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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
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Contents:
  How Hot to HERMS (Blue Nude Brewery)
  The Jethro Gump Report ("Rob Moline")
  Re: Trub as Fertilizer? ("Larry Bristol")
  re:  HSA, MBO and maillard (Paul Kensler)
  Pinkus Alt ("Robin Griller")
  Removal of Hot/Cold breaks - beneficial? (Alan Meeker)
  Min. Brewery size? ("TED MAJOR")
  RE: Campden tablets and MBO (Brian Lundeen)
  oxidation reality check, cold trub removal and other interesting tales. ("Dr. Pivo")
  On the subject of Big Brew Cams... ("Drew Avis")
  HSA - I can't get enough of it! ("Doug Moyer")
  Homebrewing on NPR ("Paul Gatza")
  Re: Trub as Fertilizer? (susan woodall)
  Counter flow chiller adaptation ("email")


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Date: Thu, 02 May 2002 23:13:57 -0600
From: Blue Nude Brewery <mash_tun at yahoo.com>
Subject: How Hot to HERMS

I have designed and am on the verge of starting to weld a HERMS set 
up.  But is is different in one respect from most.  The 
sparge/strike/infuse water tank is not the HE tank - they are seperate.  
My thought is that I can run the temp on the sparge/strike/infuse tank 
to where I need it and not worry about upsetting the equilibrium in the 
mash/HE loop.  I was going to set a thermostat to ~200 (just below 
boiling  at 6200') and then control the flow through the HE to maintain 
mash temp (will use infusion for most boosts).

Here's the question.  I figured that a RIMS really heats up the wort as 
it flows over the heater.  But.... someone raised a concern about 
getting the mash water too hot and killing off the enzymes.  I figured 
that the boost would be temporary - high through the HE, but then 
dropping quickly in the mash.  So... just how hot can I get the mash 
liquid as it comes out of the HE without destroying the enzymes?

In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is strength, in water there is
bacteria. - German Proverb



Return to table of contents


Date: Fri, 3 May 2002 00:37:29 -0500
From: "Rob Moline" <jethrogump at mchsi.com>
Subject: The Jethro Gump Report

		The Jethro Gump Report

"Siebel Week......"
     I am pleased to remind you that Siebel has granted a request to answer
questions on-line from the HBD, officially commencing on May 13, and running
through the 17th of May.
     In an effort to strengthen the bonds between the amateur and
professional brewing communities, this event will be also promoted within
the AHA and IBS.
     Attempting to absolutely pack these Fora with questions and response
worthy of the one week available within Siebel's workload, questions shall
be accepted for response effective May 10, 2002, and shall be rejected after
midnight CST, May 17, 2002. Siebel has graciously allowed that follow-up may
be required post the cut-off point, and they will deal with that on an as
needed basis.
     Further, Siebel's participation will be augmented by contributions from
Tobias Fischborn and Forbes Waldrop of Lallemand. With Lyn Kruger and her
staff leading this effort, and special help from Lallemand, this should be
an eventful and instructive week!
     The HBD will be the central avenue for this event, and those within
these walls that aren't familiar with HBD can find out more about the HBD by
visitng the www.hbd.org home page. The HBD is a wonderful arena for brewing
discussion, from both amateurs and professionals, and those of you from the
IBS and AHA that don't read it are encouraged to avail yourself of the
talent that will be on-board during this "Siebel Week."
     Further details of and on participation in the session and brief bio's
on the background of the principal experts will be provided shortly....but
plan for this one! Maybe next year we can make it a fortnight!

