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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
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Contents:
  Subject: Tobacco stout? ("Larry Cooney")
  Re Water Retention in Mash (John Palmer)
  the double sparge (Phil Wilcox)
  Re: Tobacco stout? (Jeff Renner)
  Tobacco and Beer? ("Dennis Collins")
  Re: Tobacco stout ("Pannicke, Glen A.")
  re:Subject: Tobacco stout? ("Ralph Davis")
  mash water loss ("Micah Millspaw")
  Re: bottle testing (Roger Deschner)
  Re: Liquid Yeast Trouble ("Mike Pensinger")
  RE: Liquid Yeast Trouble (Brian Levetzow)
  WATER RETENTION IN MASH ("George Krafcisin")
  An old post question ("Hodges, Walt")
  Re: Tobacco stout (Svlnroozls)
  tobacco in beer? (Jeff & Ellen)
  RE: Liquid Yeast Trouble ("Kirk Fleming")


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Date: Tue, 11 Dec 2001 23:49:21 -0500
From: "Larry Cooney" <lyvewire1 at hotmail.com>
Subject: Subject: Tobacco stout?


Ralph Davis writes:
As a fan of good stout and cigars... (who is fermenting a batch of Imp.
Stout now and who has some old ripped up cigars on hand), has anyone tried
putting tobacco into beer?  I mean tobacco does smell good, and maybe could
be used for dry hopping to ad aroma... Anyone out there ever try this?  Or
maybe some other way of combining these two pleasures?


Ralph that's a question I had on my mind! I was thinking of a Copenhagen
Ale! (I'd use the tobacco before chewing it though!)  Larry Cooney  (no
breing zip code!)


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Date: Tue, 11 Dec 2001 22:34:46 -0800
From: John Palmer <jjpalmer at gte.net>
Subject: Re Water Retention in Mash

Mark asks how much water is retained in the spent grain in his mash so he
can calculate just how much sparge water he needs to drain to fill his
boiler.

I quote .5 quarts per pound in my book (hardcopy edition only) (it's not in
the online edition), which I got initially from Ken Schwartz and Jeff
Donovan. My friend Shawn Olsson, who has done this a few times, says the
number is actually a bit less, .488 quarts per pound. Louis Bonham says/uses
 .40 quarts per lb. YMMV. When I look at these numbers, I say use .5 and you
won't come out short.
Good Brewing,
John
- -- 
John Palmer
john at howtobrew.com

Palmer House Brewery and Smithy
http://www.realbeer.com/jjpalmer

How To Brew - the online book
http://www.howtobrew.com



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Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2001 08:36:04 -0500
From: Phil Wilcox <pjwilcox at cmsenergy.com>
Subject: the double sparge

mark,

Two things:

One: on my system I get about 0.6 qts per lb of grain as absorbtion so
for my Doppelbock I get 17.1 gts absorbed for a grain bill of 27 lbs.

Two: If your going to do a second sparge for a small beer you absolutely
DONT want to run the bed dry the first time. This will ruin the "filter
bed" and set the mash. You will have a serious PITA trying to make that
second sparge happen. You would have to float the mash, stir, let it
settle, then recirculate again then run off, where as if you just
continuously sparge, you cut off #one when you hit your volume mark,
then just switch the hose to the other vessel and continue. Saves a fair
amount of heat, a half-hour and a couple of swear words.

Phil Wilcox
90deg, 32miles rennerian



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Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2001 08:53:01 -0500
From: Jeff Renner <JeffRenner at mediaone.net>
Subject: Re: Tobacco stout?

"Ralph Davis" <rdavis77 at erols.com>, who says he is at [6699, 91.9] 
Rennerian (what is 6699 miles east of me?), writes:

>As a fan of good stout and cigars... (who is fermenting a batch of Imp.
>Stout now and who has some old ripped up cigars on hand), has anyone tried
>putting tobacco into beer?  I mean tobacco does smell good, and maybe could
>be used for dry hopping to ad aroma... Anyone out there ever try this?  Or
>maybe some other way of combining these two pleasures?

I have two thoughts on this.

