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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
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Contents:
  RE: champagne corks & corkers ("Sebastian Padilla")
  Re: Tom's Non-Beer adentures (David Lamotte)
  re Beer and non-tobacco cigarettes (Tom Smit) (=?iso-8859-1?q?scott=20morgan?=)
  vitality/viability/glycogen - look who's speculatin' now ! ("Stephen Alexander")
  Energetic Fermentation (Watch out for flying fementer lids!) ("Andrew Moore")
  HBD ID Buttons! (Pat Babcock)
  MCAB Recipes (Patrick.Humphrey)
  twist top bottles (John Clark)
  Selling on the Internet (Brian Myers)
  Commercial Kolsch ("Eric Wooten")
  re: Whirlfloc ("Kensler, Paul")
  Since the que is long...errr...short (William & Kazuko Macher)


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* Beer is our obsession and we're late for therapy!
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Date: Mon, 07 May 2001 08:15:24 -0000
From: "Sebastian Padilla" <sebastianpadilla at hotmail.com>
Subject: RE: champagne corks & corkers

I too am in search of the perfectly corked bottle of Belgian Beer. I have 
been trying to do this properly for quite a while.  Here is the official 
word on how to do this w/ no shortcuts.  Please note this is an utterly 
uneconomical endeavor, so if you are looking for this I do not have your 
answer.  You will end up with a great presentation for your carefully 
crafted Belgian ales if you go through the effort. Read on if this still 
appeals to you.

There are basically 2 ways that I have discovered to do this authentically. 
Both require a bit of effort (in my opinion it is worth it, we homebrewer 
must always be a bit nutty about some part of the brewing process).

The first method is to purchase European champagne corks and a champagne 
corker.  Finding the corks is not too hard I purchased mine from 
http://www.thecorkstore.com/ (NAYY, for any and all recommendations). 
Availability is apparently seasonal, but there are many other sources.  Just 
make sure that you are purchasing corks for sparkling wines and you should 
be ok (these are thicker, denser and sometimes longer than your standard 
wine cork. Finding the champagne corker is a bit trickier.  Annapolis 
homebrew (http://www.annapolishomebrew.com/) is supposed to have these (I 
currently have one on back order, but it has been a couple months and still 
no sign of it) for $109.  I found another place which is based in 
Switzerland that sells them (Actually a viable option for me as I am on 
business in Europe for the next couple of months), here is that link 
http://www.amez-droz.ch/EN_index.html.  I am currently pursuing this first 
route (mainly because I already purchased some European champagne corks) but 
there is another viable option that I discovered.

Option two is to get the same corks that North American Belgian beer 
breweries bottle their beers with (ie. Ommegang and Unibrou).  They use a 
much softer cork than the standard European champagne cork, and these can be 
used in a standard Floor type corker.  I am not too sure how well these 
corks stand up to time (anyone with experience aging these beers) as these 
corks don't seem quite as hardy as champagne corks that are used by most 
Belgian brewers, but they seem to work well for them and, more importantly, 
they will work with standard wine corking equipment.    It takes a bit of 
fiddling with, and ideally an extra pair of hands, but you can use a 
standard floor wine corker (if you need a more detailed description ask).  I 
have done this so I know that it works.  Your best bet is to get a hold of 
one of these breweries and find out where they get there corks from and what 
type of corks they are.

Good luck, I hopefully will be bottling 3 batches of Belgian style beer 
packaged w/ real champagne corks and authentic Belgian beer bottles (let me 
tell you it is a lot of hard work to empty those 750 ml bottles) within the 
next couple months.

sebastian
normally in Tucson, AZ
currently in old East Germany
>
>
>- -----Original Message-----
>From: Galloway <galloway at gtcom.net>
>To: post@hbd.org <post@hbd.org>
>Date: Wednesday, May 02, 2001 1:52 PM
>Subject: Corking champagne bottles. . .
>
>
>Hey,
>
>I want to brew a Saison style beer and bottle it in 750 ml champagne
>bottles.
>I would also like to use real cork  "corks" instead of the newer plastic
>ones.
>I have no idea in how to do that. Any thoughts??
>
>Regards,
>Dave Galloway
>Chattahoochee FL
>


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Date: Mon, 07 May 2001 21:48:08 +1000
From: David Lamotte <lamotted at ozemail.com.au>
Subject: Re: Tom's Non-Beer adentures

Tom was telling us all how he was the "first casualty" of the moderation
policy required on the Oz Craft Brewers Digest.

