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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
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Contents:
  Raspberry beer (Denis Bekaert)
  free beer bottles available (ensmingr)
  The Definitive LPG vs. Natural Gas Manifesto (Brett Hetherington)
  Re: Raspberry Pale Ale (Steven S)
  Re: Rennerian calculator correction... (gsferg)
  Burning Bras And Airlocks ("Phil & Jill Yates")
  Hot Scotchies! ("Zemo")
  re: UNC chemists figure out what casues skunkiness ("Mark Tumarkin")
  Re: What ever happened to........ (Jeff Renner)
  Holiday Beer ("Neal Andreae")
  re: Sudden Laziness ("Mark Tumarkin")
  San Antonio? ("Spencer W. Thomas")
  Re: Force Carbonation (Demonick)
  Mecca compass ("Davies, Steve")
  Distance in Beers (Nathan Matta)
  Dreaming of Fruit Beer (Grenadine, Cranberry) (Alexandre Enkerli)
  Re: Force Carbonation (Spencer W Thomas)
  Re: n/a beer (Spencer W Thomas)
  UM MAlt ... ("Stephen Alexander")


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Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2001 22:22:38 -0700 (PDT)
From: Denis Bekaert <Denis-B at rocketmail.com>
Subject: Raspberry beer

Stephan asked..."With the onset of fall, I have been
brewing more and have decided that I would like to add
a Raspberry pale ale to the list.  With so many
recommendations as how to go about using fruit in a
pale ale, I am starting to get confused.  What is the
proper way to utilize raspberry in a pale ale? "

I just returned from a visit to Austin, during which I
made a couple of trips to St. Patricks of Texas...and
they have a Belgian Raspberry juice that you add at
bottling/kegging that supposed to be just the ticket.
This would eliminate much of the haze problem. It's
about 7.5 USD for a pint, but very pure stuff. I'm
going to try it later this Fall....


Denis in Beechgrove, Tennessee where moonshine is our
history, but homebrewing is our passion



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Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2001 01:29:25 -0400
From: ensmingr at twcny.rr.com
Subject: free beer bottles available

Greetings,

I have 5 cases (~5x24 bottles) of clean, delabelled, brown, 12 oz
bottles to donate to a needy homebrewer. You just need to pick them up
at my house here in Syracuse, NY. Send me a note if you're interested.

Cheerio!
Peter A. Ensminger
Syracuse, NY



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Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2001 00:27:06 -0600
From: Brett Hetherington <Bretth at idcomm.com>
Subject: The Definitive LPG vs. Natural Gas Manifesto

Howdy Wortheads,

It's simple.
LPG is heavier than air, so it sinks.
Natural gas is lighter than air, so it rises.
You might not smell a propane leak, but you'll probably smell a natural
gas leak, since your nose is on your face, not your foot.
Most people have hot water heaters which have burners situated near the
floor.
LPG + hot water heaters = roofs  (rooves?) rising several feet into the
air.
A lot of people are killed or left homeless each year from using
gasoline as a cleaner inside their homes, because gasoline creates
heavier-than-air vapor too.
Millions of people rely on propane to heat their homes safely though.
Here are a couple of things that you can do to use propane inside your
home safely:
Use copper line to connect your equipment to your propane tank which is
stored outside.
Use a regulator rated for outdoor use, or make a protective cover out of
a 5 gallon bucket.
Use your nose for a primary leak test. Get right up there and sniff! Use
soapy water for a secondary leak test, just spray it liberally on all
the joints with a spray bottle. Look for growing bubbles. If both of
those test negative, It's probably safe to run a cigarette lighter or
match around all your fittings. This will reveal even the tiniest of
leaks. If you blow yourself up though, remember, I AIN'T GOT NO MONEY,
So don't come whining to me! you've been warned.

Make Beer, Not War.

