HOMEBREW Digest #3727 Wed 05 September 2001


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Contents:
  Re:Subject: "yeast farming" ("Scott Thomas")
  Looking For Brewers In Townsville (craftbrewer)
  yeast farming ("Peter Fantasia")
  Counterpressure Filling ("Dan Listermann")
  Re: new advances in bottling? (Demonick)
  Re: new advances in bottling (Tom Daniels)
  Re: RANCO controller and RIMS / SSR's (solid state relays) and RIMS (Tony Verhulst)
  Salt SG (AJ)
  Re: Harry Potter's Butter Beer - Revealed (Tony Barnsley)
  JSP malt mill (Brian Myers)
  re: new advances in bottling? ("Charlie Maddox")

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---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2001 01:53:32 -0400 From: "Scott Thomas" <sthomas at capital.net> Subject: Re:Subject: "yeast farming" Carlos, Your on the right track, but you might want to modify a few of your protocols: 1.For a 750ml starter, use 65-70g of DME. (not sure what a half cup weighs?), (as I'm sure it can vary depending on how tightly or loosely you pack it.) Try to match your S.G. of the wort to the starting gravity to your starter. 2. I would suggest that you boil the DME in an Erlenmeyer Flask, and crash cool it (ice water bath), ASAP to 70*F- 75*F., Then add your yeast to the flask......... Flame the rim of the flask, then cover the top with a sanitized piece of aluminum foil, (TIGHT). Swirl it up good, keep it as close to 75* F as possible, and within 12 -24 hours, you should be ready to pitch to your primary. (Assuming you are doing 5-10 gallon batches.) Now the trick is: You really need to KNOW what yeast strain is in your sediment that your are harvesting.............::)))?????? 1A.) Is this a homebrew that you actually bottled conditioned? (Then you should know!) 2A.) Is this a commercial beer that you have no idea what the strain of the yeast was used to condition it with? Keep in mind that lots of the bigger breweries (smaller ones too), ferment with a certain strain, filter, then use ?????? a very neutral strain of yeast to bottle condition with..... Unless you can do PCR or RFLP testing, you will have no idea. You could be pitching 1056, S-04, etc., to a really nice Abby Ale, that in fact, you wanted the Chimay Strain... Hopes this helps...... Scott www.proyeast.com Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2001 17:06:13 +1000 From: craftbrewer at telstra.easymail.com.au Subject: Looking For Brewers In Townsville G'Day All / Well to prove all the sceptics wrong I have just kegged yet another Hevenly Heffe made up of 50% good ol Aussie wheat flour. Tell you I am truly got the nack of mashing with flour, and especially our cheap low protein stuff we have. I would swear, but not here of course, that they have made this rubbish especially for brewers. No stuck mash, no balling........ no problems whatso ever. One of the great things of mashing with wheat flour is you really get a light crisp beer that I have never got with either raw wheat or wheat malt. Just love it. Might just put a bottle into the Nationals to show off. / Now i have said this before, I would not recommend this to anybody but the most experienced mashers. that of course includes the mouth from the south who takes great delight in ribbing utopia. / >>>>>>>From a pilots' point of view, visually descending into Townsville is like arriving on the moon. No vegetation of any particular description but plenty of rocky outcrops and a nasty looking airstrip they call their "international airport". This is the home of Graham Sanders and along with his mates in the tower (I assume they are his mates), they are a bloody rude bunch!<<<<<<<< / Now Phil, remember we are only rude to people we dont want to hang arround. You would only make the place untidy if you stayed. / >>>>>I wonder how they brew up there, even in winter it is hot enough to have you sweating in a short sleeve shirt.<<<<<<<< / And poor Phil is right. Brewing in the tropics requires skills mear mortals only dream about. Not only do you have to brew in the heat, but you have to at the same time kick those tourists back to plane. Trouble is last Sunday they all didn't want to leave. Seems they recon they had some crazy pilot who couldn't fly straight in a gay bar. / and this Today (despite being Fathers Day) I flew all the way to Townsville and fully expected to see Graham at the airport. He prides himself in making sure no person gets in or out of Townsville without his permission. I carried with me gifts of hops, special yeasts and two wort kits to appease the cranky bastard. But he was not to be seen. His mates in the tower were so rude <<<<<<<<< / Hey we knew you were coming mate. why do you think you got all that agro from the tower. I told them to give you hell. I met you once and was sooooo disappointed. You arent worth the effort to see a second time. Now you know the rules, Its a carton of beer or nothing. / Shout Graham Sanders / Oh Yes I have been out of action for a while. Radio programs to do, competitions to orgainise, and now I am running a beer judging accrediation course. Now i must be off, the radio program is on tomorrow, i must organise myself. Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2001 07:30:06 -0400 From: "Peter Fantasia" <fantasiapeter at hotmail.com> Subject: yeast farming Carlos asks if he can re-use yeast in his homebrew by pouring the starter directly into the bottle. I would say it's ok with some caution. 1) Always sanitize the opening of the homebrew bottle before and after pouring. 2) Pour the entire bottle of homebrew out in one shot leaving the yeast.Use a sanitized funnel to add the starter. 3) Attach a sanitized airlock to avoid bottle bombs. 4) Did I mention sanitize? Cheers, Pete Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2001 09:08:34 -0400 From: "Dan Listermann" <dan at listermann.com> Subject: Counterpressure Filling <Date: Mon, 3 Sep 2001 15:36:38 -0700 <From: "Badger/DJ Sable/Project Mercury" <badger at badger.cx> <Subject: new advances in bottling? <I've never had good success with Counter Pressure filling, and all that. <Question: have there been any advances in bottling techniques since I've <been gone from HBD? Any good suggestions and tricks? Articles? <anything? There is a lot of strange information about counterpressure filling. The worst is the belief that the pressure in the tank and supplied by the regulator should be very low. Ideally the beer should not experience any pressure drop below its stabilized pressure until the filler is withdrawn for capping. I zero my regulator, connect it to the keg and slowly crank up the pressure until I hear gas passing. This tells me that the regulator is set to the stabilized pressure of the beer or a little more. Another problem is the common method of moving the beer into the bottle with reduced pressure. While this allows the keg to be on the floor and the bottle to be on a table and is easy on the back, it requires a significant decrease in pressure to move the beer. There is the simple static head pressure difference and the dynamic resistance to flow. These numbers are nominally low, say three or four psi, but they are relatively high compared to the stabilized pressure of the beer - 12 to 15 psi. This is a large source of foaming. A far better method of moving beer is to use gravity. The keg is placed above the bottle and a siphon is created to move the beer. Dynamic resistance is countered by the head pressure. These tend to cancel each other out. This is far better than adding the two together as the above system does. Further the gas line can be left open during the fill so the beer experiences no pressure loss until the filler is removed. The only source of foaming under this system is due to turbulence and depressurizing when the filler is withdrawn for capping. I can usually withdraw the filler from the first bottle, start the cycle on the next bottle and return to the first bottle for capping without having beer foam out. Some will note that the gas in the bottle is returned to the keg and fret that this might be a source of oxidation. If an adequate purging operation is performed, this risk is minimal. I have been using this system for years and anyone who knows me can vouch that I am nothing if not highly sensitive to oxidized beer. I have not found the beer remaining in the keg to have oxidized. If you can't deal with this minimal risk, you can shut off the gas valve and vent the gas in the bottle, but you should know that this comes at the cost of foaming due to the pressure reduction and lower level of flow control. And now a blatant plug for the CounterPhil. This product uses a three way valve and a check valve to eliminate the three valves and the required religious ritual used by conventional counterpressure fillers. The upshot of this is that the steps required to operate the CounterPhil are about half the steps needed to use the more common design. This makes learning to use the CounterPhil much easier and it is far less error prone resulting in a elimination or greatly reduced level of that "You have been bottling beer again. . ." smell. Our offer for a free check valve upgrade still stands. Just email me at dan at listermann.com. Don't forget the double "n"s! Dan Listermann Check out our new E-tail site at http://www.listermann.com Take a look at the anti-telemarketer forum. It is my new hobby! Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2001 07:33:29 -0700 From: Demonick <demonick at zgi.com> Subject: Re: new advances in bottling? PrimeTab. See http://www.primetab.com Domenick Venezia Venezia & Company, LLC Maker of PrimeTab (206) 782-1152 phone (206) 782-6766 fax demonick at zgi dot com http://www.primetab.com Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 04 Sep 2001 10:23:17 -0500 From: Tom Daniels <daniels at cerias.purdue.edu> Subject: Re: new advances in bottling "Badger/DJ Sable/Project Mercury" <badger at badger.cx> said he had a kegging system but wanted a simple bottling method for transport. Take a look at the page below. http://member.aol.com/bfbrewing/TheGadgetsPage1.htm It talks about building your own carbonator caps for 1,2, and 3 liter plastic bottles from stainless or chrome valve stems for tires. To use this, you just need to add a Tee to your gas lines and put a tire filling attachment on the Tee. This will allow you to run beer out of your kegs into the bottle, cap them, and then pressurize with CO2 from the keg. I do this regularly for transport and follow these steps: 1. Wash the bottles and caps carefully. 