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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
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Contents:
  re: When to stop sparging/undermodified malts ("Stephen Alexander")
  Pumpkin ("Abby, Davey, Ellen and Alan")
  Re: When to stop sparging ("RJ")
  hops suppliers ("Scott Basil")
  Post Question ("Berggren, Stefan")
  re: discolored immersion chiller (Matthew Kettler)
  Re: When to stop sparging (Jeff Renner)
  Not traveling with CO2 (Phil Wilcox)
  travel kegging (joseph540)
  homebrew at the legislature (joseph540)
  remembering hop additions ("Frank Tutzauer")
  Re: When to stop sparging ("Pete Calinski")
  Re: When to stop sparging (DHinrichs)
  Re: when to stop sparging ("Kurt Schweter")
  Yeast Starters and Stuck Fermentation (jeff storm)
  Re:  Propane Indoors (Dion Hollenbeck)
  Storing Beer in 5gal kegs ("Berggren, Stefan")
  Kegging and Re-using Milk Jugs (Stephen Johnson)
  Re: When to stop sparging (Ed Jones)
  Teach A Friend To Homebrew Day ("Gary Glass")
  exposed wires ("marc_hawley")
  Re:Covering exposed wires on heater elements ("Dave & Joan King")


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Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2001 05:56:34 -0400
From: "Stephen Alexander" <steve-alexander at att.net>
Subject: re: When to stop sparging/undermodified malts

Danny Breidenbach
> So what is the practical method to know when you've hit 1.010

Forget the calculator - sparge till the hot runnings drop under 1.002SG,
then it's time to stop.  .  Taste the runnings around this level and you'll
start to get a picture of how the wort flavor shifts from very sweet to
sweet & tea-like.  It's no crime to stop the sparge earlier and it does
impact flavor positively.

===
Kevin Crouch writes a lot that I agree with about undermodified malts, but
the underpinnings of his post are very weak.

German malts are generally not undermodified.  Look up the SNR% or Kolbach
for Durst, Weissheimer and DWC (well continental) and Weyermann pils malts
and you see figures from 40 to 45 !!  Well modified - and perhaps
overmodified.  The munich malts that I can get data sheets on are more
variable w/ generally higher protein levels, but by extract or Kolbach
measures these are often well modified too.  Weisshiemer gives a range of 40
to 48 (!!)Kolbach for it's vienna and munich malts - shockingly high.

Also German malts are not generally kilned at a 50% acrospire length, but to
2/3rd to 3/4 length.  See Kunze for details.

The other confusion introduced is the suggestion the malting creates
proteins which are progressively more haze inducing.  During malting the
proportions of various protein fractions shifts as the storage prots are
degraded to make new prots for the new cells.  There is no significant
change in the total amount of protein(+peptides + amino acids) in the
barley/malt except for the culm loss.  The amount of soluble protein
increases (as the hordein fraction decreases) - perhaps that is what Kevin
meant.

Raw grain is, as we all know, haze positive.  As the malting process
proceeds to the well modified stage the haze potential of the malt generally
decreases since the average size of the soluble proteins decreases by
degradation processes.   For truly undermodified malts a 50C rest is needed
to finish the protein degradation that the maltster did not complete so to a
void haze.  If you perform this 45C-50C rest on a well modified malt (like
Durst or Weissheimer pils) you'll quickly degrade the proteins so much that
you'll lose haze and head and body.  Kunze and Narziss both mention the
careful avoidance of this 45-50C range and Kunze suggests that the 50c rest
for traditional double decoction be changed to avoid this rest.

Budvar malt and custom maltings performed for specific breweries may well be
undermodified, but you've never seen any on your average HB shop bins, and
the typical German brewery doesn't use them either.

Yes, the jury is still out on decoction's flavor contribution, but it's not
difficult to present yourself with some pretty solid evidence.  Give it an
honest try with a blind tasting and I think you'll see that decocting well
modified malts makes at most a small contribution.  If you don't trust
amateur opinions then look to the literature for Narziss' and Kunze's and
Lewis' comments.