 -Brett




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Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2001 06:46:33 -0400 (EDT)
From: Steven S <steven at 403forbidden.net>
Subject: Re: Raspberry Pale Ale



> What is the proper way to utilize raspberry in a pale ale?

proper? i think whatever works! 

>Do I use frozen berries, pureee, or juice?  
I used fresh/frozen in my first attempt at a Raspberry Wheat. I took fresh
fruit and froze it. My latest attempt i just got store bought frozen
fruit with no preservatives. A high quality puree might work better, less
fruit cruft to have to filter out or wait to settle. 

>Do I add to secondary, steep in the wort, add to both primary and
>secondary?  

I'm of the opinion that putting it in the wort would probably kill off the
aroma that I'm looking for. I rack onto the raspberrys in my secondary,
once primary fermentation is almost done. I got a nice secondary
fermentation this time around. Has to keep the blow off tube in place.

>Can pectin enzyme, used to reduce haze, be used in beer?  

I noticed a good deal of haze at first with mine, which i asked about on
hbd. I put the carboy outside for a few cold evenings and what ever was
the major contributor to the murk dropped out. When i bottled it was dark
red and with a normal wheat haze.

>Any recipes or information concerning raspberry pale ales would be
>greatly appreciated.  

Cant help here, i'm not a big Pale Ale fan nor have I brewed any PA's but
I would suggest find the PA recipe everyone else loves and throw the
raspberrys in.

>P.s.  I am extract brewing, as all of my all-grain is stuck in storage,
>until the basement is finished.....

Nothing wrong with that, i brew all grain batches in my tiny apt
kitchen. A closet looks like a brewery exploded in it.



 Steven St.Laurent ::: stevensl at mindspring.net ::: 403forbidden.net
	[580.2, 181.4] Rennerian ::: Lilburn (atlanta) GA

"Dictators ride to and fro upon tigers which they dare not dismount. 
And the tigers are getting hungry." Winston Churchill - 1937





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Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2001 07:01:15 -0400
From: gsferg at clary.gwi.net
Subject: Re: Rennerian calculator correction...


Our Fearless Janitor spake thusly:

>Well! In spite of the thesis by our esteemed colleague, George S.
>Fergusson (and others), I believe the Rennerian Coordinate calculator
>should display its values in the Henning Coordinate System of [Distance,
>Bearing] as origuinally defined so as not to confuse anyone associated
>with reality. Unfortunately, though, to that same definition, we'll be
>forced to bury Jeff in his back yard in order to make the calculation
>static. To this end, I propose that we refer to the coordinates in our
>system as APPARENT Rennerian, pointing to his domicile. I'm sure Jeff
>would prefer this to his imminent and untimely demise - an event required
>to mack ACTUAL Rennerian a static number.

At the risk of perpetuating what appears to be a horribly off-topic (if 
popular) thread and completing the task of making a total ass of myself, I'm 
going to respond to this.

You make a good point about the risk of confusing people and after much 
ponderous deliberation and a few beers I must concur: [distance,bearing] it 
is. I'm all the time confusing anyone associated with reality, at least that's 
what my wife tells me. What was I thinking!

I also agree completely with your suggestion of fixing the coordinate origin 
on Jeff's house rather than on Jeff himself, and for the use of the term 
APPARENT to show that there are perhaps coordinate corrections that need be 
applied. There is nothing worse than a moving target! One reason why the use 
of true north is so appealing to land surveyors is that the north pole doesn't 
move whereas magnetic north wanders around many miles over a relatively short 
period of time (a few years). Actually, not to get too fussy, but the north 
pole wanders around too, due to precession but only in about a 250' circle and 
at that, over 250,000 years or so. The effect of the north pole moving 30 
inches over our lifetime isn't appreciable on a true bearing; the effect on a 
Rennerian coordinate of Jeff driving 5 miles to Walmart would excessive.

