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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
		Rob Gardner, Digest Coordinator


Contents:
  RE: stuck fermentation (Barry Cunningham)
  More Subite Cassis (John Mellby)
  Beer judge exam, Boulder, Colorado
  small scale mash update #1 (Enders)
  Beer judge exam, Oakland, CA
  Homebrew Supply Stores listing (D_KRUS)
  yeast for wheat beer (Donald P Perley)
  Re: sulphur odor in wort (Stuart Crawford)


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Date: Tue, 10 Apr 90 08:35:30 EDT
From: abvax!calvin.icd.ab.com!bwc at cwjcc.INS.CWRU.Edu (Barry Cunningham)
Subject: RE: stuck fermentation

In HBD #395 David P. McElroy writes

> For the first time I used 2 cups of crystal barley, irish moss, no
> corn sugar, pre-boiled all water, and rehydrated the yeast before
> adding it to the cooled wort.   And for the first time :-(  the
> fermentation was very slow.  After 10 days the specific gravity dropped
> to 1.020 and then nothing!

Sounds good to me!  When you go to malt recipes you'll find you'll end up
with a higher gravity at the end because it has more good stuff in it!
Bottle it up and send it to me I say!

				-- Barry Cunningham



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Date: Tue, 10 Apr 90 09:23:55 CDT
From: jmellby at ngstl1.csc.ti.com (John Mellby)
Subject: More Subite Cassis

One of the beers which I cannot get in Texas is the Mort Subite Cassis lambic.
Lambics are, of course, fermented with wild yeast, and the cassis is
black-currant flavored.  I was considering the problems in making this
beer at home, and wondered if anyone had any suggestions.

1. Malt - I'm told fruit beers are typically made with a lot of wheat malt.
I haven't had any experient with wheat.  Is there any extract people would
suggest?

2. Yeast - what in the world yeast do you replace the wild Belgian yeast with?

3. Black-currants.  What are these, where do you get them?  I have used
frozen raspberries or blackberries, but I haven't seen these in the
grocery.  The local homebrew store doesn't list any black-currant juice
for making wine, but they do have cassis (black-currant) flavoring for
making liquors with.  Any idea what this flavoring would do to beer?

Surviving the American Dream
John R. Mellby                       Texas Instruments
jmellby%ngstl1.ti.com                P.O.Box 660246, MS 3645
                                     Dallas Texas, 75266
(214)517-5370                       (214)343-7585
**********************************************************************
* "A facility for quotation covers the absence of original thought." *
* -- Lord Peter Wimsey (Dorothy L. Sayers, "Gaudy Night")            *
**********************************************************************

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Date: Tue, 10 Apr 90 08:54:47 mdt
From: hplabs!hplms2!hp-lsd.cos.hp.com!att!drutx!homer

Subject: Beer judge exam, Boulder, Colorado

Beer Judge Certification Program Exam

Boulder, Colorado
May 22, 1990
Evening

Contact:
Anne Blake
(303) 447-0816

Full details on the program are contained in a booklet that can be requested
by sending a postal address to: att!drutx!homer, or AHA, PO Box 287, Boulder,
CO 80306.  Attn: BJCP Administrator

Jim Homer
Co-director BJCP
att!drutx!homer


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Date: Tue, 10 Apr 90 10:20:39 -0500
From: Enders <enders at plains.NoDak.edu>
Subject: small scale mash update #1


     Well, this weekend, I got my goodies together and attempted to do
a 2 gal., all grain brewup.  As usual, the first attempt at anything is
frought with peril.  In this case, it was when I was boiling my brewing
water to decarbonate it.  I had 5 gal. of water spread amongst 3 pots with
all the burners on high.  I was moving one of the larger pots from a small
burner to the only large burner when something *interesting* happened.  I 
sort of dragged the pot accross the stovetop, not noticing the plastic bowl
lid sitting there between the burners.  It's really amazing how plastic lids
want to cling unnoticed to pot bottoms until you set them on a red hot
burner :-) :-) :-)

     After I cleaned up the melted plastic on the stove & kitchen floor, I
set about preparing for the next morning's activities.  I started the yeast,
weighed & crushed the malt (a bit too fine, prehaps), and retired to bed,
dreaming of the wonderful brew I was about to make.

     The mash went well (2 hrs  at  145-152F) , but I had trouble getting the
pH down (it's definately the water!).  I tasted a sample of the mash, and it
tasted nice and sweet, so I assumed conversion went ok.  Then on to sparge!
It turned out that I did crush the malt a bit too fine, as I ended up with a
set mash! :^)  I managed to get the flow back by skimming the fines off the top 
of the filter bed, redistributing the grain and starting again (several times)
The first 4 quarts took 2.5 hrs. and the last 8 quarts took only 1/2 hour.

     Now on to boil.  The boil was uneventful, except for the fact that I
didn't check to see if my boiling kettle would hold all the wort (it didn't :-).
So, I split it up into 2 pots, and boiled away.  I had to make up for the
greater evaporation later, but I didn't worry about it at that moment.

