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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
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Contents:
  Yates learns from the master, Hop backs (craftbrewer)
  Subject: Kegging in PET and Tap-A-Draft, ("Badger/DJ Sable/Project Mercury")
  Adjustable malt mills (John Wilkinson)
  aeration..and foam (Darrell.Leavitt)
  Re: Ball lock -> pin lock? ("Jamie Smith")
  hop back ("Alan McKay")
  pumpkin ale ("Alan McKay")
  Five Star Site ("Eric R. Theiner")
  Re: esters (Jeff Renner)
  O2 permeability (Jeff Renner)
  re: fatty acids ("Stephen Alexander")
  Bass Taste(s) ("John Elsworth")
  bottling in PET ("Sean Richens")


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Date: Fri, 7 Sep 2001 16:23:34 +1000
From: craftbrewer at telstra.easymail.com.au
Subject: Yates learns from the master, Hop backs 

G'day All
/
Well the radio progarm is over for another month. And yes
 believe it or not I now have demand for tapes of the program
 from over there. Why people would want to actually cop an 
earful my strine I have no idea. Perhaps people dont think i 
actually exist. I know Phil certainly has a hard time facing the 
fact that he has learnt heaps from me, be it dirrectly or indirectly. 
He is still in denyal after seeing utopia and returning to the rust 
belt of Australia to his little empire (and yes its just a spec 
compared to wonders of North Queensland)
/
Now what has got Phil reluctant to say is he is happier than a 
head hunting cod at a tourist dive site over my technique of 
plating yeast and making starters from them. Seems the starter 
he made from a plate of San Francisco Lager yeast took him by 
surprise.  He could not believe how fast the starter kicked into 
action and also how clean the starter was.
/
Now I have always said this is the best way of ensuring your 
starters are always healthy, vigerous and clean, and Phil has 
finally seen the light. So much so he is even keen to look into 
my method of storing and handling yeast.
/
For the rest of you go to
http://oz.craftbrewer.org
Look under Materials and Methods
Then Sterile Water Yeast Storage
/
And this
From: ThE HoMeBrEw RaT <skotrat at yahoo.com>
Subject: HopBacks
/
I am in the process of prototyping a hopback with a buddy 
and wanted to see what everybody else has going for a 
hopback. anybody have pics or descriptions of theirs? <<<<
/
And the answer is yes. Same website
look under Gadgets and Gear
Look under My Brew Day as well as 
the Hop back article
/
Shout
Graham Sanders
/
Oh Phil
Sorry to hear that a certain airline might be 
going down quicker than the Aussie dollar. Combine that with 
the fact you are following my techniques in brewing and I can 
understand the stress you are under. If it makes you feel better, 
you can have a go at me. I wont mention you are looking at 
moving to North Queensland to learn more about brewing, 
even live, now you have seen the light.


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Date: Thu, 6 Sep 2001 23:49:28 -0700
From: "Badger/DJ Sable/Project Mercury" <badger at badger.cx>
Subject: Subject: Kegging in PET and Tap-A-Draft,

> I have considered the Tap-A-Cap but without the valve or CO2 cartridges.
> That leaves just the 6-liter PET bottle.  Unfortunately morebeer wants
$6.95
> each for them.  A far cry from $0.50 for a 3 liter.  I have found a source
> for 6-liter but they only sell by the pallet load.
>
> So, can anyone help me get this project back on track?

Have you considered the CO2 cylinder thing that Williams makes?  I've been
considering moving to this for easy transport
http://www.williamsbrewing.com/AB1605000/showdetl.cfm?&DID=7&Product_ID=84&C
ATID=14 (may have to cut and paste to fix the link)
"Use common 12 gram air gun type (as long as they are not marked ('not for
human consumption') C02 cartridges (3 to 5 per keg) to dispense beer."

Seems pretty portable to me.  that and a 3 gallon keg, and you have a pretty
compact unit.

I might go that way for my portable problems mentioned in earlier mails.

badger



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Date: Fri, 07 Sep 2001 06:38:51 -0500
From: John Wilkinson <jandjwilkins at earthlink.net>
Subject: Adjustable malt mills

I will toss my opinion into the discussion of adjustable malt mills.  My
first mill was a Valley, which is adjustable.  At the time I was trying
to decide between it and a JSP.  I thought the adjustable feature a plus
and as that made the JSP considerably more expensive, I bought the
Valley.  After several years use, during which time I tried various
adjustments and tried double crushes as Dave Houseman suggests, I
decided a single setting and a single crush did as well as anything. 
When the Valley finally wore out I bought a non-adjustable JSP and have
not regretted it.  That is not to knock the Valley, it is a fine mill
and I certainly got my money's worth from it.  They are also very nice
people to deal with.  So is Jack Schmidling, producer of the JSP.