>As for the derivation of the same system in terms of "Beering", I do
>believe this is worthy of further study! I need a base of reference for
>the division. If a few intrepid individuals in areas where walking about
>whilst consuming homebrew is legal (which rules out most Canadian cities -
>unless you can carry a roof about with you) and each owning a GPS could
>consume a standard 12oz homebrew whilst walking in a straight line
>(challenging if you've been in multiple trials of this derivation) could
>report back with their linear distance travelled and, perhaps, their
>height, stride length and any impediments to mobility they may be stricken
>with, we can, perhaps, make this happen in terms of an ideal "average"
>home brewer...


Oh Phew! I was worried for a while that people would think this was a really 
stupid idea. However, my worries, along with my anxiety, gradually subsided 
after I had a few homebrews! Worrying is after all like paying interest on a 
debt you may never incur.

I have received some feedback from a few readers politely suggesting that I'm 
cracked, or on crack (I wasn't sure which) but none of them suggested it was a 
stupid idea, just one fraught with difficulties. I agree! We should not be 
deterred!

I hereby volunteer for a position on the team of "intrepid individuals" and 
look forward to providing some solid quantitative data for this initiative. 
While it is probably illegal here in Maine to walk around drinking publicly, I 
live in the country and I believe I can get 4-5 miles, or 5-6 beers (which 
ever comes first) down the road before getting picked up (and likely delivered 
home) by the local constable. This will certainly provide enough data for a 
first approximation.

I think what we're looking for here is a good average. My foot isn't exactly 1 
US Foot long, but that hasn't caused major problems for me. The likelihood 
that my beer consumption and length of pace whilst striding purposefully down 
the road might be more, or less, than that of some other "intrepid individual" 
isn't going to horribly skew the data either. What we do need however is a 
good representative sample, and we should all agree to a simple set of 
experimental criteria so that the results are more or less comparable. At the 
risk of taking all the fun out of this, I propose the following rules:

1) We either haul a wagon of beer (as Dennis Collins has suggested privately) 
or have a support vehicle following us with homebrew on tap as opposed to 
carrying beer. This is to prevent skewing the data in favor of big strong 
people who can carry more beer.

2) We all drink a really hoppy Pale Ale.

3) Avoid steep hills and excessively hot weather which could skew the results.

4) Do it several times and average your results.

5) Relax. Don't hurry. Have a Homebrew.

For those of you in more urban settings where cops might be inclined to jail 
you, why not use one of those walking exercise treadmill thingies! Great idea! 
Then your experiment could be conducted in the privacy of your own home 
without the risk of getting arrested, lost, harrassed, or mugged (except 
perhaps by your wife). Added benefit: ample beer supply, digital readout of 
distance traveled, speed in miles per hour (easily converted to gallons per 
hour) and calories burned!

Rolf Karlsson's first-pass approximation of 3 beers to the mile I suspect is 
not far from wrong. I'll let you know what I come up with.

Feets don't fail me now!

George-

- -- 
George S. Fergusson <gsferg at clary.gwi.net>
Oracle DBA, Programmer, Humorist
Whitefield, Maine US [729.7, 79.6] Renerian
- --------------
I am a man, I can change, if I have to, I guess.





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Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2001 21:22:23 +1000
From: "Phil & Jill Yates" <yates at acenet.com.au>
Subject: Burning Bras And Airlocks

Jeff Renner quotes Gary Krone with the following:
>I brewed a batch of Robust Porter last week and activity in the airlock
>started like crazy the next day.  After that it stopped cold.  I just
>checked the SG and it is at 1.020.  OG was 1.046  at  80 degrees.  Should I
>pitch another batch of yeast into it to get the SG down closer to the
>recommended FG of 1.012?  Or should I just rack into into the secondary and
>let it go?