     Everything was proceeding nicely at this point.  I cooled the wort in 
the bathtub.  Using ice water, it only took 25 mins to cool from boiling to
65F.  I pitched the yeast (Wyeast 1028) and waited (and worried just a bit :-).
18 hours later, the airlock starts bubbling, and 28 hrs after pitching, I had
a 2 inch head of foam built up! :-) :-) :-)  I must have done good, because I
seem to have a real happy crop of yeasties working in there.

     So, at this time I must conclude that mashing small batches is practical
(and more important, FUN!).  I scaled the IPA recipe from Dave Miller's book,
and this seems to work ok, but I seemed to get greater color extraction from
the crystal malt ( 80L ), as the wort seemed a good bit darker than an IPA.
This isn't critical right now, but I think a lot of it had to do with crushing
the malt too fine (the pale ale malt was done in a food processor, and the 
crystal was crushed by a rolling pin, used until the crunching stopped).

     It looks good now, but the real test comes after bottling, you know :-).
The extraction rate was right up there:
     
     Miller's recipe:    OG  1.046
     My batch:           OG  1.043

Only time will tell if I done good, but the waiting is the hard part (and I
don't have any homebrew to ease the agony :^).  More to follow.....

Todd Enders                             ARPA: enders at plains.nodak.edu
Computer Center                         UUCP: ...!uunet!plains!enders
Minot State University                  Bitnet: enders at plains
Minot, ND 58701


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Date: Tue, 10 Apr 90 09:48:47 mdt
From: hplabs!hplms2!hp-lsd.cos.hp.com!att!drutx!homer

Subject: Beer judge exam, Oakland, CA

Beer Judge Certification Program Exam

AHA National Homebrew Conference
Oakland, CA
June 13, 1990, Wednesday
Morning
and
June 16, 1990, Saturday
Morning

The Saturday exam is at the same time as the brunch at Anchor brewery.
The Wednesday exam is provided for those who wish to take the exam and
visit Anchor.

Contact:
Anne Blake
(303) 447-0816

Full details on the program are contained in a booklet that can be requested
by sending a postal address to: att!drutx!homer, or AHA, PO Box 287, Boulder,
CO 80306.  Attn: BJCP Administrator

Jim Homer
Co-director BJCP
att!drutx!homer


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Date:     Tue, 10 Apr 90 11:50 EST
From: <D_KRUS%UNHH.BITNET at MITVMA.MIT.EDU>
Subject:  Homebrew Supply Stores listing

Distribution-File:
        homebrew%hpfcmr at hplabs.hp.com

Hi,

   Can anyone tell me if anyone has taken the time to compile a listing of
all homebrew supply stores, relative to all readers of this digest.  If this
has been done, in which digest is it located so that I may retrieve it from
the archives.
                                      Dan

|--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*|
| Bitnet:      D_KRUS at unhh                      | Daniel L. Krus               |
| Internet:    D_KRUS%unhh.bitnet at mitvma.mit.edu| Parsons Hall                 |
| Compuserve:  71601,365                        | Department of Chemistry      |
|-----------------------------------------------| U of New Hampshire           |
|  "Think as men/women of action,               | Durham, New Hampshire  03824 |
|         act as men/women of thought.          | (603) 862-2521               |
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Date: Tue, 10 Apr 90 17:09:41 EDT
From: perley at glacier.crd.ge.com (Donald P Perley)
Subject: yeast for wheat beer

>	I know various liquid wheat beer yeasts are available,
>but for a variety of reasons (you have to start 'em way in
>advance, and my schedule is too unpredictable, for one) dry
>yeast would be a lot more convenient. The can says the
>ingredients are "wheat and water," so a yeast that's spent its
>whole career munching malt might gag on it. My goal would be
>something like Schell, but higher gravity.


I had good luck using Edme.  I am not familiar with Schell, but I
don't think anyone uses 100% wheat in wheat beer.  Depending on the
style, you should use 30-70% wheat.  I used 5 lbs pale and 2.5 lbs
wheat (grain malt) and ended up with something similar to Spaten.

If Schell is one of the sour type wheat beers, you could try culturing
off the sediment and pitch the result in when you rack the beer.

 -don perley




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Date: Tue, 10 Apr 90 16:17:43 PDT
From: Stuart Crawford <stuart at ads.com>
Subject: Re: sulphur odor in wort


Many thanks to all of you who took the time to send me mail regarding my
question about a strong sulphur odor in the wort.  As several of you predicted,
the odor (very strong on days two and three) had all but vanished by day five.
I could detect no odor whatsoever when I racked into my secondary on day seven.

There seem to be two working hypotheses (not necessarily mutually exlusive):

1. The odor is a characteristic of the yeast, brought about by fermentation at
   an inappropriate temperature.  In this case, too high a temperature.

2. The odor is a result of honey (3 pounds), as evidenced by the observation
   that a similar odor occurs during the making of mead.

Whatever the reason, everything seems to be just fine.  Once again, the
suggestion "Don't worry, relax ..." seems to have been the right one.  Thanks
again, 

	Stuart Crawford

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End of HOMEBREW Digest #396, 04/11/90
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