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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
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Contents:
  But I thought Al Gore invented RIMS... (WayneM38)
  re: krauzening, secondaries, etc. ("Dr. Pivo")
  Diacetyl rest ("Richard Sieben")
  Removing Chlorine (mkboyer)
  water filters ("Joseph Marsh")
  Re: Water Filtration System ("RJ")
  Re: Cider ("Brian M Dotlich")
  Micronised wheat (David Edge)
  stuck fermentation? ("Steve Doig")


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Date: Sat, 21 Jul 2001 01:26:06 EDT
From: WayneM38 at aol.com
Subject: But I thought Al Gore invented RIMS...


<< Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2001 10:37:51 -0400
 From: "Alan Meeker" <ameeker at mail.jhmi.edu>
 Subject: RIMS inventor controversy
 
 David Sweeney recently posted the following:
 
 "In the spirit of Jethro Gump, I have obtained a direct line of
 communication with the inventor of the RIMS, Rodney Morris."  
 
 Rodney Morris?? But I though Al Gore invented RIMS.
  >>

I thought it was Ralph!!!

http://164.195.100.11/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=

/netahtml/srchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1='4,754,698'.WKU.&OS=PN/4,754,698&RS=PN/4

,754,698

patent # 4,754,698

Wayne


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Date: Sat, 21 Jul 2001 15:04:23 +0200
From: "Dr. Pivo" <dp at pivo.w.se>
Subject: re: krauzening, secondaries, etc.

There is a bit of discussion about exactly "when" traditional
"krauzening" takes place.

As Mr. Hanghofer points out, it is added to an as completely fermented
out primary as possible, to make up both the sugars for lagering AND
both the ammount and metabolic state of the yeast that are going to
undertake it.

Nobody is going to tie up a lagering tank a second time.

Where the confusion probably arises, is that many homebrewers (including
myself) will krauzen a beer from the secondary, when there is no
activity left ("finished" or in some sense "finished lagering", if you
will).

What one must remember, is that secondary fermentation with a blow off
is basically a homebrewer's toy.  It  alleviates the need for measuring
things, or being exactly certain where your finishing gravity will be.
It was particularly useful in the birth of homebrewing when people were
only bottleing beer, rather than putting them in units with safety
valves, and probably saved a fair number of dark closets from being
shrapnel decorated.

If you are kegging beers, it is an entirely unnecessary step, and one
can simply do as traditional lagering, and go straight from primary to
keg (lagering tank).

Commerical breweries should know exactly where the beer is intended to
finish, and should document at what state the beer is in when they do
things to it..... lazy buggers like myself may rack directly to kegs (if
I'm prepared for that, at the right stage), and may just as well rack
them to a secondary.   The latter method means I don't have to worry
about racking "too early" and getting a ton of yeast sludge that might
autolyse, or "too late" and not having enough residual sugars....... In
short, I can rack when I'm ready, rather than when the beer is.

So while with "traditional krauzening", the brewery would never have
access to a flat, finished beer.... for a home brewer, I've found  (and
I'm sure others as well) "krauzening" an excellent alternative to
either: 1) artificially carbonating, or 2) priming,  something that
comes out of a secondary.

I would like to point out that there is in fact one situation where
"krauzening" has truly  been done to beer that ihas "finished lagering",
and that is when kegging from the lagering tanks.

In these old hand pounded bungs, a keg could well be sitting on its side
for 45 minutes completely open to air, before someone came by with their
rubber mallet. and smacked the wooden bung into place.

So "krauzening" was used here simply as "oxidation protection".

In this situation "3 percemt" is the ammount I've seen used.

I have previously posted that "spurmentin" with this, has shown me that
"krauzening up" has shown me to be an excellent protection against
"transport damage".

I might also add that I suggested that his 12P beer would probably be
about 9P at high krauzen.

This comes from me having racked off krauzen enough times from beer
started at 1048, and measuring it as I dumped it to the awaiting keg,
and getting readings of 1036, 1037, 1036, etc. that I don't bother
measuring anymore, but simply trust my judgement in knowing when it
looks "like it usually does".

Dr. Pivo



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Date: Sat, 21 Jul 2001 08:38:49 -0500
From: "Richard Sieben" <sier1 at email.msn.com>
Subject: Diacetyl rest

Ant Hayes is chasing the same problem I was before, I brought it to the
Siebel folks when I was there and here is what they have told me to do to
fix the beer I had and on a go forward basis....and it works.

For the beer with diacetyl in it already, (in a keg) add a quart of
unfermented wort with yeast pitched in it so it is active before pitching.
The fresh yeast will eat up the diacetyl, a simple beer repair but it is
still not as good as preventing excessive diacetyl in the first place. To do
that...

The primary fermentation is is carried out at 60F for ales and 50F for
lagers,  (this also assumes a proper yeast pitching rate which also goes a
long way to make the difference between a beer that tastes like homebrew and
one that tastes pro brewed.)  When the gravity is 1/2 of the original
gravity (so if you start at 1044 rack at 1022) rack to secondary and raise
the temperature to 65F for 3 days.  Then start chilling the beer down at 5 F
degrees per day to get to your aging temp, which is 33 degrees for a lager.
This process does a couple of things for you. 1) keeps the pH of the beer as
low as you can keep it which results in a crisper tasting beer. and 2)
creates the diacetyl while there is still yeast present to eat it up.