It is true to say that we have noticed his absence from the Oz CBD.  

In fact I would say that Tom is worth at least 10 other subscribers, as
since he and his mate left us we have picked up at least another 20
subscribers and the volume of beer related posts have been at a record high
level.

People unsubscribing and the letters of complaint have also ceased.

And until his "therapy is finished" you may like to prepare yourself on the
HBD for adult debate such as found at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CraftBrewing/message/1477

Now, as we say on the Oz CBD - back to the polite chat about Beer.

David
Administering the Oz CBD at http://chat.craftbrewer.org


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Date: Mon, 7 May 2001 22:54:02 +1000 (EST)
From: =?iso-8859-1?q?scott=20morgan?= <surferscotty at yahoo.com.au>
Subject: re Beer and non-tobacco cigarettes (Tom Smit)

Hello All,

Well as a fellow long-term member of the HBD and OZ-CB
I must take time to thank Tom for his excellent
efforts in lifting the Oz-Cb profile over the 
past couple of weeks. Tom has done such a wonderful
job in talking about us in various places that I am
trully thankful.

Never have I seen a better champion of the OZ-CB. Any
smart marketer knows that the best advertising is any
advertising. Very often IT related training 
in professional speaking reinforces this point. You
see, a typical IT company manouvere is to sandbag
competitors. Research has shown that by doing 
this consumer recall is higher of the COMPETITORS
product after digestion and the mudslinging has a
negative effect on the credibility of the speaker.

For Tom's promotional efforts he has rewarded us with
a record number of posts to the digest, a record
number of clicks via the website articles and 
an ever increasing membership. Tom has benefited us to
such a degree since leaving that it is a shame that I
can only thank him via the HBD.

Speaking of censorship, I find it right funny that Tom
is asking for "freedom of speech" in the OZ-CB forum
(where he had given nothing to but expected
everything)
then does the following;

Tom Smit
aka Sh*t Face

Well seems like Tom is happy with the G-rated HBD
censorship, but regretibly not Yahoo's terms and
conditions that every OZ-Cb member agree's to when 
signing up. 

When Tom takes the effort to develop his own chat
group, find a hosting service, build his web pages,
write numorous articles, create a links facility 
and have in the pipe line an e-commerce portal,
revised suppliers index and club index etc etc (did I
tell you about the future articles we have
planned???), I will take great pleasure in joining him
there and exercising "freedom of speech" according to
his guidlines.

Till then I will continue to thank him for his efforts
in promoting our site. With baited breath...

Scotty

Oz-Cb Admin
Proud HBD member

p.s. "Free" speech, how much is the HBD server fund
per year anyways???



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Date: Mon, 7 May 2001 09:31:12 -0400
From: "Stephen Alexander" <steve-alexander at worldnet.att.net>
Subject: vitality/viability/glycogen - look who's speculatin' now !

The Doctor posted ...

>One of course could define ones way to
>victory through the use of appropriate terminology. I, however, quickly get
>bored by endless debates over definitions.

Odd words from the guy who just sniped my post for not establishing a
'universal' definition of viability, and particularly a mathematician whose
work has no basis except definition..

>Just about all of it falls into  the category of "arm chair speculation";

You may  call me a 'theologian', 'armchair speculator' and other names but
this doesn't change facts.  I attempt to correctly credit the brewing
research sources I use because I understand the lack of proper design,
control and statistical significance in my own and other's "basement"
experiments.  For this I am called an armchair speculator.   The real
speculators tho' are those who've tried something in an uncontrolled way a
few times and so claim 'proof'  for some general principle; for example that
fermenter geometry is a major factor in HB fermentation, or citing anecdotal
evidence that iodine tests correlate with other unspecified viability
results.

>Several of us have been playing around with the so-called Acidification
>Power Test (APT)

Yes, and it's educational to play - I highly recommend it.  But to
understand the relevance of this test to yeast condition you need a serious
study like Kara, Simpson & Hammond did with APT in JIB 1988.

