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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
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Contents:
  Judges wanted ("Don Van Valkenburg")
  re: Building a Copper Chiller (Alan McKay)
  Re:  Ex-Beer-Iment ("DAVID CRAWFORD")
  re: rice hulls (Paul Kensler)
  RE: Lou Bonham on the AHA (Paul Shick) (Sean McDonald)
  Re: Dortmund Water, Decoction, & Mash pH? (Jeff Renner)
  Kansas City Beer - Strange mind I have (Nathan Kanous)
  My Plato Calculation Screwup, Other Misc. ("Pete Calinski")
  Zymurgy vs Brew Your Own ("Wayne Love")
  Cold Conditioning Ale ("Parker Dutro")
  Re: retrograded starch (Jeff Renner)
  Beer and Sweat 2001-2nd Announcement! ("Eric Tepe")
  beer in Quebec City (ensmingr)


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Date: Wed, 10 Jul 2002 21:23:15 -0700
From: "Don Van Valkenburg" <dvanv at earthlink.net>
Subject: Judges wanted

Calling all judges, reserve August 3rd and 4th to drink beer, and judge the
1st annual;
LA County Fair Commercial Beer Competition.
This is an open competition for commercial beers brewed in California.

For all you experienced judges, this means no stinkers.  For entry level
judges, be prepared to drink the best beer available to the masses.  We will
be teaming up judges with professional brewers on the
panels.

Because this is a commercial competition we will not be using the standard
BJCP (homebrew) score sheets.  It is, however a BJCP and AOB sanctioned
competition, so BJCP judges will get their points for judging at this event.

Come on down to the LA County Fairgrounds and join us for this historical
event.
Check it out on the web:
http://64.224.48.152/2002/competitions/beer.asp
Contacts:
Mike Cullen
or Don Van Valkenburg
judges at calferm.org
LAFair at calferm.org
brew at steinfillers.com



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Date: Thu, 11 Jul 2002 08:10:16 -0400
From: Alan McKay <amckay at neap.net>
Subject: re: Building a Copper Chiller


Drew Avis writes of our virtual club :
> HBDers: thought I'd post a short report on the Hull/Ottawa and Periphery
> Zymurgists (HOPZ) (at least that's what I call us - we're still working on a
> name) second event: a communal CFC building party.  

Not a bad name, Drew, but my favorite is still C2lub de H5omebrewers
d'Ottawa-Hull (c2h5oh).  However, both of these names are flawed in
that the other side of the river (the Quebec side for the uninitiated)
is now called Gatineau, not Hull.  So I'll suggest the following name,
named for the river that flows between the two sides (using both the
english and french names):

Band of Outouais-Ottawa Zymurgic Enthusiasts (BOOZE)

cheers,
 -Alan 

- -- 
http://www.bodensatz.com/
The Beer Site (tm)


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Date: Thu, 11 Jul 2002 08:37:18 -0400
From: "DAVID CRAWFORD" <ddcrawford at charter.net>
Subject: Re:  Ex-Beer-Iment

>For my past few brews, I've tried batch sparging as a way to end up with two
>brews. It's worked great! For the first, I ended up with 7.5 gal. of a
>Samiclaus clone and about 8 gals. of a good lawnmower ale. The next one, a
>Russian imperial stout left me with 10 gals. of another light ale. 

I would like some more details on this idea.  It sounds like something I 
would like to try.

I have been reading HBD for quite some time, but this is my first post.  I 
began brewing in 1995 and brewed for about two years (extract and partial 
mash) until we had the first of our two children.  Things have settled down 
a bit now and I am ready to get back into the hobby.  I have been assembling 
the equipment to go all grain and have extracted a lot of good ideas from 
here.  I took the advice from here and went with a 10 gal mash tun and 
bought a 15 gal SS pot for my kettle.  The mash tun is a Coleman square 
footprint beverage cooler with a manifold.   

David Crawford
Fort Worth, TX


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Date: Thu, 11 Jul 2002 05:46:49 -0700 (PDT)
From: Paul Kensler <paul_kensler at yahoo.com>
Subject: re: rice hulls

Paul,
I've used rice hulls on several occasions when making
wit beers and have never noticed any weird
astringency, or any difference for that matter, vs.
not using rice hulls.  If I remember correctly, rice
hulls are mostly silicate and do not react with the
mash.

I do generally rinse the hulls before using them for
two reasons - they are really, really dusty (rice
dust? I dunno) and when dry they float and it can be
pretty tough to submerge them.  So I'll either run
water through them in a colander or I'll dump them
into a pot with water and stir them until they stop
floating so much, and dump the water off.