- -- --

Re boiling decoctions and tannins.  Malt contains no tannins, just tannoids,
and the malt  itself contains only simpler polyphenolic tannoids.   Once
these tannoids hit the mash they are acted upon by phenol-oxidase and
polymerase enzymes (and oxygen) that creates the larger polyphenolics which
have a stronger coarsely bitter flavor and are capable of causing haze.
 Yes - decoction extracts more of these tannoids, but also causes break
(protein+tannoid complexes) to form in the decoction kettle reducing the
tannoid levels.  Lager beers are also subjected to long boils and extended
lagering periods - both of which reduce tannoid levels further.

Simple monophenolic compounds have a positive flavor impact to a certain
level and then detract.  Decoction's flavor activity is probably partly due
to the extraction of these simple phenolics which more effectively remain in
the beer.

The decoction darkening is from phenolic oxidation, caramelization and other
browning reactions.  The amount of maillard compounds (most responsible for
malt flavor) formed in this way is small compared to the amounts formed in
kilns.  The reason is that the temps are suboptimally low, the pH
suboptimally low, the reactants more dilute and the time too short for much
maillard formation.  If you want maillard compounds, caramel or wort
oxidation - there are simpler ways than decoction to get it.

 -S




Return to table of contents


Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2001 07:22:11 -0300
From: "Abby, Davey, Ellen and Alan" <elal at pei.sympatico.ca>
Subject: Pumpkin

Marc wrote: "I was planning to make a pumpkin porter (no
spices...please!), but wanted to know if the amount of
pumpkin I'm using is better for a 5 gallon or 10 gallon
batch.  I'm going to throw it in the mash of my all-grain
recipe.  Thoughts are appreciated."

I'd say that's a ten gallon lump o' pump'.    I have made five gallon
batches of a one pound pumpkin porter and a two but I would think a
further doubling would be over the top.  But maybe you want to go there?

Alan McLeod
PEI, Canada


Return to table of contents


Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2001 08:40:40 -0400
From: "RJ" <wortsup at metrocast.net>
Subject: Re: When to stop sparging

Danny in West Lafayette, Indiana<dbreiden at math.purdue.edu> wrote:

"So what is the practical method to know when you've hit 1.010 ... since the
outflow is warm to hot, and flowing, etc. all while you're trying to float a
hydrometer and do the calculations, whatever they are, etc.  When I don't
even know that I'll have a free hand!!

Do I relax and ask my wife to measure the gravity of a sample?  And how does
one correct for the temp of the outflow?"

Danny,

Take your sample and measure the gravity, then take the temperature and use
the chart below (based on a hydrometer calibrated to 60F):
60F = 1.010
70F = 1.011
80F = 1.012
85F = 1.013*
90F = 1.014
95F = 1.015
100 = 1.016
105 = 1.017
110 = 1.018
115 = 1.019
120 = 1.020
123 = 1.021*
125 = 1.022
130 = 1.023
135 = 1.024
138 = 1.025*
140 = 1.026
143 = 1.027*
146 = 1.028*
149 = 1.029*





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Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2001 13:21:52 -0500
From: "Scott Basil" <sbasil at glasgow-ky.com>
Subject: hops suppliers

I remember a few weeks ago that somebody was looking for a supplier of live
hops plants and shoots.  I had forgotten a grower in california who
specializes in plants with shamanistic and medicinal uses.  His address is
www.greenstranger.com and you have to look everything up by it's scientific
name (humulus lupulus).  I have only made a few purchases from this guy, but
he will guarantee his plants and he will do his best to answer your growing
questions.  His catalog includes early and late blooming cluster, fuggles,
hallertauer, hersbrucker, perle, saaz, tettnanger, brewers gold, nugget,
cascade, bullion, chinook, galeena, golden, liberty, mount hood, and
willamette.  It also gives a brief description on most varieties on how that
particular hybrid or mutant came into being.



Return to table of contents


Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2001 08:38:32 -0500
From: "Berggren, Stefan" <stefan_berggren at trekbike.com>
Subject: Post Question

HBD, 

I have started a batch of Cyser that has been sitting for two weeks now and
I plan on transferring to a secondary.  What is the time limit that I should
let the Cyser sit in the secondary.  It was made with 4 gallons of fresh
Cider and 4 lbs of honey and I used a Whitelabs Cider yeast that was amazing
( I would recommend to anyone, due to the activity and speed of firing).
The primary ferment was amazing and vigorous, like a snow storm.  I also
plan on bottling and would like suggestions on what level of sugar/malt to
prime 4 gallons with.  Any help or comments on Cysers would be great.....