John Wilkinson


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Date: Fri, 7 Sep 2001 07:56:08 -0400
From: Darrell.Leavitt at esc.edu
Subject: aeration..and foam

I have been aerating with an aquarium pump...and the ss aeration wand .
The problem that I am finding is that if
I place the wort into the carboy...and then aerate, that it foams out of
the top within a couple of minutes.  If I try to aerate in
the kettle (5 gal batches..in 10 gal Polarware lauter/kettle) then it goes
better,...but even more than 5 minutes of aeration
leads to HEAPS of foam...and again the carboy is rapidly filled with
foam...

 What do others do to reduce the foam when aerating..?

 ..Darrell



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Date: Fri, 07 Sep 2001 08:59:10 -0300
From: "Jamie Smith" <jxsmith at vac-acc.gc.ca>
Subject: Re: Ball lock -> pin lock?

> Date: Thu, 06 Sep 2001 17:53:29 
> From: "Drew Avis" <andrew_avis at hotmail.com>
>Subject: Ball lock -> pin lock?

>Folks: I have a line on some nice ball-lock kegs.  The problem is, my 
> system  is currently pin-lock.  Are the theads on the two types of kegs
> compatible?  
> IE could I just take off the ball-lock fittings & replace them w/ pin-lock,
> or do I need to get new ball-lock fittings for CO2 in and beer out?

>Thanks in advance for any info you have,

>Drew Avis, Merrickville, Ontario
>Visit Strange Brew: http://www.strangebrew.ca 


Drew - it's been my experience in my set up that the threads aren't the 
problem, but rather the design of the kegs themselves that prevent 
swapping fittings between the ball- and pin- lock kegs.  Specifically, the 
shape of the kegs where the fittings attach are just different enough to 
prevent a seal.

I also note that very few of my kegs are exactly the same (10-15 kegs, all 
different styles) so YMMV.

Jamie on PEI



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Date: Fri, 7 Sep 2001 08:05:41 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Alan McKay" <amckay at ottawa.com>
Subject: hop back

Scott,

My mason-jar hop back can be seen at 
http://www.bodensatz.com/homebrew/gadgets/hop-back.html
Though I've changed the design somewhat from what is show there
(and really should get off my lazy ass to update the page).

Now instead of the hose barbs I have taken lengths of 3/8 copper
tubing and soldered it into the lid.  One long length for "wort in"
goes right to the bottom of the jar, and the shorter length is about
the length of the hose barbs, and it gets the scrubbie attached
to it.  I also use plumbers tape to help keep it air tight.

Works like a charm!

cheers,
 -Alan

- -- 
    "Brewers make wort.  Yeast makes beer."
               - Dave Miller
http://www.bodensatz.com/
What's a Bodensatz? http://www.bodensatz.com/bodensatz.html



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Date: Fri, 7 Sep 2001 08:12:39 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Alan McKay" <amckay at ottawa.com>
Subject: pumpkin ale


Bob said :
> First, you GOT TO mash the pumpkin along with the malt. So
> you must do an all-grain mash.

Though the rest of Bob's advice is sound and should be heeded if you
do take the all-grain route, the above is only partially true.  Yes,
the pumpkin MUST be mashed, but another option for extract brewers is 
to mash the pumpkin alone in a pot with purchased powdered enzyme,
then when you are sure it is converted add it to the end of your
boil.  I've done this with great success.

cheers,
 -Alan

- -- 
    "Brewers make wort.  Yeast makes beer."
               - Dave Miller
http://www.bodensatz.com/
What's a Bodensatz? http://www.bodensatz.com/bodensatz.html



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Date: Tue, 04 Sep 2001 11:22:13 -0400
From: "Eric R. Theiner" <logic at skantech.com>
Subject: Five Star Site

For those concerned over the availability of the Five Star website, here is 
an excerpt from a recent email from Charlie Talley (of Five Star):

"We were working on the [site] when our [server]
went out of business. Getting the rights back has been interesting."

So try 'em again-- they should be up now.

Rick Theiner
LOGIC, Inc.
(competitor of Five Star-- what a nice guy I am, eh?)



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Date: Fri, 7 Sep 2001 09:51:24 -0400
From: Jeff Renner <JeffRenner at mediaone.net>
Subject: Re: esters

Steve Alexander <steve-alexander at worldnet.att.net> wrote:

>Soap is saponified FAs and glycerol.

I don't think this is quite precise (the rest of Steve's post is 
beyond my knowledge, but very interesting, and has more application 
to beer than this post).

Soap is chemically only saponified fatty acids.  However, a *bar* of 
soap might include glycerol (glycerin), as this is a part of fats 
(fats and oils are trigycerides, i.e., a fatty acid molecule plus 
three glycerol molecules).  Much (most?) commercial soap is made from 
deglycerated fats or (less commonly), has the glycerol removed after 
saponification.