Jeff had some good suggestions for Gary and he may well be right on target.
But before Gary gets too worried I would suggest he make sure that his
airlock is not misleading him. I used to think of the bubbling from the
airlock as a natural part of brewing and a good indication of activity.
Until one day I realised that the slightest break in the seal will end all
visual excitement observed from the airlock and can lead one to believe that
fermentation activity has ceased. Doc Pivo once expressed his disgust in the
faith brewers put in their airlock. I am inclined to agree with him. I have
long since given up using the silly little things. In fact I view all
brewers who put any faith in this little piece of plastic crap as pure
infidels! In Burradoo the use of such is banned. Infidels are shot on
sight!!

I could be way off the mark in my advice to Gary, but I strongly recommend
to all brewers that you visually observe the goings on in your fermentation
rather than the poot poot poot chuffing out of your airlock. Throw the silly
thing away!

Women in the 1970's did just that with their bras!!

Brewers in the 21st century should do the same with their airlocks!! But
please don't burn them. I used to enjoy burning my girlfriend's bras, but
these plastic airlocks really give off a stink (worse than Ray's bottle of
skunk oil)!

Sorry Pat, you are probably going to ban me.

Cheers
Phil





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Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2001 06:52:43 -0500
From: "Zemo" <zemo at buyvictory.com>
Subject: Hot Scotchies!

Nils Hedglin queried:
> On a completely unrelated topic, I was talking to another homebrewer about
> mixed beer drinks (Snakebite, Raddler, etc).  He said he likes to make a
> drink of 2 parts wort, straight from the lauter tun, & 1 part whiskey.
I've
> asked around a bit, but noone has ever heard about this.  He says it has a
> similar affect as the Raddler, the wort cuts the strong alcohol taste &
the
> alcohol cuts the strong sweet taste.  Has anyone else tried this?

Maybe Ray Daniels remembers his source, but I first read this in his book
_101 Ideas for Homebrew Fun_. His recipe called for scotch instead of
whiskey. I've turned a few people on to this, but always get strange looks,
since sparge/runoff is usually before 9am. 8^)>

Zemo
232,262 Rennerian (static?)



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Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2001 08:22:45 -0400
From: "Mark Tumarkin" <mark_t at ix.netcom.com>
Subject: re: UNC chemists figure out what casues skunkiness

Marc,

Thanks for the heads up on the work being done at UNC & in Belgium on the
causes of skunkiness.

You gave us the URL http://www.unc.edu/news/newsserv/research/forbes101801.htm

in that article, they say:
"A report on the findings will appear in the Nov. 5 issue of a publication
called Chemistry - A European Journal and appeared online this weeek. Besides
Forbes, authors are UNC chemistry doctoral student Colin S. Burns and Dr.
Denis De Keukeleire and his doctoral student Arne Heyerick of the University
of Gent in Belgium."

Can you point us to the online info mentioned?

The article also says that the "Belgian collaborators have applied for a
patent on a process that will alter and retard the photochemistry of beer to
make the beverage easier to store and give it a longer shelf life." It will
certainly be interesting to see where this leads.

thanks,

Mark Tumarkin
Gainesville, FL





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Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2001 08:59:14 -0400
From: Jeff Renner <JeffRenner at mediaone.net>
Subject: Re: What ever happened to........

"David Craft" <David-Craft at craftinsurance.com> asked:

>What ever happened to........
>
>Good old Latitude and Longitude

Truth be told, none of it is as useful as town and 
state/province/country etc., which has been the whole point of this 
fun.

The advantage is shown by Alex Enkerli <aenkerli at indiana.edu>, who 
you might think from his email address is in Bloomington, but:

>Speaking of beer-drinking in Montreal streets, I'd like to know from
>other Montreal HBDers. There's a few Montreal HB resources on the Net
>but meeting more local HBers is always fun.