Stefan Berggren
 
stefan_berggren at trekbike.com





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Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2001 10:15:30 -0400
From: Matthew Kettler <mkettler at home.com>
Subject: re: discolored immersion chiller

 >Tom Williams said:
 >Perhaps one of the HBD metallurgists could comment on the process forming 
these
 >deposits on Tidmarsh's copper chiller.  I don't know what PBW is
 >(iodine? bleach?), but it sounds like the source of the corrosion deposits.

Well, I'm no metallurgist, but I tend to agree. I use PBW myself for 
cleaning my kettle and fermenters out. PBW is a mixture of various 
percarbonate compounds (according to the warnings on the label) and other 
things. Copper is a somewhat reactive metal and tends to want to corrode. 
Among various things, Copper tends to turn to cupric oxide (which is black) 
in the presence of oxygen. Sulfur compounds will turn it blue-green. I can 
only guess that one or more of the compounds in PBW yields oxygen ions into 
the solution to try to react with proteins, and that this is causing cupric 
oxide to form on the chiller.

Though I use PWB on my kettle, my chiller receives a different treatment. I 
clean my chiller by boiling it in a solution of water and vinegar and then 
rinse off, similar to what Todd Bissel recommended. However since I heat 
mine I can get away with a much lower concentration, about 2 cups of 
vinegar in 4 gallons of water. Copper dissolves easily in the presence of 
acids, and the weakly acidic vinegar solution takes a very thin layer of 
copper off the surface, leaving fresh, bright copper behind. As soon as it 
turns clean, it's time to take it out (This process would take a long time 
(months perhaps) to dissolve off any noticeable percentage of the copper 
pipe, but why leave it in longer than needed).


Cheers and good luck.

Matthew Kettler



Return to table of contents


Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2001 10:45:05 -0400
From: Jeff Renner <JeffRenner at mediaone.net>
Subject: Re: When to stop sparging

Danny Breidenbach <dbreiden at math.purdue.edu> in West Lafayette, Indiana asks:

>So what is the practical method to know when you've hit 1.010 ... since
>the outflow is warm to hot, and flowing, etc. all while you're trying to
>float a hydrometer and do the calculations, whatever they are, etc.
>When I don't even know that I'll have a free hand!!

Here's what I did before I got my refractometer, which makes it even easier.

I know from experience and color and taste of the runoff when I might 
be getting kind of close.  At this point I would stop lautering for a 
moment and draw a sample and chill it.  I used a disposable aluminum 
pie pan and put the sample in that, then floated the pan in a bowl of 
water with some ice in it.  Swirling the wort in the pie pan helps 
speed cooling.  In the winter, a nearby snowbank served.  I could 
chill and measure a sample in less than five minutes.  You could also 
use a temperature correction chart (HB books have them, and they are 
available at many sites online), but I never trusted them.  They 
should work, though.

Now, since I need only a drop for measurement, I take a spoonful from 
the runoff and chill it by holding the spoon back on an ice cube. 
Chills it in a few seconds.  Then I transfer a drop to the 
refractometer.  I think it's important to chill this way rather take 
a single drop and rely on the heat sink capacity of the 
refractometer.  That might allow enough evaporation to occur to throw 
off the measurement.

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


Return to table of contents


Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2001 10:48:51 -0400
From: Phil Wilcox <pjwilcox at cmsenergy.com>
Subject: Not traveling with CO2

Denis,

Your natural carbonation method just won't work. There is not enough CO2
potential in the priming to push out an entire keg. It would indeed go
flat. There are a couple of ways to get around this problem.

Method 1. Buy a smaller tank. 5lb is common, but 3lb and 1lb do exist.
Method 2. Fill an additional tank with CO2 and crank up the psi to about
60 lbs
                 Build a jumper with co2 fittings for Gas on both ends.
Use the CO2 keg to
                 "Top off" the beer keg when needed. Don't leave them
connected for more
                 than a second or two unless you like foamy beer. You
only want enough
                 pressure to dispense beer with.
Method 3. There is a commercial widget that has a CO2 cartridge like for
bb guns, bike
                 tire pumps and 5-litre mini kegs connected to a gas
fitting. I'm sure it
                 would take several to empty a full keg.
Method 4. Buy a party pig. These are great you can counterpressure fill
them, and use the
                 CO2 tank pressure to burst the inner bag, and be ready
to serve in 20 min time.
                 2.5 gal is a good weekend of drinking. I have 2. Multi
flavors. and they fit on
                 the top shelf of most fridges.
Method 5: Counter-fill 3 liter plastic bottles. so long as they get used
in a relatively quick
                 fashion. These work great.
Method 6: Tell you kids that you'll supply them with beer, if they buy
their own regulator.
                 After 4 years of method 2&4, my parents finally bought
themselves one...