Lallemand Scholarship.......
     Lallemand is pleased to be the sponsor for the 3rd year of the
Lallemand Scholarship, which awards an AHA member with the full cost of a
two week Concise Course to the Siebel Institute, or a two week Microbiology
Course, both valued at USD 2750, as well as a USD 1000 stipend to assist
with travel and accomodations.
     Entries are open to all AHA members, who may submit an entry by
e-mailing Gary Glass at  gary at aob.org , with "Lallemand Scholarship" as the
Subject, and your Name, Address, Phone Number, E-Mail Address, and
Membership number in the Message.
	Mail entries may be sent to Gary Glass, AHA, 736 Pearl Street, Boulder, CO,
80302, with the same identifying information. AHA members that vote in the
upcoming AHA BOA Elections will receive an automatic extra, or initial
entry. Entries will be accepted up to June 15th via mail, e-mail....Entries
will be accepted in person during the AHA NHC in Irving, Texas. The winner
will be drawn during the NHC Banquet, June 22, 2002.
     Members of the AHA BOA, IBS BOA, staff of the AOB, Siebel, Lallemand
are ineligible. Winners must provide a written report on their Siebel
experiences to the AHA/AOB/Lallemand/Siebel. Rights to publication of report
and photographs of the winner are granted to the AHA/AOB, Siebel and
Lallemand.
     Past winners of the Lallemand Scholarship are Rich Sieben, Lallemand
Scholarship 2000, whose report can be accessed at
http://www.beertown.org/AHA/lallemand2.htm and Antoinette Hodges, Lallemand
Scholarship 2001, http://www.beertown.org/AHA/lallemand_2001.htm whose
report is somehow lost in the ethernet.
     Brewers who wish to join the AHA in order to get a shot at the best
lottery odds a brewer will ever find, may join by going to
https://www.beertown.org/membership/joinaha1.htm or calling 1-888-822-7262.
Pretty good deal for 33 bucks!! Just be sure to tell the Membership Guy/Gal
that you want an entry to the Scholarship when you call.
     As a past winner of a Siebel Scholarship myself, I can assure you that
nothing comes closer to this brewers' hope to see "Beer Heaven," .......I am
just delighted that Lallemand and Siebel are generous enough to make this
opportunity available to others...and that the AHA is able to work with them
to help make better brewers...

Cheers!
Jethro Gump

Rob Moline
Lallemand
AHA BOA
Court Avenue Brewing Company
515-282-2739 CABCO
515-450-0243 cell

"The More I Know About Beer, The More I Realize I Need To Know More About
Beer!"



Return to table of contents


Date: Fri, 03 May 2002 07:52:57 -0500
From: "Larry Bristol" <Larry at DoubleLuck.com>
Subject: Re: Trub as Fertilizer?

On Fri, 3 May 2002 00:16:19 -0400, Steve C Cobble
<stevecobble at juno.com> wrote:

>Anyone with experience or suggestions relating to using trub or spent
>grain,  as fertilizer in the garden? Would I kill my tomatoes or give
>them a boost? Or should I let them break down with the rest of my grass
>clippings/mulch/organic waste pile till next year....Justa thought

I have been dumping and spreading spent grain onto the ground in the
"back 40" for about a year now, just to watch what happens.  So far,
all I have are patches of dried up spent grain, in which even weeds do
not want to grow.  Maybe the higher acid content is the culprit?  [Or
maybe its all that MBO material! <gasp>]  My bet is that grain husks
need to go into the compost bin to break down a bit (unless you
actually want to put a herbicide on your tomatoes).

Trub, OTOH, goes directly into my septic system and gives me one of the
most biologically active systems in Austin County!  The yeast is the
active ingredient here.  It used to be common practice for folks to add
yeast to a septic system, but that practice seems to have faded,
labeled as "old fashioned" with the advent of these new hi-tech septic
systems.  Apparently, the yeasties do not know this, so they go about
their business anyway.

I do not know what I would do with the trub if I did not have a septic
system.  It ought to make a good fertilizer right out of the tank,
although I doubt the alcohol in it would be helpful.  It is easy to get
rid of that, of course, and then the only concern would be what it does
to the acid levels in the soil.  How about doing a test patch?


Larry Bristol
Bellville, TX   AR=[1093.6,223.2]
http://www.doubleluck.com




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Date: Fri, 3 May 2002 06:02:00 -0700 (PDT)
From: Paul Kensler <paul_kensler at yahoo.com>
Subject: re:  HSA, MBO and maillard

I've been following the thread on mash-boil oxidation
lately, and noticed Steve Alexander's comment in HBD
3930:
"Sulphites prevent the Maillard processes and phenolic
oxidation that lead to wort darkening"

Does this include the Maillard reactions that occur
during a decoction mash?  