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: Wed, 24 Oct 2001 09:38:30 -0400
From: "Neal Andreae" <cstone at shentel.net>
Subject: Holiday Beer

I did an extract Holiday beer a couple weeks ago with assorted spices. It
fermented violently for two days then settled down but the krausen(?) looked
kind of creamy unlike the others I have done.. After 7 days I racked to the
secondary and the yeast kicked in again and has been steadily bubbling for
three days. Another creamy kind of krausen(?) has developed. It tasted and
smelled good when I racked to secondary. Is this a sign of contamination or
what. OG 1085     SG 1040   FG????  Wyeast American Ale II was used.

Neal
Upperville, Virginia



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Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2001 09:36:55 -0400
From: "Mark Tumarkin" <mark_t at ix.netcom.com>
Subject: re: Sudden Laziness

Michael writes:
"I'm brewing an American Amber ale from extracts, and everything seemed to be
smurfy. The primary fermenter started burping like mad within 8 hours after
pitching Munton's ale yeast, but then by 30 hours it inexplicably "stopped
cold". I went ahead and racked to secondary at three days, but I was
surprised how much gunk there was in there (hop pellet leftovers, irish
moss, and ??etc??).

Gravities Expected Measured
Original 1.048 (I think) Right around there
3 days ?? 1.015
Final 1.008-012 N/A

So did I contaminate it somehow (easy enough to believe)? Should I just toss
it now and pretend it never happened?"

Well, Michael, you describe what sounds like a typical (though not ideal)
fermentation and also typical questions for a new brewer.  The short answers
to your questions are:

1) Probably not; taste it and find out.
2) No!!! Certainly not before giving it plenty of aging time, and repeating
answer #1.

The longer answers are a bit, well, longer. By your description, I'd guess
that the fermentation was done at ambient room temperature and proceeded
normally till finished (judging by your final gravity which seems to be within
the expected numbers). While the fermentation was quick, this is common for
many homebrewers and can still produce quite good beer.

In asking about possible contamination, you say it's "easy enough to believe".
Why? Do you have questions about your sanitation processes? While it's
possible (probable?) that you may have low level contamination; it's also
likely that your beer is quite drinkable, with any contamination being below
taste thresholds or at least at tolerable levels. It's very difficult to
totally eliminate all the nasties in your wort/finished beer, and any that
make it through can create problems that become more noticeable with longer
storage times. The nasties are able to consume fermentables that are left by
the yeast, thus leading to a lower gravity, drier beer as well as off flavors.
If you suspect a low level infection, it's a good idea to consume that batch
quickly. With many homebrewers and their friends, that's generally not a
problem :>)

Your second question, "Should I just toss it now and pretend it never
happened?", is also a common one for new brewers with a problem. The answer is
definitely NO, on both counts. Don't toss it, that's alcohol abuse. Certainly
give it a good long aging period (at least six months) before giving up. They
say time heals all wounds. While this isn't necessarily so with a problem
brew;  given time some problem flavors may fade or combine with other flavors
to the point where your beer is drinkable. Even if the beer stays undrinkable,
don't pretend it never happened. Use it as a learning experience. See if you
can figure out what caused the problem and how to avoid it in the future. And
keep good, detailed notes on brewing sessions to aid in this process.

Now, the reason you asked these questions (and the reason most of us read the
HBD) is that you want to brew better beer. There are many things that will
help you make better beer, but there are some practices that will have the
greatest impact in improving your beer and your questions lead directly to
several these.

1) Sanitation
2) Sanitation
3) Sanitation
4) Fermentation temperature control
5) Use large, stepped-up  yeast starters

Don't get anal about it but be as scrupulously clean as possible in your
brewing. My strong recommendation would be to use a no-rinse sanitizer like
iodophor or Star-san. Search the back archives of the HBD and you'll find lots
of info about best practices, different sanitizers, etc. Ditto on #4 and #5.
Fermentation temp control will have a tremendous impact on your beer quality.
The yeast love a warm, ambient room temp fermentation but it can lead to off
flavors that are easily avoided with a cooler, controlled fermentation. A
dedicated fridge with a temp controller is the best solution, but if this is
more money (or space) than you can want, there are other cheaper, smaller
solutions. Again, check the archives for some of the creative solutions that
other HBD'rs have come up with. A large starter will help you avoid
contamination and brew cleaner beer (at least assuming you practice good
sanitation while making the starter).