Cheers!

phil wilcox
poison frog home brewer
Jackson Michigan



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Date: 16 Oct 2001 07:56:01 -0700
From: joseph540 at elvis.com
Subject: travel kegging

Denis B. writes about kegging for travel.  My own feeling is that
this is what mini-kegs were made for.  The kegs are cheap
enough, especially if you don't need more than one or two.  You 
may be able to find a tap system cheap from someone who
is moving into corny kegging.  Barring that, I would suggest
simply siphoning some fermented beer into washed and 
sanitized plastic soda bottles (20 oz.ers are great, or go up
to 2 liters), and priming with Primetabs.  These are very
easy to carry and no big deal to recycle afterwards.  And they
won't break on you!

Joe, in Minneapolis

- -------------------------------------------------
Get your free  at Elvis e-mail account at Elvis.com!
http://www.elvis.com



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Date: 16 Oct 2001 08:20:48 -0700
From: joseph540 at elvis.com
Subject: homebrew at the legislature

Dear all,

I recently got a personal email message sent to me by a guy who
felt he had been a bit short with me on a brewing-related web site.
He hadn't actually, or if he had, I didn't take offense.  But he explained
that his patience and nerves had been frayed by his attempt to get 
his state legislature in Mississippi to legalize homebrewing.
Seems that he had found a friend in the legislature willing to take this 
issue up, but he quickly ran into a brick wall of almost prohibition-era
sentiment.  He cited some really outrageous examples from the 
debate over this.  I tried to get my friend to post an update about all
of this here, but I think he's been too dispirited or too busy to do so.
So I'll take it upon myself to post this for him.

Not to kick up a political debate, but this seems like an issue worth
bringing to a group interested in homebrewing (and presumably
therefore the freedom to brew legally). I know that we had some 
discussion a while back about the laws in Utah, but what about 
people in other states?  From what I can tell on the beertown.org 
web site, Alabama, Iowa, Kentucky and some other states may be 
in the same boat.  I know AHA says that they can help, but they are 
restricted to helping coalesce grass-roots support. Anyone else in MS
who would be willing to help rally some support?  What have people in 
other states found successful or not suceessful in regard to lobbying the 
legislature?

Best wishes,

Joe (now looking out over the banks of the mighty Mississippi River, but
many miles up from that homebrew-deprived state).

- -------------------------------------------------
Get your free  at Elvis e-mail account at Elvis.com!
http://www.elvis.com



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Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2001 12:03:58 -0400
From: "Frank Tutzauer" <comfrank at acsu.buffalo.edu>
Subject: remembering hop additions

Todd in Imperial Beach shares his tip for remembering when to add hops,
etc.:

>I have an old wood cutting board that slides in and out from underneath my
>apartment's countertop.....[Cover it with aluminum foil and write the
>times for hop additions, etc.  Details and cheesy ASCII art  deleted]...
>
>What's the point? This is how I keep track of what I need to do...
>It works for me, YMMV. I'd love to hear of other "home-grown"
>quick-and-easy tips like this....

This reminds me of what I used to do when I was learning to cook Chinese.
You must understand that in a typical Chinese dish, there are often very
many ingredients that go into the wok at different times.  And as it's
usually very fast, you sometimes see recipes with ridiculous instructions
like:  "Add the ginger and stir-fry for 12 seconds.  Add the bamboo shoots
and stir-fry for an additional 45 seconds."  etc. etc.  As the timing was
too quick for me to refer to the cook book, and as I was learning and
couldn't separate ridiculous instructions from those that were more
legitimate, I coped by premeasuring out the ingredients into small bowls or
cups, lining them up on the counter in the order they went into the wok,
and then using post-it notes next to the various ingredients with the times
noted on them.  Fire up the wok, grab the first ingredient, cook for
indicated time, and proceed down the line.