Like many brewers, I treat my tap water with a crushed
campden tablet - now I'm wondering if my occasional
decoction mashes have been a complete waste of time
because the sulphites from the campden tablets have
been preventing the very Maillard reactions brewers
desire in decoction mashes...



Cheers,
Paul Kensler
Gaithersburg, MD




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Date: Fri, 3 May 2002 10:04:41 -0400
From: "Robin Griller" <robin_g at ica.net>
Subject: Pinkus Alt

Hi all,

Missed the question on Pinkus, but saw the follow up....there's a clone
recipe for Pinkus Alt in Protz and Wheeler, Brew Classic European Beers at
Home, a wonderful book. If I recall correctly, Pinkus Alt is pretty much
NOTHING like the commonly known Altbier. As I recall (hope I'm not messing
up!) it is a wheat beer with a slight lactic character from a lactic
bacteria added in the secondary (it is left in the secondary for six
months). If I'm misremembering, I'm doing it big time! A wonderful book,
worth having....

Robin



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Date: Fri, 03 May 2002 10:07:07 -0400
From: Alan Meeker <ameeker at mail.jhmi.edu>
Subject: Removal of Hot/Cold breaks - beneficial?

The question as to the merits of trub/break removal has once again bobbed to
the surface. Since the queue is pretty short just now I think I can get away
with reposting a previous one dealing with this issue:
 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
(Date: Fri, 7 Jan 2000 11:11:56 -0500)

Along the lines of the recent questions about early racking, etc. I went
back and did a little digging into the question of whether or not it is
beneficial to remove the hot and cold breaks. Here's a brief summary of what
I found. This is by no means an exhaustive analysis! The papers cited below
have pretty extensive reference sections if anyone wants to go further.

In the Nov/Dec BT Ron Barchet had an article on Hot Trub. His conclusions
were basically:

1) Hot break is mostly protein and eliminating this material takes out a lot
of high molecular weight proteins which could later react with tannins to
cause chill haze.
2) Total removal of the hot break material may negatively impact the beer's
body and head-retention
3) (paraphrasing and condensing) "...effective removal is critical because
it can smear the yeast cell walls impeding transport (of nutrients) leading
to head-retention problems, poor stability, and harsh bitterness."  Now to
me these effects on the quality of the resultant beer don't seem to follow
directly from "smearing" the yeast cell walls. However, in later references
it is claimed that leaving a lot of break material around means that your
yeast cake will become significantly contaminated with trub which can then
be carried over into your next fermentation if you are re-pitching this
yeast. This idea of trub carry over causing problems makes more sense to me
as a potential cause of the quality deficits Barchet lists so maybe this is
what he is referring to (?).
4) pH doesn't affect trub amount much unless it falls below 5.0 where break
formation falls off sharply. The best sedimentation takes place at pH =
5.0 - 5.2
5) In the conclusion he states "Removing hot trub is essential to producing
a quality beer."

In the Mar/Apr BT Barchet wrote on Cold trub:

1) Opinions vary on how important it is to remove.
2) Studies have shown that total removal of all the cold break leads to
decreased yeast growth and viability and increased levels of acetate esters.
3) Trub particles act as nucleation sites for dissolved CO2 and their
absence leads to higher CO2 levels which, in turn,  inhibit yeast growth and
fermentation.
4) Removal of some of the break material has been shown to improve yeast
viability, improve the quality of the finished beer, and be beneficial to
the beer's stability.
5) In high gravity situations yeast may benefit from the presence of cold
trub.
6) Most American brewers no longer remove cold trub.

A research paper (kindly supplied by Steve Alexander) entitled "The
Influence of Trub on Fermentation and Flavor Development" by Lentini, Takis,
Hawthorne, and Kavanagh has some interesting results. They use "trub" to
mean both hot and cold break material:

1) The presence of trub led to better fermentation performance but had
detrimental effects on flavor, processing, and on the ability to get good
yeast for repitching.
2) Their work as well as literature review point to three main causes of
such effects -- the lipid content of the trub, the nucleation ability of
trub particles, and the impact on zinc availability (zinc gets bound up by
trub, especially the hot break material)
3) In test fermentations increasing the trub concentration caused decreases
in volatile esters while it caused an increase in the production of higher
("fusel") alcohols. The ester effect is also dependent on the types of lipid
present in the trub
4) The presence of trub and the lipid composition of the trub had big
effects on the lipid profiles of the yeast.
5) In their summary they conclude: "While trub has some benefits in
increasing fermentation activity, it does have a significant influence on
flavor (i.e. decreased esters and increased fusel alcohols) To achieve the
desired volatile ester profile of a specific beer type, it is necessary to
have the correct balance between the amount of trub present in the wort and
the level of wort oxygenation."

