First of all I would like to thank the many responses to my questions they
are appreciated - you can only get so far "book learning". I have several
other questions that I would like to pose:
1) Water - my water supply is PH 8, Alkalinity 89 ppm, Ca 36 ppm, Mg 8.2
ppm, Chloride 21.7 ppm, sulphate 30.4 ppm. My practise to date for lagers
has been to add 0.5 grams/gallon calcium chloride to increase calcium by an
additional 36 ppm, (chloride also goes up by 64 ppm) , the CaCl addition is
followed by an addition of citric acid to reduce the PH to 6.0 (measured
using an aquarium kit). I do these additions for all of my brewing water.
a) Should I be treating all of my water this way? or should I just add
CaCl to the mash water only while also acidifying the sparge water?
b) The citric acid is suggested in Noonan's Lager book - Is there a
different taste than using lactic acid?
2) I posted a question that seems to have stumped the group - I have
several varieties of hops growing in my back yard (Cascade, Tettenanger &
Nugget). I would like to verify that they are what the nusery said they
were particularily the Tettnanger. Does anyone know of a lab service that
I can send the tettnanger hops to for confimation.
4) I have a converted keg two tier rims. I used to have a problem with
stuck sparges using 1q/lb dilution, It was recommended that I increase this
to 3 l/kg and I have not had a problem since. I now have some carry over
of grain when I pump to the boiler (2/3 of the time only). I'm considering
filtering the mash wort through a grain bag (under the surface to prevent
splashing) as it is pumped to the boiler. I'm sure that this must be a
common problem with other RIMS, What are others doing to prevent the carry
over of grains? Is this something that I should be concerned about?
5) I have two techniques that I tried on my latest brew that worked very
well for me so I'll pass along to the collective. I use hop bags to
prevent clogging of my kettle drain. I carefully fish out the aroma hop
bag and tie it to the end of the kettle spigot in such a way that the cold
wort enters the open hop bag and is then filtered through the whole hops in
the filter bag and spashes nicely into the fermentation bucket doing some
oxygenation in the process. I get a pretty clean wort. The other thing
that I tried that a fellow HBDer posted was direct heat on the bottom of
the tun for boosting temperature (despite being well insultated my RIMs
doesn't have the power to boost temps ver quickly when it is -10C outside).
I was very concerned about scorching but once I established the RIMs
recirculation at full throttle (March pump) I fired up the 160,000 BTU
cajum cooker on very very low throttle. It took a few minutes as my
thermocouple is in the mash but It climbed quite nicely 1 deg C per 1.5
min. Despite the fact that grains had made it through the false bottom,
there was no scorching. I did not do any stirring. I have read an awful
lot about RIMS stuck mashes and I think that many times this can be
resolved by increasing dilution rate, many books talk about the desire to
have a good thick mash, in my experience "book learning" can sometimes
create more problems.
6) My Efficiency has been 85-93 (the results in the 80's had RIMS recirc
spills associated with them - dumb stuff don't ask) My late runnings are
still 1.010 to 1.012 so I don't think I'm extracting any tannins. Are
these efficiencies good? I read a lot of books that base recipes on 90%
efficiency is that the average? I tend to use 80% for my planning using a
mid gravity to account for any spills etc and dilute in the fermenter if
too high or have a higher alc beer. Promash is pretty great by the way if
you don't have it or a similar tool and brew often I would strongly suggest
it.
>>Jay
Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2001 08:17:09 -0800
From: "Tomusiak, Mark" <tomusiak at amgen.com>
Subject: Amsterdam Beer Bars
Greetings all...having spent quite a bit of time over the last several years
beer hunting in Amsterdam, I thought I would pass on some recommendations:
* Cafe Belgique; tiny pub by Dam square, has six or seven taps
including DeKoninck, La Chouffe, usually something from Brouwerij 't Ij,
etc.. Love the atmosphere - dark wood and gleaming copper taps.
* In de Wildeman; perhaps the most famous of the Amsterdam beer bars.
Phenomenal selection.
* De Beiaard; with many taps of Dutch and Belgian beers, located on
Spui square, great place to have a beer in the glassed-in patio and watch
traffic chaos unfold outside.