Bell Eccentric Ale http://www.bellsbeer.com/ is brewed on Eccentric 
Day in December every year and released one year later.  It is 
typically an 11% beer and reputedly all of the employees contribute 
an ingredient.  (The Ann Arbor Brewers Guild brewed a similar beer at 
our BeerBQ this summer).  Several years ago it was rumored that one 
of the ingredients was a pack of chewing tobacco.

However, I also remember reading many years ago that as the Third 
Reich fell (988 years ahead of schedule), the Nazis ran out of 
cyanide pills for all the frightened Gauleiters and such, and it was 
recommended that they soak a cigar in brandy for some hours and gulp 
it down.  It was supposed to kill them on the spot (and save us the 
trouble) by stopping the heart.  I don't know if that would really 
work.  I'll bet it tasted horrible, though.

Nicotine is miscible in water, and I'd worry that there might be a 
dangerous amount in your beer.  There is a Safety Data Sheet for 
nicotine at http://physchem.ox.ac.uk/MSDS/NI/nicotine.html.  It is 
listed as "Poison - may be fatal if inhaled, swallowed or absorbed 
through the skin. Readily absorbed through the skin."  The oral rat 
LD50 is 50mg/kg, which would work out to ~4 grams for a typical man. 
That's a fair amount of nicotine, but it would take less to make you 
sick.

I think I'll stick to hops.

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, 12 Dec 2001 09:11:59 -0500
From: "Dennis Collins" <dcollins at drain-all.com>
Subject: Tobacco and Beer?

Ralph writes:

"As a fan of good stout and cigars... (who is fermenting a batch of Imp.
Stout now and who has some old ripped up cigars on hand), has anyone tried
putting tobacco into beer?  I mean tobacco does smell good, and maybe could
be used for dry hopping to ad aroma... Anyone out there ever try this?  Or
maybe some other way of combining these two pleasures?"

Ralph W. Davis
[6699, 91.9] Rennerian

Ralph,

It's funny that you mention this.  My boss gave me the day off for my
birthday yesterday which I took advantage of by making a Porter.  I also
purchased a Macanudo cigar to enjoy during the boil after the post-mash
clean up.  As I was savoring the flavor of the cigar and enjoying a homebrew
while the wort was boiling away I thought BRIEFLY about the combination of
cigars and dark beer.  Then I thought better of it.  To be honest, my
homebrew horizon's are rather narrow (as anyone in the Tennessee Valley
Homebrewers can attest) and the thought of tasting cigars in my beer is akin
to garlic flavored ice cream.

But since we ARE homebrewers, anything is possible.  You could try dry
hopping it like you said, or maybe, if you have an aquarium pump, you could
blow smoke into the intake and bubble the cigar smoke through the wort?  Do
you have a hop back?

As for combining these two pleasures, well, that's why God gave us two
hands.  Try one in each.  But if you insist, let us know how it turns out.

Dennis Collins
Knoxville, TN
[7.5572e-11 light years, 3.18 Radians] Apparent Rennerian
"In theory, theory and practice are the same, but not in practice."



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Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2001 09:30:04 -0500
From: "Pannicke, Glen A." <glen_pannicke at merck.com>
Subject: Re: Tobacco stout

Ralph Davis wrote of tobacco stout:

>As a fan of good stout and cigars... (who is fermenting a batch of Imp.
>Stout now and who has some old ripped up cigars on hand), has anyone tried
>putting tobacco into beer?  I mean tobacco does smell good, and maybe could
>be used for dry hopping to ad aroma... Anyone out there ever try this?  Or
>maybe some other way of combining these two pleasures?

I would caution the use of tobacco in any food product as it contains
nicotine, which is a poison.  I guess you could say that I regularly poison
myself by smoking cigarettes, but the amount of nicotine obtained by smoking
is too low to kill me outright.  (It'll take a while for all the other crap
to do it though).  The amount found to be lethal to 50% of the population
(LD50) of orally administered nicotine is 50 mg/kg in rats and 3340 ug/kg in
mice.  As you can see, the LD50 results in both animals are drastically
different, so don't use them for extrapolatation into human terms.  
I'm sure one cigar in 5 gallons of stout would not kill you, but it might be
enough to make you sick.  The symptoms would include nausea, vommiting,
convulsions, and a host of other unpleasantries.  My point is that you
proceed with caution.  We wouldn't want you barfing up your shoes on only a
single beer.  Someone might think you were a lightweight ;-)
Carpe cerevisiae!