Some other high impact practices:

6) Oxygenate your starters & wort
7) Use the best quality & freshest ingredients
8) Taste your beer (and other's) critically and think about the flavors you
perceive in terms of the brewing processes and ingredients that created these
flavors
9) Read the HBD, join your local homebrew club, enter competitions for
feedback (or get feedback from the judges & brewers in your local club)
10) Brew Often

anyway, hope this helps and hope your beer turned out well

Mark Tumarkin
Gainesville, FL








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Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2001 10:51:58 -0400
From: "Spencer W. Thomas" <spencer at umich.edu>
Subject: San Antonio?

I'll be in San Antonio, TX Nov 28 - Dec 1.  From pubcrawler, it looks
like the brewpub scene is pretty much not, with a single brewpub worth
going to.  Any other recommendations?  I'll be staying near the River
Walk, and won't have a car.

=S



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Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2001 08:10:57 -0700
From: Demonick <demonick at zgi.com>
Subject: Re: Force Carbonation

From: Ant Hayes <Ant.Hayes at FifthQuadrant.co.za>

> ... bubbles being smaller than force carbonated wine bubble came up. My
> understanding of force carbonation is that bubble size is a function of
> how slowly the gas was dissolved, the size of the holes in the
> carbonation stone, and how long the carbonated liquid is left to settle.

I've heard this over and over again and I can't let it go by again.  Once
the CO2 is dissolved in the liquid, it all comes out of solution the same
way.  In short, how the CO2 gets into solution is irrelevant.  Once in
solution it forgets how it got there.  How it comes out of solution is
dependent ONLY on the nature and characteristics of the liquid.

Whether the CO2 is put in solution by burping yeast or a coarse airstone or
a fine airstone or simply shaken into solution under pressure, has NO
effect on what happens when the CO2 fizzes out of solution.  What happens
when the CO2 comes out of solution is dependent on the temperature and
characteristics of the solution only.  For example there may be a
difference between how equal amounts of CO2 come out of solution between a
light Pilsner and a heavy Scotch Ale.  There will be no difference between
how CO2 comes out of solution between 2 identical Pilsners carbonated to 
the same extent in different ways.

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: Wed, 24 Oct 2001 11:50:19 -0400
From: "Davies, Steve" <Steve.Davies at dciem.dnd.ca>
Subject: Mecca compass




> Rennerian coordinates must include errors.  Rennerian distances are
> straight-line, a homebrewer could not walk and drink each Rennerian route;
> just imagine any terrain (snow, boulder, swamp, ocean, house) that you
> must cross in a continuously straight line.  Walking speed depends upon
> height / stride length, age, fitness, terrain, rate of elevation change
> plus environmental conditions.  As a British Columbia Forester all
> coordinates used were bearing then distance; the first value obtained from
> a mapped route was compass bearing then its linear map distance.
> 
> Rennerian needs 2 assumptions:  1. A Walking Speed based upon age, height
> and fitness.  Read the following URL but screen down 34? times past a
> formula and bullets to the pedestrian velocity paragraphs.  Exercise
> research and countless mathematical models (crosswalk light timing and the
> upcoming windchill charts) suggest 3mph (4.83km/h).
> http://ntl.bts.gov/DOCS/97095/ch02/body_ch02_02.html
> 
> 2. A Straight-Line Distance Unit that can be converted to 'Beers' without
> using highway mileage.  The group question is, "How many beer can one
> comfortably consume per first hour of responsible drinking?"  The stomach
> and intestinal tract can absorb 1200ml/h (40.58oz/h) at 3mph (4.828km/h).
> I suggest 3 beer per hour, so, every mile equals a beer.
> http://www.speckdesign.com/Tools2a.html
> 
> Rennerians suppose a Mecca of Jeff Renner - much like a braille compass.
> I suggest the following signature format regardless of Rennerian love:
> __________________________________________
> 
> Steven  Davies
> sdavies at dciem.dnd.ca
> Toronto, Ontario, Canada