There are many more. My most important suggestion is to proceed immediately
to the bottle shop De Bierkoning, near Dam square, and buy a copy of the
"Serious Drinker's Guide to Amsterdam" by Hugh Shipman. It's a
comprehensive guide to all the best beer bars, and is all you need to spend
several days stumbling around town. By the way, Bierkoning has an
incredible selection of beer and glassware - you'll be tempted to throw away
the contents of your suitcase and replace them with beers.
As luck would have it, I'll be there in about two weeks and look forward to
trying out a new bar specializing in Dutch beers, 't Arendsnest; check it
out at http://www.arendsnest.nl/index.htm. Cheers,
Mark Tomusiak
Boulder, Colorado
Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2001 11:23:59 -0500
From: "Dennis Lewis" <dblewis at lewisdevelopment.com>
Subject: RE: Refractometer Calibration
> Question 4: How can fiddling with an adjustment screw based on 0%
> Brix water correct for temperature in a 12 Brix solution?
My refractometer says that is has auto-temp correction--not sure
what that means because the quantity of test liquid is so small that
it rapidly cools (or warms) to the refractometers temp.
I calibrated my refractometer to 10 Brix by using a known solution.
I have a scale that is accurate to 0.1g. So I put 10 grams of priming
sugar (dextrose) into a cup on the scale, then filled it with warm
distilled water to a total of 100 grams. Then stir like hell until
it is all dissolved.
I figured that this is a better calibration point than 0 Brix (although
that is much easier to obtain.) plus I wanted to test the linearity of
the refractometer.
On a side note, I created a large chart for checking the SG of
a fermentation in progress. I used the equations from Louis Bonham and
put them in a spreadsheet with OG across the top and apparent SG along the
side. The data in the chart are the calculated SG as if you took a
hydrometer reading. (By the way, I also had it laminated at the local
copy place, just in case.) This way I can sneak a small sample with an
eyedropper and test the SG instead of having to pull out an entire
hydrometer tube full.
Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2001 11:31:28 -0500
From: "Andrew Moore" <abmjunk at hotmail.com>
Subject: Commercial Beer Recipes
I apologize for asking for something that I know has been recently posted,
but I am having trouble accessing the archives.
Recently, there have been some questions regarding commercial beer clone
recipes. I think someone posted online sources for this information. Could
someone resend that to me privately? As a brewing newbie, it would be useful
to know what ingredients are used in commercial beers, allowing me to
understand the relationship between familiar tastes and specific
ingredients.
Thanks in advance,
Andrew Moore
Richmond, Virginia
Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2001 14:33:57 -0500
From: Dave Burley <Dave_Burley at compuserve.com>
Subject: Refractometers
Brewsters:
Franks asks questions about his refractive index measurements.
Refractive index ( what a refractometer measures by assessing the angle
light is bent when passing through a sample solution) is related to
temperature, the solvent and its dissolved contents. It is a surrogate
measurement for specific gravity. Just as specific gravity is not a
perfect measurement of sugar content ( or potential alcohol - the real
target) neither is a refractometer the perfect tool for this. The
advantage ( or disadvantage) of the refractometer is that is requires a
small sample ( no more SG wort sample to drink!) and is quick. The portable
refractometer has its real use in the vineyard where it's used to assess
the Brix of grapes in the field. It is also useful in brewing, allowing you
to follow the dissolved solids as the mash progresses, but SG is still the
best measurement for OG in my opinion.
Frankly, Frank, I wouldn't worry about this too much as the refractometer
responds to other substances which come along with the wort sugar and can
have an effect on the refractive index ( which is an explanation of why you
need a corrective factor). A similar corrective factor exists buried in the
calculation of potential alcohol from specific gravity.
I am a little puzzled by your Nd =<1 measurements as many organics ( e.g.
alcohol Nd = 1.359) have a refractive index greater than one. I suspect an
error in the measurement. Also remember that improper mixing of the wort
will produce different SGs and unless your refractometer sample was from
exactly the same solution as your SG measurements this could also be a
source of error in your calculations of a correction factor. I suspect
Louis' 1.04 correction was from a standardized ASBC text and I would use
that number as it likely has a long history in many professional brewing
labs.
I suspect the screw adjustment is a mechanical adjustment and not a
temperature correction, so don't worry about the fact that you never have
to change it.
BTW, I admire your efforts here to understand what's going on.