Glen A. Pannicke

glen at pannicke.net          http://www.pannicke.net
75CE 0DED 59E1 55AB 830F  214D 17D7 192D 8384 00DD
"I have made this letter longer than usual,
because I lack the time to make it short." - Blaise Pascal






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Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2001 09:56:36 -0500
From: "Ralph Davis" <rdavis77 at erols.com>
Subject: re:Subject: Tobacco stout?

"has anyone tried putting tobacco into beer? "

XXX   POISON!!! XXX

Gee guys---I had no idea!  Thanks for the warning.  For anyone else
contemplating this DON'T DO IT!!!!!  Tobacco is poison when liquefied...
One guy even wrote me saying the CIA had figured out how to make one cigar
into a deadly poison "using a pin."  OUCH!

I'll leave my John Harvard's recipe Imperial Stout alone, thanks!

Ralph W. Davis
[6699, 91.9] Rennerian

"Beer is living proof that God loves us
and wants us to be happy."   -Benjamin Franklin




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Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2001 13:26:27 -0600
From: "Micah Millspaw" <MMillspa at silganmfg.com>
Subject: mash water loss


>Date: Tue, 11 Dec 2001 06:54:14 -0600
>From: msnyder at wm.com 
>Subject: Water retention in mash
>Hi All,
>I'm wondering if anyone has a number for the amount of liquid retained
in a
>mash.  

A good number to use for the water loss due to grain absorbtion during

the mash
is 1 gallon lost for every 11 pounds of grain. 

Micah Millspaw - brewer at large


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Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2001 13:30:17 -0600 (CST)
From: Roger Deschner <rogerd at uic.edu>
Subject: Re: bottle testing

>To test the pressure-worthiness of a swing top bottle, I
>would recommend the following:
>Add 1/4 tsp of baking soda to your bottle. 
>Add a teaspoon of vinegar and close the bottle immediately.
>Submerge the bottle  in a bucket of water and watch for
>bubbles.
>Some caveats, if my recommended amounts of baking soda and
>vinegar are excessive, you may see leakage at some point. Or
>the bottles might blow up on you.
>be sure to soak the bottles in bleach and rinse thoroughly
>after testing to avoid acetobacter infection from the
>vingar.
>The whole idea is that  baking soda and vinegar give off
>carbon dioxide, thus causing positive pressure in your
>bottles.
 
For heaven's sakes don't do this! What you'll have is bottles exploding
underwater in a bucket. Broken glass and splashing water, vinegar, and
baking soda, flying all over the place! Yikes! And then you've got
vinegar and baking soda (Sodium Acetate, actually) in your bottles to
get out; that is, out of the ones that failed to explode.

Instead, test it with actual beer, because that's what you're going to
put in it. Get some Industrial Swill Beer. Milwaukee's Best Ice Light,
Keystone, or whatever is cheapest in your store. I call this stuff
"carboy rinse", but it should work fine for bottle testing, too. It has
no bothersome flavor, (they actually advertise that fact!), and it is
sterile and food-grade, making it perfect for this.

Fill the bottle with it to somewhat lower than your normal fill level,
in order to generate the best pressure. (Experimentation in order here.)
Shake. Now put the bottle in your bucket underwater and look for
bubbles. Fewer (hopefully none) of them should explode, because it's
just carbonated beer. Your bottle will already be sterile (assuming it
was sterile before the test) and ready to fill as soon as you pour out
the swill. It's also a great way to rinse out any remaining iodophor or
bleach before filling. If you chill the swill, you'll be filling cold
bottles with your good beer, which can be easier.

You can probably recycle one can of it into several bottles before it
looses all its fizz - they carbonate this junk fairly highly. (If you
are afraid of the high cost of bad beer, you could recycle it further by
putting it in a soda bottle and recarbonating it, but that seems
excessive care in handling a cheap junk product.)