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Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2001 12:28:18 -0400
From: Nathan Matta <whatsa at MIT.EDU>
Subject: Distance in Beers

I was telling SWMBO about the suggestion to measure Rennerian distances
in beers, and she had a good argument.  What's the point of a unit of
distance if it isn't useful in a practical system?  Smokes is a reasonable
unit in which to describe an area, since you could actually smoke and
ride.  After, say, 8 smokes you could stop, and be where you were trying
to go.  Beers don't really work in the same way.  Even within the
continental US, it really isn't meaningful to say, "Just head west, and
drink 83 beers.  I'm the blue house on the right with the yard gnomes."

If we say that 1 beer is equal to 2 miles, then you're really measuring
the distance in miles (since that's what anyone will convert to before
using the measurement).  Obviously the same goes for kilometers, etc.

As entertaining as the idea is, I fear that the beers measurement is
only useful on a very small scale.  Unless, of course, we use Beers to
indicate how many beers an average homebrewer would consume during
the trip to the destination in question.

For example:
 From Cambridge, MA (my current location) to Cedar Rapids, IA (my hometown),
is about 22 hours of driving.  Assuming a reasonable speed and endurance,
I would probably take 2 days to make this trip.  Say 1 beer for lunch, 2
beers at dinner, would mean I was 6 beers away from home.

Obviously this method isn't perfect.  First of all, this means that the
entire continental US is only maybe 90 square beers.  The measurement is
far too coarse (and by its nature we can't use fractions.  Who among you
would toss any portion of a decent beer?).  Also, nothing is said about
the mode of travel.  I suppose that could be specified.  So I would be
3 beers by plane, 6 beers by car, or probably about 180 beers by foot from
Cedar Rapids.

Just a few thoughts...

Nathan
========================================
Nathan Matta
Fuzzy Beer Home Brewery
Randolph, MA, USA



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Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2001 12:42:03 -0400 (EDT)
From: Alexandre Enkerli <aenkerli at indiana.edu>
Subject: Dreaming of Fruit Beer (Grenadine, Cranberry)

Hello all!
I just tasted a fairly good beer...in a dream. It was a Bavarian grenadine
weiss, as far as I could tell. It was full-bodied, sweet, not hoppy, had a
fairly powerful grenadine taste but wasn't at all like a cooler. I know
this all sounds strange, but I'd like to take up my dream's challenge.
Now, I'll need advice on this one.  Any idea on how I could give grenadine
taste to a weiss? Adding pomegranate seeds? Or is pure grenadine extract
available?
Oh, and as the finished product would likely be hazy (with all the
pectine), I'll call it either "dunstiger Traum" or "unscharfer Traum."
I might in fact resort to the obvious: adding grenadine syrup to the
finished brew. But where's the challenge in that?

Also, this dream might relate to something I thought of a few weeks ago. I
was drinking a pint of a tangy Belgian wit that I had just made and had the
idea of adding pure cranberry extract to it. The result was too tart to my
taste but the overall mix wasn't bad at all. So, what's the best road to a
sweet cranberry wit? High mash temp? Crystal malt? Non-attenuative yeast? A
combination of all of this?

TIA for your help.
Alex in Montreal
[62.8, 893.3km] BD Rennerian

Alex Enkerli
Ph.D. Candidate
Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology
Indiana University




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Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2001 15:15:51 -0400
From: Spencer W Thomas <spencer at engin.umich.edu>
Subject: Re: Force Carbonation 

>>>>> "Ant" == Ant Hayes <Ant.Hayes at FifthQuadrant.co.za> writes:


    Ant> I was at a wine tasting class last night, and the old story
    Ant> of Champagne bubbles being smaller than force carbonated wine
    Ant> bubble came up.