And ...
>[...] I check both for both the % cells able to
>metabolize appropriate stains as well for glycogen/trehalose reserves via
>iodine reactions.

But iodine does NOT color trehalose, of course.


====

Back to brewing (whew) .

The short answer to Del (Nat Lansing) is that viability (aliveness if you'll
permit) is important in pitching yeast, but that glycogen level is important
only when understood in context to the state of the yeast.

Yeast seem (various studies and results) to accumulate glycogen in response
to a general non-carbohydrate growth limitation.  Most usually in brewing
the limitation is thought to be nitrogen (amino acids).  In one test ammonia
(a nitrogen source) added to a ferment prevented the yeast from accumulating
normal glycogen levels.  In brewing conditions yeast accumulate glycogen as
the fermentation slows.  Yeast will accumulate something like 40% of dry
cell mass as glycogen under reasonable conditions.

This glycogen carbohydrate store will slowly degrade during anaerobic yeast
storage, and so the glycogen level of this stored yeast is probably a
meaningful analog to viability *under these conditions*.  It's misleading
under other conditions.

When exposed to oxygen the yeast rapidly, in  a matter of hours, degrade and
ferment most the glycogen.  There is strong evidence that yeast metabolism,
directly relates the degradation of glycogen stores into the creation of
sterols from squalene, and UFA from FAs given O2.   These sterol/UFA rich
yeast portent good growth and a rapid and complete fermentation.

A fact that I've never seen adequately explained is that different yeasts
require significantly different amounts of O2 for a normal fermentation.  An
odd correlate is that yeast which require the most O2 use their glycogen
reserves during anaerobic storage at the slowest rate.

There are results that show that stored glycogen deficient yeast ferment
and attenuate poorly/slowly when pitched.  This is no surprise if glycogen
deficient yeast produce inadequate sterol/UFAs and so inadequate growth.
There are equally studies that show sterol UFA rich yeast ferment well
w/o high glycogen levels.

- -- - oxidatively grown yeast !! --
There are studies that show that yeast grown on oxidative carbon sources
(ethanol, mannitol, other sugar alcohols) build very high levels or sterol
and other lipids and can be pitched at low rates (20% of normal)  yet
achieve identical flavor/taste/attenuation results.  These yeast when
pitched can have low levels of glycogen.   They also have no inherent oxygen
requirement and can reportedly "satisfactorily ferment anaerobic wort".  If
they have a 'full complement' of sterols and UFAs the O2 seems superfluous.
The aerobically grown yeast are very efficient at converting carbon source
to biomass since, of course, most of the energy of a carbohydrate source
is available via respiration, not fermentation. Apparently you can grow
20-30 gm/L of yeast on a 5% mannitol medium!  An interesting aside is
that yeast grown aerobically can reportedly store well  in (10%w/v slurries,
4C storage for 5 months "with no appreciable loss of viability or
fermentation ability").  Magical, eh !!

The argument against oxidative carbon sources is that they are relatively
expensive, which doesn't matter on the HB scale, and some like ethanol can
be toxic.   Mannitol and sorbitol may be a good choices, tho' yeasts are
somewhat selective about the sugar-alcohols they'll use.
- --

Glycogen - if you aerate the yeast while building a starter, don't expect
high glycogen levels in these healthy and vital yeast.  They've already used
it for sterols and UFAs.which is good for the fermentation.

For those who claim no practical implication comes from this sort of
discussion we have 1/ iodine tests of aerated yeast are pointless, and 2/ a
fruitful area for 'play' could be yeast growth and maintenance on mannitol.

 -S
 .





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Date: Mon, 07 May 2001 09:42:17 -0400
From: "Andrew Moore" <abmjunk at hotmail.com>
Subject: Energetic Fermentation (Watch out for flying fementer lids!)