Roger Deschner                                            rogerd at uic.edu
I'd rather have a bottle in front of me, than a frontal lobotomy.
              --Tom Waits




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Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2001 16:23:13 -0500
From: "Mike Pensinger" <beermkr at bellatlantic.net>
Subject: Re: Liquid Yeast Trouble

Brad Boes wrote:
   I have been having trouble with liquid yeast not working in my beer.  The
last 2 batches brewed have been with liquid yeast- not the smack pack, but
the vials of yeast from White labs- ordered through morebeer.com and shipped
to IL.  Pitched well before their expiration date.

Brad,  sounds to me like you are underpitching in a big way.  In my
experience the "pitchable" tubes and smack packs is barely enough to get the
job dones... especially if you are doing a high gravity beer.  Try stepping
up the vial in 600ml of wort.  You can use a 22 oz bottle to stepp it up and
see if that fixes your problem.

Mike Pensinger
beermkr at bellatlantic.net
http://members.bellatlantic.net/~beermkr/
Norfolk Virginia - [551.4, 132.9] Rennerian



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Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2001 16:35:56 -0500
From: Brian Levetzow <levetzowbt at home.com>
Subject: RE: Liquid Yeast Trouble

Brad wrote:

<snip>
>I brewed extract batches from recipes in the Clone Brew book, and pitched
>into 70-75 degree, very well aerated wort.  After 24 hrs. of no activity, 
>we pitched in dry ale yeast and that took right off- well, in a few 
>hours.  I suspect the long trip via UPS resulted in dead yeast. Has 
>anyone else experienced any trouble?

On the contrary.  I had a vial of WLP565 Belgian Saison that was TWO
YEARS OLD when I used it in October.  It was a tad slow getting going
(no starter, 1.060 wort), but it finally got going, and the beer is
fantastic.

Brad continues:

>Another question- the second batch is the Petrus Triple from the book, 
>which calls for Trappist Ale Yeast.  That's what I pitched, and then the 
>dry yeast 24 hours later.  Is it possible that some of the 
>characteristics of the trappist yeast might come through- even though the 
>yeast seemed dead, and fermentation didn't take off until after the dry 
>went in?  Also, might it have been a better idea to add some yeast 
>nutrient, rather than throwing in some more yeast?  Thanks in advance for 
>any insight you guys may provide-

Based on the fact that it's a Tripel, the OG was likely quite high, and
the yeast will take much longer to get going.  Most veterans will
recommend a starter when the OG gets over 1.070, even on the pitchable
vials.  Personally, I used a vial of WLP530 Abbey Ale yeast, no starter,
OG 1.083... again, it was slow to start, but that beer is awesome also!

The dry yeast may have taken over.  But perhaps there was some Belgian
yeasties going also that will help give you a hint of the flavor you're
looking for.

Prost!

- -- 
+++++++++++++++
Brian Levetzow
~
Laurel, MD
[425.7, 118.5] Apparent Rennerian


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Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2001 15:50:58 -0600
From: "George Krafcisin" <gkrafcisin at mindspring.com>
Subject: WATER RETENTION IN MASH

Mark Snyder asks about the amount of water left in the grain after mashing.
In Charlie Papazian's NCJHB (page 296), he states that one pound of grain
<will absorb and retain 0.1 gallon of water>.

Hope that helps.

George Krafcisin
Glencoe, IL



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Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2001 17:11:26 -0600
From: "Hodges, Walt" <whodges at teamists.com>
Subject: An old post question

