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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
		Digest Janitor: janitor@hbd.org


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Contents:
  dddac disinfectant (JohanNico)" <JohanNico.Aikema at akzonobel.com>
  Re: cold room moisture (#3720) (Thomas Cizauskas)
  Hops in the bottle (Chad Clancy)
  3rd Annual Palmetto State Brewers Open ("H. Dowda")
  1961 Kelvinator ("Larry Maxwell")
  Kegging, new to ("Ray Daniels")
  re: Temperature controller + fridge == true love! (IndSys, SalemVA)" <Douglas.Moyer at indsys.ge.com>
  Electric vs. gas.../cutting sankes ("Stephen Alexander")
  Harry Potter's Butter Beer - Revealed (Phil Wilcox)
  Oakland Pubs ("D. Schultz")
  Water & Electricity-BAD ("Mike Maag")
  New To Kegging ("Charles R. Stewart")
  The Infamous Pumpkn Ale ... ("j f")
  RE: RANCO controller (Don Price)
  Inversion of Plato ("A.J. deLange")


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Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2001 11:10:07 +0200
From: "Aikema, J.N. (JohanNico)" <JohanNico.Aikema at akzonobel.com>
Subject: dddac disinfectant

Hello,

Does anybody know the exact composition of a disinfectant based upon
didecyldimethylammoniumchloride? Together with phosphoric acid?
Concentration(s)?
And minimum contact time and, if possible, more details.

Greetings from Holland (Europe),
Hans Aikema   http://www.hopbier.myweb.nl/




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Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2001 03:44:39 -0700 (PDT)
From: Thomas Cizauskas <cizauskas at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: cold room moisture (#3720) 

In regards to the mysterious moisture in the cold room (and
acknowledging that ten different people will have ten differemt
answers, I being one), it sounds as if the problem might be a
rapid refrigeration cycle. 

The only time that condensate/humidity/moisture would collect on
an evaporator coil is when the system is running.  If the
refrigeration cycle is too short, or if the system is improperly
sized, moisture will remain within the cooler. 

Yours for good fermentables,
Thomas Cizauskas



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Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2001 04:16:56 -0700 (PDT)
From: Chad Clancy <chadclancy at yahoo.com>
Subject: Hops in the bottle

Len Safhay writes:
<<Phil, as a dedicated "all-grain" man I wouldn't
deign to drink malt
extract. What I did was eat a pound of pale malt, a
couple ounces of
crystal, ate some hops, and drank a 1 quart starter of
yeast. I then
jumped up and down vigorously to aerate.
>>


Ok, I think I've got your procedure down but, um...

How do you recirculate?

Chad



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Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2001 05:02:28 -0700 (PDT)
From: "H. Dowda" <hdowda at yahoo.com>
Subject: 3rd Annual Palmetto State Brewers Open

Seems like everyone wants to help the new brewer,
which is appropriate and desirable for the craft's
survival, but who wants to help the brewer with ten
cases of beer in the closet?  Look, no further.  For
the guys/gals with lots of stuff and a little cash,
send the PSBO $30 for the first six and enter #7 to a
gazillion for free. Paper and money must be received
by OCTOBER 1 for discounted entries. Details:

http://www.sagecat.com/teaser2001.htm


This years open is shaping up well with some excellent
awards promised.

http://www.sagecat.com/donors.htm

Judges are needed.  Contact Gerald Jowers at:

gdjowers at aol.com





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Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2001 08:17:07 -0400
From: "Larry Maxwell" <larrymax at bellsouth.net>
Subject: 1961 Kelvinator

Thomas down under asks about his geriatric 1961 Kelvinator.

I apologize that I know nothing about a 1961 Kelvinator, but it does
sound like a great name for a doppelbock to honor its passing (if
it comes to that).

Larry





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Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2001 07:34:10 -0500
From: "Ray Daniels" <raydan at ameritech.net>
Subject: Kegging, new to

Bob Fesmire, Madman Brewery, wrote: "I have finally had it with botteling
and want to take the kegging plunge. Any help would be appreciated."

You could do worse than picking up a copy of the September-October issue of
Zymurgy, an 80-page special issue that covers most aspects of packaging for
the homebrewer including the use of corny kegs, counterpressure fillers,
party pigs, German mini-kegs and the home-production of real ale.  If you
don't have the issue available from any other source, you can call the
tollfree number listed below.

Ray Daniels
Editor-in-Chief
Zymurgy & The New Brewer

Call Customer Service at 888-822-6273 to subscribe or order individual
magazines.

Don't Miss:
   Great American Beer Festival - Denver, CO - Sept 27-29

For more info see: www.beertown.org



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Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2001 09:24:04 -0400
From: "Moyer, Douglas (IndSys, SalemVA)" <Douglas.Moyer at indsys.ge.com>
Subject: re: Temperature controller + fridge == true love!