I'll generally use a couple, three, four handfuls in a
five gallon batch.  Half of that goes in the bottom
right on top of the Phalse bottom, with the other half
mixed into the mash itself.  I've never experimented
with mash hopping, but it can't be as sticky as 50%
flaked wheat!

I would recommend against using "too many" hulls -
they actually do too good of a job keeping the mash
bed open, and its nearly impossible to get a decent
filter - oh, the big chunks are kept back but I can
never get the little particles to filter out, making
for a really hazy milky runoff with lots of fine
sediment.  That's why I scaled way back from using a
pound or two (as someone once suggested to me) to just
a few handfuls.  YMMV.


Hope this helps,
Paul Kensler
Gaithersburg, MD



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Date: Thu, 11 Jul 2002 09:29:19 -0500
From: Sean McDonald <seanmc at irga.com>
Subject: RE: Lou Bonham on the AHA (Paul Shick)

Hello,
I just wanted to take a minute and disagree, to a certain
extent, with Paul Shick and Lou Bonham. Though I have
only been an AHA member for about 7 mo. and am
not aware of how the AHA used to treat their member,
but I am aware that what they do now is not simpley not
enough. I would consider myself the "average homebrewer
and AHA member." I brew beer about once a month and
enjoy frequenting brewpubs.

Since I shelled out my $35 to join the AHA, the only benefit
I've enjoyed is two issues of Zymurgy (a total of about $8-$9).
One of the biggest benefits of membership to AHA, and I've
complained about this on the AOB, is the pub discount. Well,
I live in the Chicago-land area and there are a total of 2
participating pubs, both are Rock Bottom Brewery (their
"pub discount" is the same their own proprietary discount).
When I mentioned that there were no, or few, participants in
chicago and that perhaps the AHA should do something to
rectify the situation, Paul Gatza response was that their current
strategy was to let the pubs come to them.

Well, gee-whizz. That strategy, to me, sounds alot like laziness.
Other's, on the AOB, suggested that I be "proactive" and go out
and try and sign-up pubs on my own rather than waiting for
the AHA to do it for me. Again, to me that sounds alot like me
doing their job, and if so, what am I paying dues for? Shall I next
start updating their website, publish zymurgy and organize their
conferences as well?

The point of this diatribe is that if we don't continue to push the
AHA and allow them to get away with an attitude and statements
such as that of Paul Gatza's, then the AHA will lapse back to what
it once was, or rather described as.

Thanks,
Sean McDonald
Elmhurst, IL





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Date: Thu, 11 Jul 2002 10:51:42 -0400
From: Jeff Renner <JeffRenner at comcast.net>
Subject: Re: Dortmund Water, Decoction, & Mash pH?

"Michael J. Roman" <resipsa at execpc.com> writes from Wausau, WI:

>I plan on brewing an all-grain Dortmunder Export this weekend using a
>decoction mash, and will be matching my water to the high sufate and
>carbonate water of the Dortmund region.
>
>Given the highly modified Czech pils malts I will be using and the
>carbonate level in the water, I expect the mash pH will be way off from the
>optimal  5.0-5.5 pH during the mash.
>
>My question is how or if I should treat the mash to drop the pH. Do I
>add even more gypsum or CaCl to the mash, Do I add lactic acid to the
>mash and sparge? Or is this mismatch of high carbonate water and pale malts
>what defines the taste of a Dortmunder Export?
>
>If I do not adjust the pH of the mash, do I alter my mashing schedule in
>some way?
>
>So does anybody have any experience brewing authentic Dortmunder Export
>style beers?

These are great questions, and ones that have always bothered me. 
With high alkalinity water, I would expect the resulting high mash pH 
and even higher sparge pH to make a pretty harsh beer.