Keep on Brewin'
Dave Burley
Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2001 16:01:17 -0600
From: Brian Lundeen <blundeen at rrc.mb.ca>
Subject: Measuring pH
I need to get a better understanding of this whole mash pH thing:
1. What is the desired pH range for the mash?
What I currently believe: 5.2-5.5
2. Is that pH measured at room temperature or at mash temperature?
What I currently believe: at mash temperature
3. If I have a temperature compensating pH meter, and it reads a sample at
mash temperature to be pH 5.2, is it saying:
a) This sample is 5.2 at mash temperature
b) This sample would read 5.2 if you had allowed it to cool to room
temperature
What I currently believe: Clueless!
Bottom line: When my temperature compensating pH meter is plunged into that
hot mash sample, what numbers do I want to see come up on the display?
Please help. I have resigned myself to losing sleep over it this weekend,
but hopefully when I come in Monday, all will be made clear to me.
Thanks,
Brian
Return to table of contents
Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2001 06:03:13 GMT
From: Todd Bissell <bis9170 at home.com>
Subject: Fermentation And Cellar Temp Blues
I'm the consummate Beginner Homebrewer, with my very first batch
fermenting steadily as I type this. While I was at first agonizing over
the first 24-36 hours of seemingly little activity, I now have bubbles
aplenty. Sounds like good news, right? Well, here's the catch.
My "cellar" is my dark closet, with the air-temperature consistently
between 72-76 degrees -- which, if I understand it correctly, means the
batch itself is even warmer than that. I've read that with such warm
temp's, I can probably expect to get a rather nasty batch of fusel
alcohol-laced beer in the long run. That probably being the case, would
you recommend still letting the batch run it's course and see if it's
salvageable, or should I be thinking about tossing it? Of course, I
didn't
expect to make the perfect Mild Ale the first time, but I do want to
learn from this newbie mistake.
Any thoughts on what I can do to cool down my closet, or any other
reasonable location in a small one-bedroom apartment? Running freon
pipes out the back of my `fridge is not an option, but I'd appreciate any
other suggestions...!
Cheers!
T.S. Bissell
Return to table of contents
Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2001 00:41:33 -0600
From: Lance Levsen <l.levsen at printwest.com>
Subject: Re: Newcastle Clone Questions
Hey, Nils.
> I'm going to be making the Newcastle's Clone from the Cat's Meow (recipe
> below), & I've got some questions.
>
> Ingredients:
> 3.3 lbs British pale malt extract
> 3.3 lbs British amber malt extract (or less)
> 1 lb turbinado sugar
> 8 oz British dark crystal
> 4 oz chocolate malt
> 4 oz wheat
> 2 oz Fuggles at 45 min (or williamette or styrain goldings)
> .5 oz Fuggles at 10 min (optional)
> Wyeast 1028 London Ale
>
> 1) Would the extract by liquid or dry, or does it matter? Does liquid
> equate to dry at a 1:1 ratio?
No. DME is about 1.045 SG for lb/gallon where as liquid is 1.038 SG lb/gal.
> 2) Is there a big difference between British & American extract?
Depends on the manufacturer, the grain, the malt, the packaging . . . IOW, way
too generic a question. I would suggest looking for an extract that uses a
british malt as it's base. (pipken, marris otter, something like that.)
> 3) Just curious what such small amounts of grain will do? 4 oz seems pretty
> small. Is the chocolate is for color? & the crystals for additional
> fermentables? What about the wheat?
Let's see. Assuming 5 gal (19 l)
Northern Brown is supposed to be 12-30 SRM, Southern 20-35 according to AHA.
8 oz dark crystal assume 80 degree Lovibond
4 oz of chocolate at approx 450 degree Lovibond
(Note: doesn't take into account the amber extract which will add a bunch of
colour too.)
SRM(+/-) = crystal(.5 lb x 80) + chocolate(.25lb x 450)/ 5 gal
= 152.5/5
= 30.5 SRM (close enough)
Seems a little high for a northern but good for a southern.
> 5) The recipe says to boil for 60 mins, but to add the Fuggles at 45 min.
> What's the 1st 15 min of the boil for if you don't have the hops in it?
It's not the first 15 minutes per say, it's just that you'll lose a lot of hop
"essence" if you boil beyond the 45 minutes. It's fairly standard in beer to
boil for 60 or 90 minutes. The boil does numerous things to your wort, 3
offhand, sanitation, protein coagulation, hop acid extraction.