"John Zeller" <jwz_sd at hotmail.com> writes regarding putting the temperature
controller's probe in the fermentor and setting the differential to 1
degree:

"Setting the differential to 1 degree will shorten the life of your
refrigerator compressor."

Not so my man! Since the probe is in the fermentor, you have a large buffer
from all of that liquid. Dan is trying to keep the wort/beer at a constant
temp. With the probe in the liquid, the differential needs to be tight.
John's statement that the probe should be in the air does mean that a low
differential would be a bad thing.


Brew on!
Doug Moyer
Salem, VA

Star City Brewers Guild: http://hbd.org/starcity







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Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2001 10:06:44 -0400
From: "Stephen Alexander" <steve-alexander at att.net.nospam>
Subject: Electric vs. gas.../cutting sankes

Jeff Greenly asks ....

>[..] home that is all-electric. [...] concerned about scorching, [...].
>Should I fab a ring to place under the pot [...] ?

You may see greater localization of the heat transfer to the pot with
contact to an electric heating element but gas flames aren't well
disbursed either. If you used a standoff ring you may get such poor
heat transfer that you'd never get a good boil.

>Are there more elegant solutions that I should be considering?

To minimize scorching you want to transfer heat to wort without creating
localized "hot spots.  The idea is to distribute the heat out laterally.
High quality pots have thick bottoms made of good thermal conductors
like aluminum and copper.  These pots cost a lot, and are less than idea
when it comes to mechanical strength and reactivity to acids.    Stainless
is a *very* poor thermal conductor, but has good mechanical and
reactivity properties and SS pots can be had cheaply.

A practical solution would be to get a conductive metal plate to place
between a SS pot and heating element.  If you can find your way to a
shop that sells metal to fabricators and machine shops you should
be able to pick up aluminum plate or sheet pretty cheap.

Their prices aren't very good but
http://www.midlandxpressmetals.com/ will give you a ballpark idea.
12" x 36" x 1/4th inch aluminum plate for $45. A local supplier should
cut-off  and charge you for just the amount you want so you're looking
at under $15 for 1/4" plate.  They'll probably make additional cuts
for a trivial fee too. Get a plate about as big as the pot bottom.

 -S




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Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2001 10:22:27 -0400
From: Phil Wilcox <pjwilcox at cmsenergy.com>
Subject: Harry Potter's Butter Beer - Revealed

Back in December there was a thread on the origin of "Butter Beer"
Though the original poster speculated on a high diacytel low gravity
brittish ale, I did find an interesting passage in Chapter 13 of the
1736 London and Country Brewer. This chapter is titled "Of fermenting
and working of beers and ales, and the pernicious practice of beating in
the yeast detected. " Pg.83 The author has been rambling about the
differences between various outlaying country brewing techniques. At
this point he is referring to the people of Plymouth.

"Their white ale is a clear wort made from pale malt, and fermented with
what they call ripening, which is a composition, they fey, of the flower
of malt, yeast and whites of eggs, a 'Nostrum' made and sold only by two
or three in thise parts, but the wort is brewed and the ale vended by
many of the publicans, which is drank while it is fermenting in Earthen
Steens, in such a thick manner as resembles butter'd ale, and sold for
twopence halfpenny the full quart. It is often prescribed by physicians
to be drank by wet nurses for the encrease of their milk, and also as a
prevalent medicine for the colick and gravel. But the Drover and Chatham
people won't drink their butt-beer, unless it is aged, fine and strong."

I find this to be as credible a source as one could hope to find, and it
just goes to follow that the geography does play out well. As we all
know that the Hogwarts Express leave's out eastbound out of London on
track 49 3/4. Given the speed of trains the overnight journey puts them
indeed on a track for Plymouth. I speculate the secret location of
Hogwarts is somewhere in the Dartmoor National Park.

Phil Wilcox
Poison Frog Homebrewer
Bumblefrog Meadmaker
Leapingfrog Vintner



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Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2001 07:15:47 -0700
From: "D. Schultz" <d2schultz at qwest.net>
Subject: Oakland Pubs

Pacific Coast Brewery is right downtown and offers a large selection of
craft beers. I can't say I liked all of their beers but I did find enough to
make me want to come back.

 -Dan



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Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2001 10:22:23 -0400
From: "Mike Maag" <maagm at rica.net>
Subject: Water & Electricity-BAD

If you use an electric reciprocating saw to cut 
a water filled keg, be sure the saw is 
"double insulated" (it will be printed on the
saw, or look for a square-in-a-square graphic) 
AND plug the saw into a Ground Fault Circuit
 Interrupter (GFCI), AND don't stand in a puddle,
AND keep your hands dry.

