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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
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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






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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.


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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


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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!




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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



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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




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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


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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.





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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

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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



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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



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