There's no reason this wouldn't work for homebrewing.  Premeasure out your
hops, Irish Moss, etc.  Line each one up on the counter next to a post-it
note with the time the addition goes in.  Of course, homebrewers usually
count down, not up, so your post-it notes read "Bittering hops, 60 min.",
"Chiller, 15 minutes", "Irish Moss 10 minutes", etc.  As you add an
ingredient, toss the post-it note.  You're done when you hit "Aroma hops,
knockout"!


 --frank in Buffalo



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Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2001 12:24:17 -0400
From: "Pete Calinski" <pcalinski at iname.com>
Subject: Re: When to stop sparging

Danny Breidenbach <dbreiden at math.purdue.edu> asked, "When to stop sparging"

Well, I stop at SG=1.000.  If the wort was at 170F, then you could go down
to SG=0.985 but I assume that even if the wort coming out of the lauter tun
is up to 170F, by the time you get it into the sample tube and get a
reading, it could be considerably cooler.  Stopping at SG=1.000  would mean
even if the sample cooled to around 118F, the SG at 60F would be above
1.010.  Seems to work and is easy to remember.

Hope this helps.

 Pete Calinski
East Amherst NY
Near Buffalo NY


***********************************************************
*My goal:
*      Go through life and never drink the same beer twice.
*     (As long as it doesn't mean I have to skip a beer.)
***********************************************************



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Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2001 11:47:08 -0500
From: DHinrichs at Quannon.com
Subject: Re: When to stop sparging

Since I mostly brew in the winter I keep a small aluminum sauce pan chilled
in snow. I take a sample from the sparge, swirl it around in the cold
aluminum pan it cools almost instantly to take a reading. The biggest
problem I then have is the temp can also drop too low. I also taste this
cooled sample.

 I also just use the finger test. Insert finger into sparge flow and taste,
it will change from sweet wort to more astringent as the SG drops.


>So what is the practical method to know when you've hit 1.010 ... since
>the outflow is warm to hot, and flowing, etc. all while you're trying to
>float a hydrometer and do the calculations, whatever they are, etc.
>When I don't even know that I'll have a free hand!!
>
>Do I relax and ask my wife to measure the gravity of a sample?  And how
>does one correct for the temp of the outflow?

>Thanks,
>- --Danny in West Lafayette, Indiana


 Dave Hinrichs in mineetonka mn


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Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2001 13:51:05 -0400
From: "Kurt Schweter" <KSchweter at smgfoodlb.com>
Subject: Re: when to stop sparging

does any body else just simply taste  their
run off -- when the flavor goes from sweet - 
to neutral it's time to stop
 before it starts to taste grainy
my 2 cents



Return to table of contents


Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2001 11:00:57 -0700 (PDT)
From: jeff storm <stormyjeff at rocketmail.com>
Subject: Yeast Starters and Stuck Fermentation

I brewed a Brown Ale back on Sept 30th.  The O.G. was
1.050.  This was an all grain brew and I pitched
WLP001-CA Ale yeast.  The yeast has been used before
and I believe it may be tired.  My friend suggested I
make a starter to get the gravity to drop more.  As of
yesterday the gravity was still at 1.026 after 14
days. 

I made a starter with some fresh WLP001 yeast-liquid. 
How long should the starter take?  It has been
bubbling in my fermentation freezer which is set at 71
degrees F.  I see some of the yeast on the bottom.  I
was thinking that the yeast would multiply in the
starter giving me more yeast. 

Any suggestions on the starter or the brown ale that
is sitting at 1.026?  I have 2 plastic  fermenters
with 5 1/2 gallons in each.

Jeff Storm
San Jose CA 



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Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2001 14:48:51 -0400 (EDT)
From: Dion Hollenbeck <hollen at woodsprite.com>
Subject: Re:  Propane Indoors

I am very puzzled here.  While some people may do stupid things with
propane indoors, and nearly kill themselves, there are a huge amount of
homes out there that do not have natural gas, but heat and cook with
propane.  Yes, propane is dangerous, but only if you screw up.  Otherwise
the whole county I live in would not have any heat, or houses would be
blowing up regularly.

The burners in my brewery are propane fired, piped in at 15 psi from
outside.  When I am done brewing the valve on the inside of the brewery is
turned off, and the valve supplying that pipe from the outside of the
building is also turned off.  The handles are removed and stored out of
reach in the brewery.  There is nothing unsafe about propane handled
correctly.  All connections should be tight and tested with soap solution.
Or in the case of the piping in my walls, tested with air pressure at 30
psi for weeks without loss.