I tried a higher gravity brew this weekend, an IPA with 9 pounds of pale 
malt extract, 1/2 pound 40-L crystal, etc. I pitched a suitably revived 
packet of Coopers 15 dry ale yeast, sealed the fermenter and started 
fementing at 5:30 pm or so on Saturday. By 9:00 pm, the fermentation was 
going pretty good, with short bursts of bubbles every two-three seconds in 
the airlock. When I went to check on it Sunday morning, I was in for a 
surprise; the airlock had clogged with foam and the pressure had blown the 
top off the bucket. The wort (or beer at that point, I guess) had a 
substantial mound of foam on top. I immediately rinsed off the bucket lid, 
re-sealed the bucket and replaced the cleaned airlock. In no more than ten 
seconds, the foam had begun to stream up into the airlock again. I then 
removed the airlock and allowed the pressure to escape through the grommet 
hole. At that point, I could actually feel a steady stream of CO2 escaping 
from the hole. At around 5:30 pm, the fementation had slowed to the point 
where I could replace the airlock.

How do you suggest that this condition be avoided, i.e. having the top blown 
off the fermentation bucket?

One interesting side note is that I chilled the wort like I have previously, 
to "non-steaming" warm (+/- 90 degress) and then added two gallons of 
refrigerated water to bring the water below 80 degrees (measured at 78 
degrees when the yeast was pitched). Previously, the wort had continued to 
cool, as the fermentation started, until it reached the basement's ambient 
temperature (68 degrees). This time, however, the wort temperature stayed in 
the 76-78 range until Sunday evening, coinciding with the fermentation 
slowing. Is this normal? Is the fermentation raising the temperature of the 
wort?

Andrew Moore
Richmond, Virginia


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Date: Mon, 7 May 2001 12:16:21 -0400 (EDT)
From: Pat Babcock <pbabcock at hbd.org>
Subject: HBD ID Buttons!

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

Those who frequent the HBD website (http://hbd.org) may have noted the
addition of an HBD Merchandise pick on the menu. Thanks to the poking and
prodding over the last several months by certain individuals, HBD.ORG now
offers two loverly 2.25" (57.15 mm) pin-on badges to identify HBD Zealots
in public places. These badges come with your choice of two HBDisms
("Greetings, Beerlings! Take me to your lager..." or "Beer is our
obsession, and we are late for therapy!"), two lines of text having
approximately 22 characters and features an appropriate "array of beers in
various glasses" graphic.

These buttons go for a minimum $5.00 donation, including shipping to the
continental US (unfortunately, we are not equipped to ship outside of the
US at this time), and each button brings a bit of cash to the HBD Server
Fund.

More items will be added to the "General Store" as they are developed (and
thanks to thoe who pushed and prodded. Sorry it took so long for us to act
on your suggestions.)

- -- 
 -
See ya!

Pat Babcock in SE Michigan         pbabcock at hbd.org
Home Brew Digest Janitor           janitor@hbd.org
HBD Web Site                       http://hbd.org
The Home Brew Page                 http://hbd.org/pbabcock

"The monster's back, isn't it?" - Kim Babcock after I emerged
                                  from my yeast lab Saturday




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Date: Mon, 7 May 2001 13:35:31 -0500
From: Patrick.Humphrey at abbott.com
Subject: MCAB Recipes

>Date: Wed, 2 May 2001 19:35:47 -0700
>From: "Mike Riddle" <riddle at sonic.net>
>Subject: MCAB 3 Winners

>You can now view the winners of the Third Annual Masters Championship of
>Amateur Brewing at http://hbd.org/mcab/mcab3/.



As has been done in the past, would the winners of the MCAB 3 be willing to
post their recipe's to the digest?

Thanks,

Pat Humphrey
Lake Villa, IL



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Date: Mon, 7 May 2001 11:59:50 -0700 (PDT)
From: John Clark <a.jclark at rocketmail.com>
Subject: twist top bottles

Well folks,

my significant other went and bought a case of beer in
twist tops. It is a good Flagstaff micro brewery but
to my understanding I cannot use twist tops for my
home brew. Some one educate me and tell me why I
cannot use twist top bottles to bottle my own brew.

Cheers,

a.jclark at rocketmail.com



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Date: Tue, 8 May 2001 07:53:51 +1200 
From: Brian Myers <BrianM at AdvantageGroup.co.nz>
Subject: Selling on the Internet

Matthew has a knee-jerk reaction:

>Matt asks about selling his homebrew and homemade wine on the internet.
One
>word DON'T.  It not legal.  You are allowed to brew a certain amount each
>year for your own consumption.  Unless you have the proper licenses as a
>micro-brewer the ATF will eventually come knocking at your door and at best
>fine you and at worst throw you in jail.