And one more research paper (thanks again Steve!): "Wort Trub Content and
its Effects on Fermentation and Beer Flavor" by Schisler, Ruocco, and Mabee.
This paper makes pretty much the same points as the previous one plus:

1) In flavor analysis there is a preference for beers made from clarified
wort. Though both beers were judged acceptable the less favored beer was
faulted for "spoiled fruit and caramel characteristics" - the caramel seemed
to be the deciding factor in the negative assessment.
2) Though there were differences in ester levels detectable by lab analyses
(GC), no differences in the fruitiness of the beers was noted by the tasters
so these differences were probably below threshold values.
3) While other sources seem concerned that the ability of trub to bind zinc
will lower the availability of this essential yeast nutrient these authors
propose that trub may actually act as a reserve depot for zinc that the
yeast may use later in the fermentation.


What's the take home message for us homebrewers? It looks like HOT BREAK
material is potentially troublesome and removal of most of this material is
probably a good idea although total removal may not be desirable. This is
probably moot anyway since we really can't remove all of this at home unless
you're using a kick-ass filtration system. I don't know for sure but it
seems that most breweries do take steps to remove the hot break (by
whirlpooling for example). Whether they do this for practical reasons like
easier product handling (such as filtration) or for quality reasons (or
both) I don't know. What about COLD BREAK? There are some conflicting
results here but again, it looks like it is probably a good idea to remove
most of the cold break material. This seems especially true if you are
planning on repitching your yeast. The fact that most American breweries
don't worry about cold break removal and the above research articles
indicating that while there are flavor effects they are relatively small
(though there are conflicting statements on this issue) seems to indicate
that removal of the cold break shouldn't be a /huge/ concern (again unless
you are planning on re-pitching the yeast). However, it seems to me that we
have to factor in the fact that there are often major differences between
what macro- and micro- breweries do and what we as homebrewers are capable
of doing. I could certainly envision break material having a negative impact
on my home brewed beer. We typically don't filter our beer and our bottling
practices may introduce significant amounts of oxygen thus the stability of
our beer may be compromised compared to a larger brewery. On the other hand,
if we underpitch and/or poorly oxygenate our worts then the trub could serve
as a supply of essential yeast lipids and sterols. Then there's the
nucleation effect which could be important especially in high gravity worts
so it is a bit complicated. My own comparisons using split batches with and
without trub led me to believe that lots of trub carry-over can have
negative impact on the taste and I suspect it was primarily oxidation of
trub lipids though this is just a hunch. Certainly there are plenty of
oxidizable ployphenols in the trub and these could also lead to bad flavors,
astringencies and hazes.

Overall, my practice is going to remain - remove most of both the hot and
cold break. Pitch high, aerate well and avoid oxygen pick up as much as
possible after fermentation gets going.

Hope this was helpful

 -Alan Meeker
 Baltimore, MD





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Date: Fri, 03 May 2002 11:09:41 -0400
From: "TED MAJOR" <tidmarsh at charter.net>
Subject: Min. Brewery size?

Greetings Brew(st)ers!

My wife and I are evaluating whether to move or remodel 
our current home. Obviously, brewing space plays a key 
role in the decision, and a remodeling job will require a 
brewery room.

For those of you lucky enough to have a dedicated brewery, 
how big is it? How big should it be? What is the smallest 
usable brewery?

I haven't decided whether to go natural gas or 220v 
electric yet, but I envision some kind of 3 tier set up, 
probably along the lines of www.morebeer.com's brewing 
sculptures, a refrigerator, mop sink, some counter & 
cabinet space, some open shelves, and perhaps a 
dishwasher.