Just my $0.02 for what it is worth.

dion

- --
Dion Hollenbeck  Email:  hollen at woodsprite.com
Home Page:       http://www.woodsprite.com
Brewing Page:    http://hbd.org/hollen



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Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2001 14:20:24 -0500
From: "Berggren, Stefan" <stefan_berggren at trekbike.com>
Subject: Storing Beer in 5gal kegs

Hello Fellow beer lovers, 

I was able to purchase some 5 gallon stainless steel cornelious kegs at a
great price and now I need some guidance.  I have used "syrup kegs" for
awhile, but I purchased these in order to store beer and age the finished
beer.  What are some recommendations for storing the beer?  Should I cask
condition or purge the oxygen and keep a head of CO2 like a beer bottle?
These kegs will be kept at 60-65deg until they are sacrificed to the fridge
to be tapped.  So if any one has any insight as how to store the beer until
I am ready to tap from the kegs, please let me know.


Stefan Berggren
Trek Bicycle Corporation
Engineering Test Lab/Standards Development
801 West Madison
Waterloo, WI 53594
1.800.313.8735 ext 2203
920.478.9640 FAX
stefan_berggren at trekbike.com





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Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2001 15:14:25 -0500
From: Stephen Johnson <Stephen.Johnson at vanderbilt.edu>
Subject: Kegging and Re-using Milk Jugs

"D Perry" <daperry75 at home.com>, from some undisclosed location (Dave, just
a quick and friendly reminder to folks posting on the HBD: it is helpful
for posters to put where they are geographically fixed, often in Rennerian
coordinates, to allow others who reply the courtesy of having some
additional bits of information that might help in answering your question)
asks a couple of short questions. I'll take a shot at giving some answers:

1) Do you have to fill a five gallon keg right up, ie is half full ok?  

I do this pretty regularly, since I often bottle some to enter into
competitions or force carbonate some in 2 L PET bottles to take to
meetings. The potential issue is that in not filling the keg nearer to the
top, you may be leaving the beer exposed to more oxygen when you close it
up. Several things can be done to alleviate this potential problem. If you
have access to a large supply of CO2, you can first fill your cornie keg
with sanitizer, (I use 5-Star's Star San...no affiliation, just a very
satisfied customer), seal the lid, then force all of the sanitizer out of
the keg by hooking up your CO2 tank and dispensing all of it out of the keg
as if you were serving your beer. Some people with multiple kegs do this by
hooking up a special transfer line to a second cornie's "OUT" post and run
the sanitizer into the second keg via the receiving keg's dip-tube. Then,
when you open the oval keg lid, your keg is now full of CO2 gas, ready for
an oxygen-free transfer to occur from your fermentation vessel. Another,
less efficient method is to run a hose from your CO2 tank down into the
bottom of your cleaned, sanitized, and empty keg and allow some CO2 into
the keg (not sure how long, but I would guess 30-60 seconds at the
most...someone correct me if I'm wrong), which will force some of the air
out of the keg as it is displaced with CO2. The reason this is not as
efficient is that CO2 and air will actually mix rather than keep separate
layers as you run some gas into the keg. But, it will still make for less
oxygen in your keg overall. A third method is to just carefully transfer
your ready-to-keg beer into the keg, close the lid, then run some CO2 into
your keg's "OUT" fitting and allow the gas to bubble through your beer,
alternately purging the system with the gas relief vent valve in the center
of your keg's lid. Like method #2, I do this for 30 to 60 seconds. Of
course, any of these methods may require you to switch out the "IN" line
and "OUT" line plastic barbed fittings to allow the correct match between
the line and the post on your cornie keg. But I have several extra sets
that I use just for such purposes, along with some nifty quick release hose
fittings for gas that make such transfers an easy process. 


And 2) can you use 4 litre plastic milk jugs for starting yeast
in?

I would vote against this. Milk and yeast don't do well together. Plastic
milk jugs can be hard to clean, (lots of crevasses that are hard to get to,
especially around the neck and handle) and even more hard to tell for
certain that they have been cleaned and sanitized to provide a
non-lactobacillus environment. Way back in my early days of brewing, I had
to do my brewing and bottling in my kitchen. I was also making homemade
yogurt at the time. Can you say CONTAMINATION? There were about 3 batches
of beer that I did that ended up with a lacto contamination as a result of
some cross-culturing.