Dissolved gas is dissolved gas.  It doesn't matter how it got there.

So what is different about "naturally carbonated" beverages from
"force carbonated" beverages?

Off the top of my head, I suspect that it has to do with compounds
released by the yeast during and after carbonation.  Because that's
the only difference that I can think of between a force-carbonated
and naturally-carbonated "versions" of the same beverage.

My opinion, based on having had a year of college chemistry and a
physics degree.

=Spencer


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Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2001 15:40:39 -0400
From: Spencer W Thomas <spencer at engin.umich.edu>
Subject: Re: n/a beer 

>>>>> "Nathan" == Nathan Matta <whatsa at MIT.EDU> writes:

    Nathan> As long as you were using a heat bath to drive the alcohol
    Nathan> out of the beer without collecting the vapor I don't think
    Nathan> this would be an issue.

You know, I hadn't thought about it this way.  Is it illegal to pour
wine into a pan and boil it, because it "removes the alcohol" from the
wine?  Somehow I don't think so. :-)  Otherwise, many of us violate
the law on a regular basis, just cooking dinner.

=Spencer




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Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2001 18:42:32 -0400
From: "Stephen Alexander" <steve-alexander at att.net>
Subject: UM MAlt ...

Martin Brungard asks ...

>If undermodified grain just has less of the kernel converted,
>does that also mean that the unconverted portion is still raw?

Not exactly.  The whole kernel undergoes a number of changes to become even
poorly malted.  There are regions of greater and lesser change.  Also some
parameters of modification first increase then finally decrease while most
monotonically increase.

>If this is
>the case, couldn't the effect of undermodified grain be mimicked by adding
>a portion of raw barley (flaked or whole(if you can find it)) to the grist
>along with well-modified barley that we commonly have available?

Yes and no.   You could probably simulate it to some extent  by adding a
fraction of raw barley but there are problems.  Having a grist with 100%
undermodified malts will give a different set of soluble proteins and
beta-glucans than having 85% well-modified and 15% unmalted.  During after
WW2 the UK made beers with a percentage of raw barley, but the raw flavors
became significant above some modest level (~10% I think) .  The malting and
kilning process removes some of the grassy hexanal-related aroma/flavors and
adds toasted 'malty' flavors even to pale malts.  The original soaking of
barley before malting also washes off a lot of soluble husk phenolics.  I've
home malted a number of times and the water from the first soak looks like
weak tea.

>Looking at the undermodified barley specs, it appears that the
>undermodification is on the order of 10 to 15 percent based on the
>acrospire length data.  Could this mean that using 10 to 15 percent raw
>barley might produce the same effect.

You're in the right ballpark but you shouldn't base anything serious on
acrospire length.  It's a nice but very crude measure of modification.  It
can vary based on barley species and treatment by the maltster.  The things
we are really concerned about are issues like the degradation of
beta-glucans, and proteins and the development of enzymes and the
availability of carbohydrates.  These have separate and better measures.

>I assume that the raw barley would
>require the same low temp rests to properly convert the mash.

There's the rub.  The degradation of beta-glucans and proteins that occur
during malting are directly related to degradation of the cell walls within
the kernel's starchy  endosperm.  With these cell walls intact in raw grain
you'll have a tough time penetrating and performing any enzymatic
decomposition of the cell during mashing.  The low temp enzymes won't be
able to get in there.  After a boil (decoction or pre-cooking) the cell
walls are significantly disrupted, so the enzymes will have more to work on.
Still my recollection is that the starch becomes more accessible, but the
three enzymes which are synergistically involved in the cell wall
degradation won't do much work in the mash tun.

You're right Martin - adding some raw grain is in some ways similar to using
undermodified malt, but it's not similar enough to consider it a replacement
process, particularly in terms of flavor.

 -S






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