Judging by the size of our current kitchen, I'm thinking 
that a 10 ft x 10 ft room might work. 

Regards,
Tidmarsh Major
Birmingham, Ala.


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Date: Fri, 3 May 2002 10:26:34 -0500 
From: Brian Lundeen <BLundeen at rrc.mb.ca>
Subject: RE: Campden tablets and MBO

Paul Mahoney writes:

>    I have been crushing .5 to 1 campden tablet and
> adding it to my brewing water (8 gallons) the night
> before a brew session.  I do not know how many grams
> this is (the tablet is approx. the size of an adult
> aspirin), but it appears that this may be excessive,
> based upon the posted comments.  

Actually, you are still falling well short of the levels being discussed.
Campden tablets (which I loathe, do you enjoy crushing those silly things?)
when fresh contain the SO2 producing equivalent of 0.44 grams of potassium
metabisulfite (much of what is in the tablet is binder). This yields about 6
ppm of SO2 in your 8 gallons. You should be adding about 5 tablets (someone
please check my arithmetic, it is early in the morning).

My nemesis in matters Klein, decoction and now MBO (yes, MBO!), but whose
opinions I greatly respect, Joel Plutchak writes:

> Spot on.  Tilting at little windmills is great for those
> who want to build Quixotic legends around themselves, but
> I don't know that it does a lot of good for many others.

Joel, my legendary status here is already well established from my
rapier-like wit and my unfailing ability to keep flogging a topic senseless
into the ground long after the crowds have gone home. My motives in pursuing
this can only be considered pure of heart. ;-)

>    Seems to me there's a nice way that already exists to
> see how much effect HSA (sorry Brian, the new term hasn't
> taken hold yet ;-) has on real life (home)brewing. One great 
> thing about George Fix was that he used his beers and an 
> existing blind evaluation process to gather data about them-- 
> the sanctioned homebrew competition.  Take a look around at 
> the winners of homebrew competitions.  Find out who uses mash 
> and boil floats, CO2 blankets, campden tablets in the 
> mash/boil, etc. See if it correlates with good scores in 
> competition. I'll volunteer my data to the cause.

Scoring well in competitions requires skill in many facets of the brewing
process, and I am under no delusion that the topic at hand will necessarily
have as great an impact as royally mucking up the recipe formulation,
mashing at the wrong temps, oversparging, underboiling, in short a host of
faux pas that can have a major effect on the beer quality and/or style
accuracy. This is more of a tweak of the fine tuning knob once you have the
channel coming in reasonably well by hitting the TV a few times with a
baseball bat. I expect your beers are better than mine for reasons that no
amount of sulfiting on my part is going to overcome. I'm still working out
the big bugs, but I don't see that preventing me from working out the little
bugs at the same time. 

I would also suggest that if we are to use competition results in this
debate, that we expand the discussion to include an analysis of the
satisfaction level people have with the quality of judging. I don't think
you can dispute that there are both good and poor judges active out there on
the competition circuit. I have heard enough complaints about judges that I
don't necessarily want the outcome of this debate to hang on their words.

BTW, you might be amused to learn that after all my goings on about
decoction mashing, I actually played around with it on my last brew, an
Altbier. I don't think I did it right, I didn't get near the temperature
jump I thought I would when I mixed back in, but it was kind of fun (once I
put an oven mitt on my stirring hand). And when that decoction went
sploop-sploop back into the main mash, I had nary a care in the world,
because I knew those sulfites were protecting me from Mash/Boil Oxidation!
;-)

OK, I'll shut up for a while now. I've already got Jeff's lawyers tracking
me down, I don't want to annoy too many people.

Cheers,
Brian Lundeen
Brewing at... Um, Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan which is nowhere near Winnipeg


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Date: Fri, 03 May 2002 17:41:56 +0200
From: "Dr. Pivo" <dp at pivo.w.se>
Subject: oxidation reality check, cold trub removal and other interesting tales.

Whew!

This is really a hard one to get a handle on because it just keeps
shifting around!

Just read this!!!!!!