> 6) To my uneducated brewing eye, it seems like this might recipe might be a
> bit bland, only 1 lb of specialy grains & optional aroma hops. I'm used to
> using 2-3 lbs of specialty grains instead. I'd like to get more flavor out
> of the recipe. Any suggestions on what grains I might add & what I'd have
> to remove to balance it? What would the affect of the different types of
> bittering hops be (fuggles vs williamette vs styrain goldings)?
:-)
See, this is entirely up to you. I personally would suggest doing the
recipe at least three times.
Cheers,
- --
Lance Levsen,
Product Innovation
PWGroup - S'toon.
Return to table of contents
Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2001 01:43:14 -0800 (PST)
From: Drew Beechum <Drew.Beechum at disney.com>
Subject: Oak and Soda
So there have been some questions about oak and beers on this list for
the past few days. Somehow after experimentation I seem to have become
a local expert over here. Very few of us could afford a brand new oak
barrel (The shop I use sells American Oak for $120 for 5G and French
Oak for about $142) Particularly since the barrels require care to
avoid the usual self-destruction.
So what's an oaking home brewer to do? Most brew shops also cover the
wine market and so stock oak chips. These will typically look like
pencil shavings made of oak. DON'T use these! They burn your beer with
oak. Instead use a variant of home wine/brewing oak called "oak
beans." These are actually cubes of barrell staves that have been
fired and treated. I'll typically soak these in something for 2 weeks
and then dump the beer on them in the secondary at cool temps (~55F)
for 3 weeks. This seems to give the beer a nice round oaky
profile. Particularly good combo I've done.. a nice bright American
IPA aged on bourbon soaked oak beans. Just last week I brewed up that
same combo again as well as a smoked porter that will be aged on beans
soaked in Sherry and grain alcohol (to boost the sanitation props). (I
think these beers will be available at hte AHA Club Night during the
conference. BTW, I'm the coordinator for the Club Night anyone from
anywhere who's willing to have a booth and serve beers from their club
should feel free to contact me.)
Good place to check for info on oak beans is the Home Wine Beer
Cheesemaking Shop of Woodland Hills, CA. No Aff.. yada yada yada
1-800-559-9922.
And lastly...
> From: "Abby, Ellen and Alan" <elal at pei.sympatico.ca>
> 2. Do not necessarily pour your beer down the side of the glass. A
> beer without head can be seen as a a "dead" beer and not worth drinking
> - like we might think of flat pop ("soda" for you down south).
I know Alan's from Canada, but when you say down south to moi.. you
trigger my old memories of home aka the Deep South, where calling a
coke, "soda", will just get your butt whupped. I don't care if it's
Sprite, Pepsi, Root Beer, etc,... dang nabit, it's a coke. :)
- -- Drew
Return to table of contents
Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2001 08:53:03 -0600
From: Ralph Link <rlink15 at home.com>
Subject: Oxygen supply
Hello Collective.
Here in Canada we have a chain of Canadian Tire stores. This chain sells
everything under the sun including tires. In their most current flyer they
advertise a propane, oxygen cutting welding torch. It is a small unit and
is being sold for about $55.00 Canadian (plus 14%). Can anyone tell me if
the oxygen bottle would be useable to aerate wort in the fermenter. Is the
oxygen a food grade? If there is such a thing.Thanks in advance for your input.
Return to table of contents
Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2001 10:40:38 -0500
From: "Doug Moyer" <shyzaboy at yahoo.com>
Subject: Extract - dry vs. liquid
Nils,
To take a shot at some of your questions:
(1) The stated 3.3 lbs is a common liquid measurement (i.e., one can from
many manufacturers). As to the ratio between the two, it is about 4:3
(dme:lme). In other words, if a recipe calls for 3 lbs of dry, use 4 lbs of
liquid. (After all, there is still water in the liquid that has been removed
from the dry.)
>From HopTech's website (http://www.hoptech.com): "Liquid malt extract will
make a wort of approximately 1.034 specific gravity per pound of extract per
gallon of water. Dried malt extract will yield approximately 1.045 points
per pound of extract per gallon of water."
This is a general rule. Liquid malt will vary somewhat in the extract do to
the manufacturer's process.