The glycerol is removed in part because it has economic value and in 
part because it is more or less dead weight in soap and makes the 
soap softer, although it also seems to make soap less drying.

Another of my hobbies is soap making.  I typically use ~2:1 olive 
oil:coconut oil for the fat source, and use the cold-process 
saponification method, which leaves the glycerol in the soap.  The 
hot-process saponification method boils the soap with salt (NaCl), 
which separates the glycerol from the pure soap.  I've never done 
this, but it is a common process in less industrialized countries. 
Industrialized countries use the purified SA as the raw material.

I worked for Proctor & Gamble back in the sixties, and when I wasn't 
packaging up satanic materials, I made soap in a pilot plant.  For 
most formulae, we used purified FAs (no glycerol) and NaOH.  Some 
fatty acids were even somewhat purified as to chain length (oleic, 
palmitic, stearic acids), although this wasn't done, to my knowledge, 
for production soaps.

>The vegetable oil, olive oil on your cupboard are good examples of 
>almost  pure fatty acids.

Again, I don't think this is quite precise.  They are good examples 
of almost pure *triglycerides*.

None of this will help you make better beer.

Cheers,

Jeff

- -- 
Jeff Renner in Ann Arbor, Michigan USA, JeffRenner at mediaone.net
"One never knows, do one?"  Fats Waller, American Musician, 1904-1943


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Date: Fri, 7 Sep 2001 10:18:25 -0400
From: Jeff Renner <JeffRenner at mediaone.net>
Subject: O2 permeability

stencil <stencil at bcn.net> srites of plastic bottles writes (or perhaps sends):

>For all that, I'm dubious that very many
>O2 molecules at 3psi partial pressure will wade upstream
>against ca. 25psig CO2 in the bottle...  YMMV.

This is a subject that comes up every few years.  While this may seem 
intuitively logical, partial pressures don't work like that.  There 
is no "upstream" for the O2 molecules.  They "ignore" all gases 
except O2.

Since there is (presumably) no O2 inside, and there is 3 psi partial 
pressure outide, they will migrate across the semi-permeable plastic.

As Stencil writes, don't use plastic for archive beer.  It should 
work for quick drinking beer.

Jeff
- -- 
Jeff Renner in Ann Arbor, Michigan USA, JeffRenner at mediaone.net
"One never knows, do one?"  Fats Waller, American Musician, 1904-1943


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Date: Fri, 7 Sep 2001 11:10:44 -0400
From: "Stephen Alexander" <steve-alexander at att.net>
Subject: re: fatty acids

Whew - what was I thinking ? I really should get some sleep every 48 hours
or so.

My side note about examples of fatty acids is very wrong.  Vegetable oils,
like animal fats and the stuff around my midriff are intact triglycerides.
That is three fatty acids with an esteric bond to a glycerol.  Not an
example of free fatty acids.

Soap OTOH is made from fat or oil that undergoes saponification. Sodium or
potassium hydroxide is added to the triglyceride which breaks the esteric
bonds yielding free glycerol, but the fatty acids immediately has it's
carboxylic end converted to a sodium or potassium carboxylate salt rather
than a free long chain carboxylic acid (FA).  So soap is glycerol and salts
of FAs - not a good example either.

 -S




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Date: Fri, 07 Sep 2001 11:38:53 -0400
From: "John Elsworth" <jdelsworth at hotmail.com>
Subject: Bass Taste(s)

There have been a few posts recently about brewing a Bass clone, and how 
close a particular recipe might be to the real thing.
However, I have found that the flavor(s) of Bass is not that consistent, and 
I wonder what people are trying to model.  Even when living in England, I 
was struck by the variability between pints of Bass.  I know different 
batches of beer will be different, but this variability was more than for 
other beers (at least to my taste buds).  Some pubs seemed to serve better 
pints than others (but that could have been coincidence). The absolute best 
pint I had was at the Bass brewery a few years ago... wonderful, and not 
really like the Bass we ever get in the U.S.

John Elsworth
Hamden, CT



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Date: Fri, 7 Sep 2001 20:41:48 -0500
From: "Sean Richens" <srichens at sprint.ca>
Subject: bottling in PET

Us Canajuns like these.  Just to prove we're not as cheap as Northern
Brewers are often thought to be, we usually toss out the caps and buy new
ones for a couple of bucks a dozen.  This is acceptable for 1 Litre bottles
but gets a bit costly for the 600 mL size.

The worry about re-using the caps is that something attractive to the
nasties could reside between the liner and the cap.  Before I became a
homebrewer the liners were sold in some LHBS, but I've never seen them.  If
you are really hard up in Japan you can carefully extract the liners and
wash them separately from the caps but you will have to replace any that you
damage.

Maybe you could make sake.  Skullsplitter of a hangover, but tastes good.

Sean Richens
srichens.spamsucks at sprint.ca




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