Am an aspiring homebrewer, who has not yet brewed the first batch.  Am
reading and studying (I know, I should jump right in, but the spousal
unit is still leery of all of this.)
Anyway, RiedelD at pac.dfo-mpo.gc.ca <mailto:RiedelD at pac.dfo-mpo.gc.ca>
Spoke this on Tue, 27 Nov 2001 19:14:39 -0500
>Subject: Turkey frying?/Cask-conditioning foam trouble 
>Well, Can't really stand it anymore... pardon my ignorance, but this
whole turkey frying thing... 
>do you mean you dunk a whole turkey in hot oil and deep-fry it? Yikes!
How common a meal is this? 
>Is it a Thanksgiving only type- thing? How long does it take to cook? 
>Sorry to ask, but I'm totally unfamiliar with this idea (I'm guessing
most of the other Canadians, Aussies and Brits are too). 
In the U.S. we have many strange and eccentric customs.  One of which is
preparing the traditional Thanksgiving feast with a turkey as the main
"meat".  Various people have devised ways to cook the turkey, and
dunking a whole turkey in a 6 gallon pot filled with peanut oil is but
one of the "newer" methods of turkey preparation.
View http://www.bobandtom.com/gen3/index.htm  article for particulars:
It's fried turkey season!
Every year we dust off the beloved Fried Turkey recipe for thousands of
loyal Bob & Tom listeners who have integrated the sizzling, succulent
holiday feast into their regular holiday routine. This is a very
dangerous cooking process, so we advise that you exercise extreme
caution when preparing your bird using this method. 
If you have any new twists to add to our already near perfect recipe,
we'd like to hear from you! Send us your variations
<mailto:bobandtom at bobandtom.com> and we'll publish the best new ideas.
Here's the recipe! </gen3/fried_turkey.htm>



Thanks, 
Walt Hodges 
Network Engineer 
ISTS 
Work: (515) 334-4327 
Cell: (515) 577-2366 
"Fools you are... who say you like to learn from your mistakes.... I
prefer to learn from the mistakes of others and avoid the cost of my
own." Otto von Bismarck - Architect of the German Empire. Credited with
the 1871 unification of Germany. 





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Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2001 18:41:38 EST
From: Svlnroozls at aol.com
Subject: Re: Tobacco stout


In a message dated 12/11/01 8:16:12 PM, homebrew-request@hbd.org writes:

<< Date: Tue, 11 Dec 2001 20:18:38 -0500
From: "Ralph Davis" <rdavis77 at erols.com>
Subject: Tobacco stout?

As a fan of good stout and cigars... (who is fermenting a batch of Imp.
Stout now and who has some old ripped up cigars on hand), has anyone tried
putting tobacco into beer?  I mean tobacco does smell good, and maybe could
be used for dry hopping to ad aroma... Anyone out there ever try this?  Or
maybe some other way of combining these two pleasures?

Ralph W. Davis >>

You got two hands, right?
I say if you're really curious, go ahead and try it, but I can't imagine 
anything good coming of it.  I don't think it'll kill you, but it might make 
you wish it did.

C.T. Davis (no relation--that I know of)
Los Anguleez, CA


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Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2001 20:51:46 -0500
From: Jeff & Ellen <JeffNGladish at ij.net>
Subject: tobacco in beer?

Ralph Davis wrote "has anyone tried putting tobacco into beer?"
I was privileged to have a sample of Larry Bell's Eccentric Ale at the 
American Homebrewers Conference in New Orleans five or six years ago.  It 
listed a page and a half of ingredients and included Levi Garret chewing 
tobacco.  I don't think I can recommend this as an ingredient in beer.  Of 
course we'd just been given a sample of a jalapeno pepper barley wine and 
it was only 10 AM, but I'm pretty comfortable with my opinion on this.

Jeff Gladish, Tampa, Fl. (989.5,175.5)



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Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2001 20:55:27 -0800
From: "Kirk Fleming" <kirkfleming at earthlink.net>
Subject: RE: Liquid Yeast Trouble

In #3811 Brad Boes has trouble with liquid yeast. Are you making a =
starter? Typically folks who use liquid the first time pitch right from =
the smak pak or vial, and the usual recommendations include one or more =
of the following:

a) there's not enough yeast in standard smak paks or vials to pitch for =
a 5 gal or larger batch, and
b) you need to make a starter some time prior to brew day (such as =
anywhere from 1-5 days, or so).

Much has been written on 'pitching rates' which is mL of yeast solids =
per L of wort. Based on those calculations, I found that smak paks have =
ABOUT 1/10 of the yeast cell count recommended. As always, let the =
arguments begin.

Kirk Fleming
FRSE, FRSL, BSAe, MSAe, etc., etc.




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