I was taught of and have observed, a pH bounce up after the krausen falls.
By racking before the krausen falls totally, you are removing the oldest
yeast that will soon begin to autolyze and it raises the pH surprisingly
fast once that happens.  By racking at 1/2 the OG, there is still ample
yeast in suspension to eat diacetyl and the pH is as low as it's going to
go.  I have noticed that you can come out of primary without a hint of
diacetyl, yet after aging in the secondary....it's there.  The reason for
this is simple, during primary, the yeast eats the diacetyl as fast as it is
made.  What also exists in the beer is the diacetyl precursor compounds that
will spontaneously form diacetyl.  We do a diacetyl rest to CAUSE the
diacetyl to form quickly (heat speads the process) before the yeast settles
out of suspension.  If you do a diacetyl rest without enough yeast in
suspension, you will just get a lot of diacetyl in your final beer.  Which
is ok if you like your beer buttered I guess.

Rich Sieben
Island Lake, IL



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Date: Sat, 21 Jul 2001 08:48:27 -0500
From: mkboyer at ev1.net
Subject: Removing Chlorine

> Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2001 01:08:48 -0400
> From: "Greenly, Jeff" <greenlyj at rcbhsc.wvu.edu>
> Subject: Water Filtration System
>
> Dear Friends,
>
>         After a lot of tinkering and 'sperimenting, I have ascertained that
> I have a problem with the local water supply. It seems they pump a LOT of
> chlorine into the (rather hard) water. Stands and boils don't seem to be
> cutting it with regards to removal of this vile taint. Can anyone recommend
> a commercially available filtration system that can help with this?
>
> Jeff

Any active carbon filter will remove chlorine.  You can pick one up at the
hardware store, and most of the homebrew supply shops and online suppliers sell
them.

Kevin Boyer



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Date: Sat, 21 Jul 2001 09:30:36 -0500
From: "Joseph Marsh" <josephmarsh62 at hotmail.com>
Subject: water filters

A friend of mine uses a standard whole house filter and a few fitting 
attached to a water hose.  Mine is an inline ice maker water filter with a 
few fittings attached to a water hose. (I got the filters cheap) Both setups 
work mine cost around $15 his cost a bit more but uses replaceable 
filters.Mine has auto shut off quick connects.

This aint rocket science. You can definitly go cheap is this.

Good brewing,
   Joe

PS. If boiling doesn't get rid of the clorine taste you've likely got 
chloroamines instead.



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Date: Sat, 21 Jul 2001 10:55:10 -0400
From: "RJ" <wortsbrewing at cyberportal.net>
Subject: Re: Water Filtration System

"Greenly, Jeff" <greenlyj at rcbhsc.wvu.edu> wrote:


Dear Friends,

"...I have ascertained that I have a problem with the local water supply. It
seems they pump a LOT of chlorine into the (rather hard) water. Stands and
boils don't seem to be cutting it with regards to removal of this vile
taint. Can anyone recommend a commercially available filtration system that
can help with this?"

Your best bet for chlorine removal in a carbon filter... A whole house type
(less than $60) should solve the issue...




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Date: Sat, 21 Jul 2001 12:42:47 -0400
From: "Brian M Dotlich" <BMDotlich at cs.com>
Subject: Re: Cider

Bob Pelletier <rp at ihrsa.org> wrote:
"Looking for resources on cider making. Preferably web sites."

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/andrew_lea/

This is a good website.  I've had a few conversations with this guy and he
knows his stuff.  He has written articles for magazines on cider which are
on the website.

Also the "Art Of Cidermaking" book by Paul Currently (from Brewers
Publications) is excellent This fall will be my third cider season and I've
found that book to be the best recourse.

Brian Dotlich
Dayton OH



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Date: Sat, 21 Jul 2001 18:09:20 +0100
From: David Edge <badger at sett.u-net.com>
Subject: Micronised wheat

I'm trying to find out what what micronised wheat is.
According to Brewlab (University of Sunderland, UK) it is finely milled wheat,
while Ian Hornsey (in 'Brewing') says that it is similar to torrified wheat,
but heated using infra-red.

Can anyone throw any light?

Thanks in anticipation.
- --
David Edge
Signalbox Brewery, Burton-on-Trent, UK


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Date: Sat, 21 Jul 2001 18:52:47 -0700
From: "Steve Doig" <steve.doig at asu.edu>
Subject: stuck fermentation?

Newbie panic happening here. I'm brewing my second batch ever, an IPA.
(My first, a brown ale, was great, so I'm psyched.) For five days, it's
been fermenting nicely, about 50 burps/min from the airlock. It started
to slow down a bit yesterday, down to 20/min. Big head of kreusen, thick
layer of sediment. So I decided to rack it to the second fermenter this
morning; the recipe called for going to the secondary about this time,
so I did. Ten hours later, there's no evidence of fermentation -- not a
burp from the airlock. OG was 1.062 at 78 degrees; the specific gravity
when I racked this morning was 1.015 at 70 degrees.

So, my questions:

- -- Is everything okay, and I should leave it in the secondary for
another week as the recipe says?
- -- Is everything okay, and I'm ready to bottle despite the recipe's
advice to go another week?
- -- Or am I a victim of "stuck fermentation", which I've seen referred to
on this list occasionally?
- -- And, if so, what do I do to jump-start it again?

Also, I now see a few furry white patches floating on the surface of the
wort. They don't look like the smooth yellowish blobs of yeast from the
primary. I was careful about sanitizing everything, but is that some
sort of wild crud growing? 

Thanks for your advice,
Steve Doig

- -- 
*************************************************************
 Stephen K. Doig,  Professor, Cronkite School of Journalism,  
 Arizona State University, Box 871305, Tempe, AZ  85287-1305  
 V:480-965-0798  Fax:480-965-7041  mailto:steve.doig at asu.edu
     http://www.asu.edu/cronkite/faculty/doig/index.html
 "Reporting Census 2000" http://cronkite.pp.asu.edu/census
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