(2) Regarding the difference in British & American, it depends on the
style, of course. And the manufacturer. When I did extract, I always used
the lightest possible extract and used specialty grains for all of my
flavor.
(3) Chocolate malt can have a big impact on the flavor and color. 4
ounces will add a very nice hint of chocolate and a tad bit of roastiness.
The wheat will do nothing at such a small level and it has to be mashed or
you will have free starch in your beer which can be consumed by bacteria but
not yeast. (I.e., don't bother.) The 8 ounces of dark crystal is about the
max that I would use. To me, dark crystal is too pronounced in the beer, and
it doesn't blend well with the other flavors. It also raises the final
gravity more than I like. Keep it at 80 degree Lovibond or less.
(4) Use table sugar if you like. I would just use more extract myself.
(An aside: as far as I've seen, they don't offer "raw" sugar anymore. It is
regular sugar with molasses added.) Heck, you can use dark candy sugar if
you want.
(5) The initial 15 minutes can allow you to get past the foam-over stage
before adding the hops. (Hops, especially pellet hops, make the foam-over
period a bit more dramatic.) You don't need 15 minutes for that though.
(6) Well of course it looks a bit bland. It is a Newcastle clone. Sheesh.
If you want to be able to taste what little flavor it has, do like the silly
real ale folks and drink it at 55 deg F with very low carbonation. (My beer
has enough flavor that I can drink it at 40 deg F and 2 ~ 2.5 volumes of CO2
and still taste all of the wonderful Munich malt and superb hops!)
As to differences in bittering hops, you will still get a bit of flavor from
the bittering addition, which is reduced depending on the duration of the
boil in which they are subjected. I used Cascades in a dunkelweizen (gasp!)
because that was all that was in my freezer at the time. But, I had them in
for the entire ninety minute boil. Not even a hint of Cascade flavor in the
final brew.
Brew on!
Doug Moyer
Salem, VA
Star City Brewers Guild: http://hbd.org/starcity
"There is a very fine line between 'hobby' and 'mental illness.'"
~ Dave Barry
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Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2001 07:48:12 -0800 (PST)
From: Road Frog <road_frog_run at yahoo.com>
Subject: Graham's Disapearance
Well I'm as sad as anyone with Graham's disappearance.
I think there can only be 3 possible explanations.
1) SWMBO, to dreadful to even think of.
2) A salty, head hunting cod, or genital sucking frog.
If one of these, at least it was fairly quick.
3) The "Keyboard of the South" has taken all the piss
out of him.
So next time you tip one up, say a toast to Graham and
tip one up in his honor!
WTIC,
Glyn in TN, with hop shoots up 8"!
Wait a minute did Dr. Pivo disappear at the same time?
=====
"Everytime that I look in the mirror, All these lines
in my face getting clearer." Aerosmith
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Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2001 11:01:45 -0500
From: Dave Burley <Dave_Burley at compuserve.com>
Subject: Barrels and oakey doakey beer
Brewsters:
Jeff's comment about the barrel flavor (I call it a carpenter's floor
flavor) overwhelming his first barrelling. and all this discussion on
barrels makes we want to comment about barrels in brewing and how to handle
the barrel - after a little barrel-in-brewing-history, according to DRB.
The instability of alcoholic beverages in barrels has led to the
development of various new products to overcome this problem or to make use
of it depending on how you look at it. It has driven packaging engineers (
I don't hold with the geek engineering motto "if you can't hack it, pack
it" BTW ) to develop greater products.
First, let me say that as far as I know, at least in the early part of last
century and likely before that, beer was stored and shipped in kegs (
barrels) which had the interior coated with pitch. Hot, molten pitch was
applied to the barrel interior, cooled and beer was injected. This allowed
the beer to get into and out of the barrel in a relatively uninfected
state. Upon return, the barrel was steam cleaned, pitch drained and then
repitched and reused. Why go to all this trouble with pitch? To make a
barrel which didn't affect the flavor of the beer, as pure wood would and
especially infected wood would. Boy, were they glad to get aluminum and SS
kegs. Hmmm I wonder how the pitch affected the beer flavor? Was there a
Retsina ( pine pitch flavored Greek wine - how the Greeks solved their
amphora packaging problem 4000 years ago) equivalent for beer?