I would suggest sticking with water containers or better yet, some 1/2
gallon or 1 gallon glass cider jugs, or depending on where you live (which
I would know if you had put your location in your signature line; I'm
guessing Canada, possibly Quebec, judging by the spelling of "litre"), you
could stop by your local brewpub and buy a full growler of beer, drink the
beer, and use the growler as a starter container for your next batch.

Hope this helps!

Steve Johnson, President
Music City Brewers
Nashville, TN (western Davidson Co.)
unknown Rennerian coordinates, but maybe he'll calculate it for me one day...




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Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2001 15:55:34 -0400 (EDT)
From: Ed Jones <ejones at sdl.psych.wright.edu>
Subject: Re: When to stop sparging

Danny in West Lafayette, Indiana writes:

> So what is the practical method to know when you've hit 1.010 ... since
> the outflow is warm to hot, and flowing, etc. all while you're trying to
> float a hydrometer and do the calculations, whatever they are, etc.
> When I don't even know that I'll have a free hand!!
> 
> Do I relax and ask my wife to measure the gravity of a sample?  And how
> does one correct for the temp of the outflow?

Doing this with a hydrometer is a PITA. I put a tee and an additional ball
valve for sampling off my mash/lauter tun to get a small sample that I
can use on my brand-spanking-new temperature-correcting refractometer.
I got tired of taking samples large enough for a hydro reading several
times during a brew session and trying to cool them fast enough to get
a decent reading before the sparge was over. www.morebeer.com has a
cheap ATC refractometer for sale right now for $99. It's made in China,
but appears to work just fine.

- -- 
Ed Jones	Columbus Ohio

"When I was sufficiently recovered to be permitted to take nourishment,
I felt the most extraordinary desire for a glass of Guinness...I am 
confident that it contributed more than anything else to my recovery."
  - written by a wounded officer after Battle of Waterloo, 1815



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Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2001 15:31:33 -0600
From: "Gary Glass" <gary at aob.org>
Subject: Teach A Friend To Homebrew Day

Brewers it's time to spread the love!  November 3 is the American
Homebrewers Association's 3rd Annual Teach A Friend To Homebrew Day.

Just think of all those poor souls who have never experienced the joy of
homebrewing...well the weekend of November 3 is the time to do something
about it!  Grab friends, family, the neighbors, random pets, whoever and
teach them to brew.  Take 'em to the local homebrew supply shop and
introduce them to the owner and get your ingredients.  Then brew up a tasty
batch of homebrew while of course sharing some of your own homebrew.

By bring new brewers into the fold, we ensure the vitality of the
hobby--er, way of life--of homebrewing.  When we welcome new brewers into
the hobby, the entire beer community improves. The local homebrew shop gets
more business and can provide fresher ingredients and better equipment
selection. The local homebrew club has more potential members. And the
brewing community receives more experienced, knowledgeable beer enthusiasts
who can spread the word and point others toward better beer.

For details and to register your site see
www.beertown.org/AHA/teachbrew/teachday.htm.

Cheers!

Gary Glass--Boulder, CO [no idea where that is in Rennerian coordinates]

Project Coordinator
Association of Brewers
888-U-CAN-BREW
Voice: (303) 447-0816 x 121
Fax: (303) 447-2825
Email: gary at aob.org
Web: http://www.beertown.org



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Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2001 17:14:29 -0500
From: "marc_hawley" <marc_hawley at msn.com>
Subject: exposed wires


"I have just installed two hot water heater elements in my HLT and boiling
kettle.  I am trying to find an effective way of covering the exposed
element wires.  I could always cover them with electrical tape, but I would
like better water resistance when I clean the kegs.  Any suggestions?"




I use some stuff called "Liquid Electrical Tape". You just paint it on with
the little brush attached to the inside of the cap. It dries to a flexible
plastic-like coating. Maybe not up to "code" but better than nothing.



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Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2001 19:56:03 -0400
From: "Dave & Joan King" <dking3 at stny.rr.com>
Subject: Re:Covering exposed wires on heater elements

Kevin,

While insulating those wires is a good idea, a ground fault interupt circuit
is good too, since you've got all that conductive liquid around.  I didn't
worry much about insulation, but the GFI was definite in my RIMS.

        Dave King (BIER)



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