Safety redundancy is good.

Mike Maag, Occupational Safety and Health Compliance
Homebrewing in the Shenandoah Valley (Staunton, VA)






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Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2001 13:43:08 -0400
From: "Charles R. Stewart" <Charles at TheStewarts.com>
Subject: New To Kegging

Bob -

	Good decision!  Once you start kegging, you'll wonder why you didn't do it
earlier.  I would say the two most important pieces of information would be
to (1) keep everything very clean (lines, faucets, etc) to prevent foaming.
Between kegs, I run a hot solution of PBW through the lines using a
presurized keg, then hot water to rinse.  And, (2) make sure your lines are
long enough to prevent foaming.  This will depend on temperature and amount
of carbonization desired.  I use 10 feet of 1/4 inch reinforced tubing per
keg and it works well for me.  If you have any questions as you go, please
feel free to e-mail me directly.

	If you need any three gallon kegs (I use these for on top of the compressor
shelf in my set-up), take a look at my web site
(http://Charles.TheStewarts.com).  As usual, I'll donate $2 per keg to the
HBD server fund for any HBD'er who identifies themself as such (I think
quite a few of you have forgotten to mention the HBD - if you've ordered
from me in the past 60 days, could you send me an e-mail so I can make the
appropriate contribution?).


On Wed, 29 Aug 2001, Bob Fesmire (Ballsacius at aol.com) queried regarding
kegging:

>I have finally had it with botteling and want to take the kegging plunge.
Any
>help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Chip Stewart
Gaithersburg, MD
Charles at TheStewarts.com
http://Charles.TheStewarts.com

Pursuant to United States Code, Title 47, Chapter 5, Subchapter II, Section
227, any and all unsolicited commercial e-mail (spam) sent to this address
is subject to a download and archival fee of US$500.00.  The sending or
forwarding of such e-mail constitutes acceptance of these terms.



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Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2001 19:32:14 +0000
From: "j f" <jffga at hotmail.com>
Subject: The Infamous Pumpkn Ale ...

I'm a glutton for punishment, but I'm gonna give this another shot.

Can those who have brewed a few batches of this mystical concoction and who 
have refined their recipe to a point of perfection please respond ?

Requirements for a 5 Gal (Mini Mash/Extract) Batch:

1). How large a pumpkin should I use.

2). For those who have never done a mini mash, please outline the details on 
the processing in relation to what then gets added to the 'boil'.  I'm a 
little confused on what's required, sparging etc, and as to what gets added 
to break down the starch.

3). Can you provide the rest of "us" with your tried and true recipe ?

Hope this provides a sound basis for yet another year's discussion thread on 
the infamous pumpkin ale brew !

Many Thks Again.



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Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2001 20:34:50 -0400
From: Don Price <dprice1 at tampabay.rr.com>
Subject: RE: RANCO controller

Bob says he loves his RANCO controller (Ranco #ETC-111000, Grainger
#3ZP77) for his fridge.  Can this same unit be used for controlling a
basic RIMS system?  Using one controller for both would make
experimenting with RIMS pretty easy.  What else besides the heating
element/chamber and piping would be required for converting my 5-gallon
Rubbermaid to a mini-RIMS?  I already have the pump.

Don



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Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 02:54:35 +0000
From: "A.J. deLange" <ajdel at mindspring.com>
Subject: Inversion of Plato

Drew asks how to convert Plato found from

P = -616.989 + 1111.488*SG - 630.606*SG^2 + 136.10305*SG^3

back to SG. There are a couple of ways to skin this cat. This polynomial
was obtained by doing a least squares fit to the ASBC tables using
specific gravity   as the independent variable. One can similarly do a
fit to this same table using degrees Plato as the independent variable.
The resulting third order polynomial is

SG = 1.0000131 + 0.00386777*P + 1.27447E-5*P^2 + 6.34964E-8*P^3

and this formula can be used to go back to specific gravity. Note,
however, that it is not an exact inverse of the forward polynomial, in
other words, if you start with a particular specific gravity, convert to
Plato using the first formula and then convert back using this formula
you will find that the returned value differs slightly from the starting
SG. If an exact inverse is required then solution of

 -P  -  616.989 + 1111.488*SG - 630.606*SG^2 + 136.10305*SG^3 = 0

for SG is required. This can be obtained by the use of a programmed root
finder, by add-in modules such as the Solver in Excel or via a closed
form solution. The closed form solution is a little messy algebraically
and thus hard to set out here but it really isn't too bad to code up. If
details are wanted, drop me an e-mail.

A.J.



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