Now, I know all you romantics who imagine that beer was oaked just like
wine are going "Ohhh!!, but the story is so nice" I also know that there is
a CAMRA group ( "beer from the wood") who routinely proposes the use of
plain barrels. I think it is a lot of baloney in the absence of facts which
prove a raw barrel was used to hold fresh beer for more than the shortest
term consumption. Not that in the early days it wasn't done, but that was
when consumption of a barrel of beer took place in a few days from the time
of fermentation and before infection imparted too strong a flavor. A few
days in a large barrel likely did not oak flavor the beer at all when you
consider the volume/surface ratio of a 30 or 50 gallon barrel. Apart from
raising the alcohol content as in Russian Imperial Stout and hop content in
India Pale Ale, reducing infection for longer term storage and
transportation required an innovation such as coating the inside of the
barrel with pitch to gain some sort of stability for shipping further than
the pub down the road ( which was the only case in early days). Note that
aging of beer in unlined oak casks did take place for up to a year but to
produce "Stale" beer which was infected by the barrel on purpose to produce
a lactic acid flavor used in blending the original porter style.
Point is, putting your beer in a wooden cask and expecting all sorts of
wonderful oakey flavors likely won't happen ( and didn't happen in the good
old, bad old days either, I contend) at least more than once. Infection
will set in and you will be well on your way to producing p-Lamic after
p-Lambic, since the barrel represents a wonderful source of infection - or
beneficial organisms depending on your point of view. This barrel, once
infected, can never be dis-infected ( too many nooks and crannies) and I
suspect it comes already fully contaminated, when you consider the source.
Fact is, wine is higher in alcohol and organisms, which would spoil beer in
a cask, may also spoil wine, but just more slowly, depending on alcohol
content, temperature, etc., during the time of consumption. Bottles were
invented because barrels were not even a good long term storage area for
wines ( let alone beers) without a lot of attention. Most wines shipped in
barrels to Britain from areas other than France spoiled and led to the
development of Sherry and Port with their higher alcohol content when
Britain and France were at war and French wines were cut off from the
Brits.
So what to do if you want an oak flavored beer, anyway?
1) Buy some lightly toasted oak chips from your wine hobby store, pressure
cook them at 15 psig dry in a bowl suspended above the water for 15 minutes
to kill all sorts of infective organisms and treat your next beer with 4 to
8 ounces of chips per 5 gallons in a cheesecloth bag weighed down with
marbles. Investment is low. Risk is low. Chances of success is high. Try
it, you may like it. Let your friends believe you have a cellar full of
beer laden oak caks waiting to be sampled some day.
2) If you insist on trying an oak cask ( I suggest 5 gallons) and don't
want that carpenter's floor flavor, get a lightly toasted oak cask, soak it
with a cup of washing soda ( sodium carbonate) in a barrel full of water
for 1/2 hour, rinse with citric acid solution, rinse with water and soak it
in acidified metabisulfite solution until the dripping stops ( maybe a
week). BTW never allow the bottom stave to support any weight or the barrel
will permanenty leak. Build a cradle for the cask supporting it from the
lower staves and resting on the bands. Never use bleach or any chlorine
containing sterilant or you will spoil the barrel. Rinse with very hot
water and put in your beer. Leave it there, tasting and topping it up with
fresh beer until you get the right flavor. Remember that the oak flavor
will dissipate with time , so over oak if you plan to bottle it. Rack and
bottle, clean the barrel with hot water. Unless you put a new beer in the
cask, store the cask filled with acid metabisulfite and top it up with
concentrated metabisulfite from time to time, like once a month.
Mmm Mmm Mmm, the thought of an oakey, amber and cream bitter. Ahhh.
Well, we can pretend it is the way it used to be can't we? And maybe it
was, sometimes?
Keep on Brewin'
Dave Burley
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Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2001 09:59:57 -0600
From: "John Campbell" <johncampbell at home.com>
Subject: my oak barrel story
My experience with oak barrels has been good, but I do not use new barrels
as I find the cost prohibitive. I get my barrels from a whiskey distillery
for $55.00 US for a 55 gallon barrel. For folks that have no distillery near
them, they can contact one about getting some barrels shipped. Even with
shipping, it is bound to be cheaper than a new barrel. This particular
distillery regularly ships large quantities of these barrels overseas at a
cost of $45.00 US, per barrel as the customers buy a large number of
barrels.The distillery stores their whisky at 120 proof for four year
minimum. With this level of alcohol, I did not concern myself with the idea
that there may have been any micro organisms alive that would require me to
clean or treat the barrel with anything other than water.