>   Bamforth estimates non-enzymatic
> processes could consume 100ppm of O2 per second (given oxygen) !!  It's
> higher yet in the boil (near 1000ppm/sec).   Wort has near zero dissolved
> oxygen as oxidation uses it instantly.  More O2 infuses from air by Henry's
> Law.  'Course any splashing, stirring or air exposure adds in.  One study
> (need more) measures 2/3rd of the O2 uptake occurs during the boil !
>
It's that bloody boil destroying the Royal Knights of  Insomnia's
beer... no wonder they're teed off!

I've always known that boiling part was a big problem, and  I think we
should all stop doing it immediately!

Without digressing into a discussion with chemical terms, and forcing
everyone to belch these terms through the Nernst equation.... I'll give
you all a little logic pellet to ingest-

A brewery called Anheuser Busch makes a beer they call  "Budweiser".

It is sold pretty much all over the world.

I've tasted it in St. Louis (where it originates) I've tasted the
lisenced product by Guinness in Ireland.  I've tasted it hawked at such
bizarre places as Casa Blanca (or bazaar places, if you will).

 ......and it always tastes the same.

Think what you may of the product itself as a representative of
beer..... but they just must be the world champions of shelf life!   You
can't hurt the stuff!  You can heat it, shake it, let it sit around
nearly forever.... and when you open it, it is the same insip........
OOOPS! (almost opinionated there) drink as it always is.

Now, let's look at that in light of the fact that they PURPOSELY bubble
air through the column of hot wort!

String-a-dookies- numbered- on-a stick!!!  That stuff should be stale
before they ever get it in the can!!!....


 ... er, that is, if the the theoretical argument about it was any more
trustworthy than a Boston priest in a Nursery School.

Brian Lundeen asks, regarding this very subject:


> If I blast the kettle headspace with a blanket of CO2, would the turbulence
> created by the boil not simply cause this to be displaced or mixed with air
> from outside the kettle for the majority of the boil?
>

Brian, I see only ONE solution to this problem , and that is the one I
use-

I wear a G- suit in the brewery at all times (made mine out of sandwich
wrap and aluminium foil).

A cornelius keg and a bicycle pump make a dandy air supply into the
suit.  The exhaust then (my expelled air) is fed through an old vacuum
cleaner hose straight into a valve at the top of my hermetically sealed
boiler.

You see the brilliance of it?  I use my own body as an oxygen stripper,
and my exhaled CO2 as a "boiler blanket".

Naturally, I have a microbe filter in the hose into the tank, as you can
never tell where those Clostridia spores may be hiding...... and I have
a suspicion that I have a rather large colony of those pesky things in
my lungs.

It may SOUND like it's coming from the other end, but I think a bit of
"gas gangrene" in my lungs could be the most plausible explanation for
that peculiar odour that seems to follow me about, and why I always seem
to have plenty of elbow room at public gatherings.

So, Brian.  Anything short of the above suggestion, and I think you are
really putting yourself at risk in terms of both oxidation and
infection.... especially if you are trying to make "Zima", like me.

A question was raised about cold trub removal.  There's a little
'spurment on the subject at:
http://www.bodensatz.com/homebrew/columns/jirvine/trub.html

In brief, you can find this out easily to your own satisfaction.  Simply
collect your wort (either "au natural" or using a counterflow
chiller.... an immersion might leave too much of the coldies clinging to
the hop "spotie" (A term which unfortunately was initiated into the
brewing vernacular after Bamforth's publication))

Let this sit over night  (perhaps even shorter... it's just always been
practical that way for me), and you'll find the cold trub flocculates
quite nicely to the bottom.

Now, carefully siphon off the top half of wort to another fermenter...
oxygenate each how you  please together with equal doses of yeast.

When you've got finished "beer" you have one that's virtually trub free,
and one with about twice the usual dose.  Taste at different ages, and
decide yourself.  Still better invite some beer loving people over and
let them "blind taste". Better still set up a "triangle test" and count
some numbers and save the comments of the correct ones.

It has been suggested to store at 40C in order to expedite ageing.

 Now there's a unit I can finally get my hands around!

I'm not bragging.   I was speaking about the temperature MEASUREMENT
unit.

This strikes me as a particularly bad suggestion.