Re-read his original post.  He was asking for legal advice.
He wasn't asking how to break the law.  After all, there ARE "proper
licenses as a micro-brewer".

cheers,
Brian
Auckland


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Date: Mon, 07 May 2001 15:18:46 -0500
From: "Eric Wooten" <ewooten at bcm.tmc.edu>
Subject: Commercial Kolsch

mkboyer at ev1.net noted finding Shiner's "Kolsch." While that is the best beer
Shiner makes I think that Saint Arnold's in Houston makes a superior example
with their Fancy Lawnmower Beer. It's tap only currently, but bottles are
supposed to come out this month. Try it out if you have the chance. As
usual, I have no financial interest in the brewery, blah blah blah.

Eric.

- ------------------------
Eric Wooten
ewooten at bcm.tmc.edu
http://ericsbeerpage.com
- ------------------------



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Date: Mon, 7 May 2001 17:22:26 -0400 
From: "Kensler, Paul" <Paul.Kensler at Cyberstar.com>
Subject: re: Whirlfloc

Following up on Brent's post to HBD #3573 on March 6th:
(Brent said "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")

Brent,
Did you ever get any worthwhile feedback on the use of whirlfloc from your
post to the HBD last month?  I just tried whirlfloc last Saturday with
similar results - 1 tablet in a 10 gallon batch resulted in crystal clear
wort, a fantastic break, and a gallon or two of thick sludge at the bottom.
I opted to try and get as much out of the batch as I could, so quite a bit
of the break material made it into the fermenters.  Both fermenters (1
lager, 1 ale yeast) are chugging along right now, so I don't have the final
results on the effect on flavor and clarity yet.

Did you use whole hops or pellets?  The batch I made on Saturday used all
pellets, and the combination of pellets and break clogged my kettle manifold
so I had to siphon the wort out.  I'm thinking that a batch made with all
whole hops might work better - perhaps the hops would provide an adequate
filter bed to trap the break behind and allow the clear wort to flow out.
I've had good luck with whole hops acting as a trub filter previously, but
the volume and density of break from the whirlfloc is something else
entirely.  Any experience using whirlfloc and whole hops?  More importantly,
what's your thoughts on the benefits of whirlfloc over Irish moss - any
observations about flavor, clarity, head retention, etc.?


Paul Kensler
Seeking clarity in Gaithersburg, MD


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Date: Mon, 07 May 2001 22:28:22 -0400
From: William & Kazuko Macher <macher at telerama.lm.com>
Subject: Since the que is long...errr...short

HI Guys,

Time for serious questions...

Mind wanders when moving brews from primary to secondary...

Beer has been around a long time...so they say...so my question is, when 
did mankind start drinking it carbonated? Say a millennium ago...was it 
possible to hold carbonation in the vessels available to brewers at the time?

Now on to my old yellow siphoning hose...

Someone, I think Dave Burley, once stated that if you don't like that 
yellow color, put your hose in the sun for a while and it will go away. I 
mean the yellow color will go away, the hose will stay put I suspect.

If I put iodophor in a sealed carboy it stays colored for ages. If I leave 
it exposed to air it goes clear real quick.

I like that yellow color...makes me think there is some active iodophor in 
the body of the hose. No, it is not old beer. The hose is transparent and 
clean. Just tinted. Is there some antiseptic quality to a yellow hose? It 
started out clear and is the normal cheap vinyl stuff. Vinyl...well, 
whatever the standard clear hose is made out of, the cheap stuff...

My wife and kids like the smell on brew day too...must be a weird family...

There was one more, but I forget what it was...but if you like, please 
answer it.

The cue is short...

So is life, so enjoy!

Or is that que...???? Damm....I think it's que...

AT this point I don't have a clue!

OH! I remember! Do the Aussies really sensor input to their mailing list? 
Or is that censor?

Hmmmmmmm...was that the third question?

Please let me know...

Bill Macher		Pittsburgh, PA		USA



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