I get the barrel and soak it with water overnight to leach some of the
whiskey from the barrel. (If you want to make the effort, you could probably
put a gallon of water in the barrel and roll it around in the sun for a day
or two and come away with something that tastes quite like aged whiskey, but
I haven't tried this) My last project was a barrel of Cyser. The end result
was so tasty, that in six weeks time, passing out two ounce samples, we
consumed 26 gallons of the nectar. (Next year there will be two barrels, one
for cider, one for cyser) Any way, the next project is to fill this same
barrel with a Chimay Grand Reserve clone. I will let you know how it turns
out. I find that using a used barrel, you get a good oak flavor with out
being over powering, and can control the oak taste by frequent tasting.
Remember that the oak flavor will mellow and attenuate as the product ages
and the flavors will become more blended. I shoot for a little stronger
flavor than I would like that is still some what balanced. A truly
subjective thing, as any beer judge can attest..
The results so impressed other members of our club that we now have several
members that have barrels, and I have dubbed them "The Cult of the Oak
Barrel". and fellow Cysermen. Many amateur wine makers use used whiskey
barrels for their wine, but I can think of no better use than aging beer and
cyser. If I recall correctly, I remember a story here on the hbd about a
club that filled two barrels with barley wine, which should be well on its
way to being ready to bottle. Should be in the archives. I will let you know
when I get the whole "Story of the Cyser Barrel" posted on our web site
http://www.musiccitybrewers.com
Until then,
Keep on brewing
and
Hail the Brewers!
Cyserman
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Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2001 11:52:48 -0500
From: "Joseph Marsh" <josephmarsh62 at hotmail.com>
Subject: flamethrowers
What with all the hoopla about burners I thought I'd put my two cents in.
I've got a Morron turkey fryer that works quite well. I don't know the btu
rating since it's not listed on the box but I get 5 gals of water up to 170
in about 15 mins. Last Wednesday I brewed a 5 gal. batch with a 115 min.
boil using 2 lbs of propane including cleanup.
It helps that I reuse my chiller water for cleanup but the biggest
difference in gas usage I've seen comes from using a wind screen. I brew
outdoors with a converted 15.5 gal. keg. I have a heat blanket that I use to
insulate my mash tun which gets reused as the wind screen around the burner.
That and the keg rim keep the heat in contact with the keg longer for more
efficiency.
Hope this helps,
Joe
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Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2001 09:18:34 -0800
From: "Fred Waltman" <himself at FredWaltman.com>
Subject: Amsterdam Beer Drinking
Steve asks about Amsterdam drinking places:
Here are my favorites, mostly within walking distance of Centraal Station:
In De Wildeman, Nieuwezijdskolk 5. 18 taps, 150+ bottles, nonsmoking room.
The best place to go for good beer in Amsterdam. It is a bit hard to find,
being on an alley between Niewendijk and Nieuwezijds Vorburgwahl. I find it
by walking up Nieuwenzijds Vorburgwahl from the train station until I see
this ghastly out of place modern building, on a little square. There is a
Sofitel hotel there and the Cok City Hotel accross the street. Down the
alley a little ways is In De Wildeman.
Cafe Belgique, Gravenstraat 2. 8 beers on tap, 40+ bottles.
Cafe Gollem, Raamsteeg 4. 8 Beers on tap, 200+ in bottles. Very small,
but worth the visit.
Maximiliaan, Kloveniersburgwal 6-8. Brewpub on the edge of the Red Light
district. Brews what we would call "Belgian style"beers.
De Beiaard, Spui 30. 16 beers on tap, 20+ in bottles. Nice little bar
with lots of taps. They usually have a (sweet) lambic on tap. Selection
is not so interesting as in the past.
Het Elfde Gebod, Zeedijk 5. Beers on tap 5, in bottles 50+. The name
means "The Eleventh Commandment" (which must be "Thou shall drink beer.")
't Loosje, Nieuwmarkt 32-34. Beers on tap: 6; in bottles: 15+. Right down
the street from Maximillans on the edge of the Red Light District.