Unless you first want to do a triangle test with your beer, regarding IF
keeping your beer at above body temperatures exactly matches (or even at
all approximates) cellar ageing with your beer.... with mine I'm sure it
doesn't.... I wouldn't go throwing an untested variable in there (where
do these ideas come from?)... I'd just use a bit of patience instead,
and let the two beers age in the manner you usually age your beers (it
is the effect on the manner that YOU make beer that you are after.)

Patience is, after all, one of your most valuable assets as a brewer.

Dr. Pivo





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Date: Fri, 3 May 2002 11:46:53 -0400
From: "Drew Avis" <andrew_avis at hotmail.com>
Subject: On the subject of Big Brew Cams...

If you're looking to join a Big Brew session on the web, be sure to check
out Ottawa's own Big StrangeBrew.  Alan McKay is hosting the event in his
back yard, and the web cams will be on his site (http://www.bodensatz.com) -
look for the link to "Big StrangeBrew" and start clicking.  I can't promise
cameos, or even a musical interlude (although on the off chance Brian
Lundeen makes the trip from Winterpeg, we may re-enact some Kids in the Hall
and Monty Python).  We're starting earlier than most - 9am EST, but it will
be a long day, I'm sure.

Cheers!
Drew Avis, Merrickville, Ontario ~ http://www.strangebrew.ca






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Date: Fri, 3 May 2002 12:04:35 -0400
From: "Doug Moyer" <shyzaboy at yahoo.com>
Subject: HSA - I can't get enough of it!

Some brewers avoid HSA like a plague. Others are actually proud of it! Take
a look at this:

http://hbd.org/starcity/pics/HSA.jpg

I admit, I actually paid good money for an HSA beer...

Brew on!

Doug Moyer
Salem, VA

Star City Brewers Guild: http://hbd.org/starcity

"There is a very fine line between 'hobby' and 'mental illness.'"
     ~ Dave Barry




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Date: Fri, 3 May 2002 10:51:25 -0600
From: "Paul Gatza" <paul at aob.org>
Subject: Homebrewing on NPR

Hi everyone. Rich Doyle from Harpoon Brewery and I did a one-hour interview
on homebrewing in preparation for National Homebrew Day and the AHA Big Brew
that was broadcast on the National Public Radio show Connections. It should
be accessible through the following link.

http://www.theconnection.org/shows/2002/05/20020503_b_main.asp

Enjoy homebrew day everyone. The Association of Brewers staff heads up to
the hills to Big Brew at the home of Gary Glass to brew and toast at noon
central.

Paul Gatza
Director--American Homebrewers Association
Director--Institute for Brewing Studies
Association of Brewers
736 Pearl St., Boulder, CO, USA 80302
+1.303.447.0816 ext. 122
mailto:paul at aob.org
www.beertown.org



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Date: Fri, 03 May 2002 15:32:42 -0700
From: susan woodall <woodsusa at moscow.com>
Subject: Re: Trub as Fertilizer?

I give the spent grain to my kid's rabbits and they love it.  I throw
yeast and trub in my hop garden with no obvious effects!

Steve wrote:
Anyone with experience or suggestions relating to using trub or spent
grain,  as fertilizer in the garden? Would I kill my tomatoes or give
them a boost? Or should I let them break down with the rest of my grass
clippings/mulch/organic waste pile till next year....Justa thought




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Date: Fri, 3 May 2002 14:34:34 -1000
From: "email" <thx1386 at yahoo.com>
Subject: Counter flow chiller adaptation

To the beer collective,
Okay, here's my idea.  I'm going to a picnic or to a friends house. I take
my counterflow chiller, a waterpump and an old cooler. I put some ice and
some water in the cooler and use the pump to cycle  the ice water through
the chiller jacket.  I run my room temperature keg beer through the
counterflow and dispense out of a picnic tap on the discharge end.  Anyone
tried this?  Anyone think this might not work, have an improvement or is
there some snag I haven't thought of?  Or how about if I just fill the
chiller jacket with water and immerse it in the cooler of ice water without
using the pump.  Will the cooling be enough for it to work like a jockey
box?  I'm trying to use the equipment I already have around rather than
build a separate jockey box and I don't have room in the frig to chill the
corny in case its not finished up. Thanks for the input.
GP Kea
4493.61, 251.80 estimated Rennerian



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