2. Put cap on bottle very loosely and purge with CO2 for a few seconds. 3. Put a short length of tube on my picnic tap and fill the bottle using the tub e. 4. When the bottle is full or nearly so, cap the bottle tightly. 5. Turn up the regulator to 30 psi, and pressurize the bottle. 6. Turn the regulator back down to serving pressure. This is cheap so no worries about lending out bottles of brew. I spent under $12 putting this setup together. Tom - -- Tom Daniels "I just don't get what all the people see, female self involvement and hypocrisy, your poptart feminism and your cheap neuroses, as I stare into the vacuum of my tee-vee." -- from "Ally McBeale" by DaVinci's Notebook Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 04 Sep 2001 11:38:37 -0400 From: Tony Verhulst <verhulst at zk3.dec.com> Subject: Re: RANCO controller and RIMS / SSR's (solid state relays) and RIMS Don Price asks about the Ranco temperature controller: "...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?.." The answer is "yes it can". See the "control panel" section at http://www.world.std.com/~verhulst/RIMS/rims.htm. The trick will be in keeping the temperature sensor dry since its not water proof. I got around this problem by sliding the probe into a brass tube sealed that's at one end. See the picures on my web page. Although my system is more HERMS than RIMS, I don't see why the same technique shouldn't work. - -------- Another poster asks about the use of SSR's in a RIMS system. Again, see the "control panel" section of my web page. I use a 4500 watt heating element at 220 volts - WAY more power than my Ranco temperature controller can handle. SSR's solve the problem quite nicely. Tony Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 04 Sep 2001 15:49:10 +0000 From: AJ <ajdel at mindspring.com> Subject: Salt SG Tables of the specific gravity of salt solutions can be found in lots of handbooks (such as the CRC). The difficulty you will likely encounter is that a 14% brine solution has a SG of 1.1009 (20C/4C) and that is, thus, about the maximum strength you can measure with a brewing hydrometer. Another minor point is that a good brewing hydrometer is calibtated for surface tension typical of beer, not brine. A.J. Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2001 17:04:25 +0100 From: Tony Barnsley <tony.barnsley at blackpool.gov.uk> Subject: Re: Harry Potter's Butter Beer - Revealed Jeff Renner Writes > > Phil Wilcox <pjwilcox at cmsenergy.com> writes: > > I speculate the secret location of > >Hogwarts is somewhere in the Dartmoor National Park. > and think of the winters. There are no winters like that in > the south. Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha, You have got to be kidding! My In laws were stationed on a naval base near Dartmoor, they tell a great story of driving home across the moor one snowy winter. They had the snow chains on and were following the tracks in the snow. Maureen then said "John what are those?" Those were white ceramic discs appearing at regular intervals along the road. They drove on for a bit and then they suddenly realised. They were the TOPS of the Telegraph Poles!! > And it would be a slow train indeed that gets only > as far as Dartmoor overnight. You've not travelled on our railways recently have you Jeff? ;-'> - -- Wassail! The Scurrilous Aleman (ICQ 46254361) Schwarzbad Lager Brauerei, Blackpool, Lancs, UK UK HOMEBREW - A Forum on Home Brewing in the UK Managed by home brewers for home brewers To Subscribe send blank email to uk-homebrew-subscribe at smartgroups.com This message has been scanned by F-Secure Anti-Virus for Microsoft Exchange as part of the Council's e-mail and internet policy. Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2001 08:19:53 +1200 From: Brian Myers <BrianM at AdvantageGroup.co.nz> Subject: JSP malt mill My two cents - I have been using a non-adjustable JSP maltmill for about five years, and it's great. I haven't even bothered to motorise it, even though I brew quite a bit. The only grain I use that it doesn't handle perfectly is raw wheat, which is a little too small to crush well. I run raw wheat through twice, and that works ok. regards, Brian Auckland New Zealand The information transmitted is intended only for the person or entity to which it is addressed and may contain confidential and/or privileged material. Any review, retransmission, dissemination or other use of, or taking of any action in reliance upon, this information by persons or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited. If you received this in error, please contact the sender and delete the material from any computer Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2001 23:54:07 -0400 From: "Charlie Maddox" <cmaddox at tir.com> Subject: re: new advances in bottling? You might want to look into a gadget called a carbonator cap. It allows you to pressurize a 2 liter bottle. I made a jumper from the liquid out on the keg to the gas connection of the carbonator cap. This allow me to counterpressure fill the 2 liter bottles to take to parties. No need to chill the keg, and much easier than several bottles. Charlie Maddox Linden, MI Return to table of contents
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