't IJ, A short bus ride from the main station. This is Amsterdam's best
microbrewery. The tap room is well worth the visit if you have the time.
De Bierkoning. Palaisstraat 125. The best beer store in town. Just about
every Dutch and Belgian beer available, with many other European countries
represented.
There also is a fairly new place at Herrengracht 90 that only serves Dutch
beers. The name is something like "t'Arendtsnest" but I'm sure I'm spelling
it wrong. I have only been there a couple of times, but had good beers
there.
Email me if you would like more detailed directions (and Cologne info)
Fred Waltman
Culver City Home Brewing Supply (Los Angeles Area)
fred at Brewsupply.com
see: www.StickeWarriors.com/amsterdam.html for this info and a map.
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Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2001 12:11:39 -0800
From: "res0a8pl" <res0a8pl at verizon.net>
Subject: flatulence and pitching yeast
This thread is interesting, but what I want to know is; if I fart while
pitching my yeast will I infect my beer?
Bill
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Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 04:25:36 -0500
From: mchahn at earthlink.net
Subject: Sabco Little Squirt
Anybody ever use this keg washing device? How did you hook it up? Please
email me off-list. TIA.
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Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 04:32:40 -0500
From: mchahn at earthlink.net
Subject: Keg Carbonation
Anybody have a quick 'n' easy way to carbonate in kegs (both 1/2 bbl. and
5-gal sankes). Please email me off-list. TIA
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Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2001 18:22:58 -0500 (EST)
From: Frank Tutzauer <comfrank at acsu.buffalo.edu>
Subject: ProMash and Refractometers
Hey, I just wanted to say thanks for Louis' most helpful answer regarding
refractometers. Basically, my thinking was correct, but the effects aren't
severe enough to worry about.
A couple of comments on the discussion so far:
First, regarding my brewhouse coefficient of 1.00 based on an average of
samples ranging from .95 to 1.15, Louis suggested that the low coefficients,
particularly those below .98, sounded flaky, and he suggested thermometer and
hydrometer calibration. I haven't actually calibrated my thermometers, but
they all read within a degree of each other, so what the hell.
The possibility of hydrometer inaccuracy is well taken though. (Of course
since these OG readings were taken at the end of a brew session where much
homebrew was consumed, perhaps it's not the calibration of the hydrometer
that's the problem, but the calibration of the brewer!)
I recently measured out various quantities of sugar into water
to concoct samples of different gravities, and then checked them against my
refractometer and hydrometers. The refractometer measured the sugar
concentrations pretty much spot on, but the hydrometers were *way* off.
SWMBO's hydrometer (yes, SWMBO has her own hydrometer), measured
approximately 5 points higher than it should have on all samples. My
hydrometer was very accurate for low gravities, but became increasingly
inaccurate as the gravity of the sample went up. When measuring a 1.045
sample, for example, I was reading 4 points low, by 1.075 it was 8 points
low, and on a 1.100 sample the hydrometer read a whopping 11 points low.
Now, I have been using this hydrometer for nearly 10 years, and getting along
fine, but if I go back and check my logs watcha wanna bet I get higher
efficiencies than expected on low gravity brews and worse efficiencies for
high gravity brews.
For the data I cited the other day, I used hydrometer readings corrected on
the basis of my sugar water experiment. If I recompute using the uncorrected
figures, I get brewhouse coefficients that are completely unrealistic--1.26,
for example. I plan on trying all of this again after I buy the Williams'
Brewing lab hydrometer.
In terms of refractometer corrections depending on both temperature and
gravity, I was right in principle, but the effect is small. Looking more
closely at my correction chart, I see that in normal brewing gravities, if
one ignores gravity and adjusts for temperature only, then it makes no
difference most of the time, so I'll use the chart if I've got it in front of
me and the adjustment screw if I don't.
Once again, thanks for the thoughts, and Jeffrey I'll send in some numbers
for the data collection effort once I've gotten my new hydrometer.
--frank
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Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2001 23:56:49 -0000
From: "Wilf Phoenix" <wilf.phoenix at btinternet.com>
Subject: HOMEBREWERS IN UK
Enjoy reading problems and practices - in the digest -from all over the
"civilised" BEER BREWING WORLD but not many from England why not? - WILF
PHOENIX - MANCHESTER UK
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