Dortmunder was a favorite style of George Fix, and I am pretty sure 
that I remember him either writing or saying that he couldn't make a 
good Dortmunder with Dortmund water until he realized or discovered 
that the brewers there modified their water.  I haven't found 
anything directly from George, but I did find this confirmation from 
"The Barleycorn Press," the newsletter of Green Mountain Mashers of 
Vermont, March, 1999, Volume 10 Issue 3 
http://www.mashers.org/newsletters/3-BpMar99.pdf

"New Years Brewing - A Glance into the Brewers Notebook of Steven 
Lefebvre" by Steve Lefebvre

"Another January brewing note involves the water adjustments I made 
while brewing a Dortmunder. It is well noted that Dortmund water is 
extremely hard
(1000 ppm) and is only exceeded by Burton-on-Trent water (1700 ppm). 
They also differ in the types of dissolved solids (A topic for 
another article). I was unable to find any good information on the 
type of adjustments I should make and the information I did receive 
seemed very convoluted. Finally, I corresponded with George Fix 
(noted author of Principles of Brewing Science). His comment to me 
was that he had tried many variations of water treatment. Then he was 
enlightened to the fact that Dortmund has one of the best water 
treatment (ion removal sys- tems) facilities in the world. He 
proceeded to brew soft water Dortmunders (no treatment of his tap 
water) from there on with great success. So that is how I proceeded 
with mine. I just recently bottled that batch and the nose resembled 
that of the D.A.B. beers have tried. Hopefully, after conditioning I 
will be pleased with my results."

So, all that said, I still think that there is a minerally firmness 
to a Dort that isn't in other pale lagers.  I think that treatment of 
Dort water would remove the alkalinity (temporary hardness) but not 
sulfate (permanent hardness).  So using some gypsum if you don't have 
sulfate in your water might contribute to this effect.

A google search also turned up a possibility at 
http://www.foamrangers.com/PDFs/tbu_200111.pdf but this link was down.

The recipe for a prize winning Dortmunder Export by George Fix is at 
http://www.burp.org/burpnews/pdf/199810.pdf.  It used CaCl2 and 
gypsum, confirming my guess:

An Award Winning Recipe
By Andy Anderson, Grammarian

This month's winning recipe was the 3rd Place Best of Show beer in this
year's SoFB. It was a Dortmunder Export brewed by George Fix.

Spezial
13.5 gallon full mash, multi-step infusion

Ingredients:
20 lb Pilsner malt
2 lb Cara Pils malt

1 oz German Tettnang, First Wort Hopping
1 oz Select, First Wort Hopping
0.5 oz German Tettnang, Kettle Hopping
0.5 oz Select, Kettle Hopping

The mash schedule is as follows:
30 min 40C (104F)
30 min 60C (140F)
30 min 70C (158F)

Water treatment = 3 oz CaCl2 plus 1 oz CaSO4
W-34/70 (lager yeast)
Ferment 10 days at 10C (50F), then an additional 6 weeks at 2C (36F)

O.G. = 1.055 F.G. = 1.012

Hope this helps you brew a prize winner.

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


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Date: Thu, 11 Jul 2002 09:54:21 -0500
From: Nathan Kanous <nlkanous at pharmacy.wisc.edu>
Subject: Kansas City Beer - Strange mind I have

HBD,

I was preparing myself to head to KC tomorrow morning and trying to get my 
beer ducks in a row when I thought "hey, I wonder if the KC Beermeisters 
have a meeting this weekend?"  I checked out their website and, wouldn't 
you know it, they have a meeting scheduled for Friday July 12, 2002.  How 
convenient...it starts about the time I expect to be arriving in Kansas 
City.  Then I asked myself "where is the meeting?"

Well, as luck would have it, they have a map on their website.  I told 
myself "that's nice but I don't know KC, I'll have to get a larger map of 
the area to see where this is exactly so I know where I'm directing 
myself."  Whenever I go places, I look for landmarks or familiar sites or 
roads to look for and things like that.  This is where it got interesting 
(at least for me).

The agenda is Beer Style of the Month.......American Lager.  They have a 
speaker coming in to talk about the American Lager.  Well, wouldn't you 
know it (this is where the coincidence gets interesting) I happen to be a 
fan of the old "corn beer" that has been professed so many times on the HBD 
and in print.  I thought "American Lager?  A Classic American Pilsner would 
be my favorite definition of an American Lager whether they intended that 
to be the case or not."   As I began to look for landmarks and familiar 
sites to guide myself what do you think I found?

Yup, it's American Lager Month, I really enjoy a very hoppy Classic 
American Pilsner and the first road that I noticed as a landmark near the 
expressway was nothing other than.......Renner Road!!!

Yeah, probably not very interesting to some of you but it feels like 
there's some karma going on here.  I'll see if I can make it to the meeting.
nathan in madison, wi



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Date: Thu, 11 Jul 2002 11:11:12 -0400
From: "Pete Calinski" <pjcalinski at adelphia.net>
Subject: My Plato Calculation Screwup, Other Misc.

Sorry, I had make an emergency trip out of town for a few days and would not
be able to send email.  In a effort to keep the thread alive, I hastily
constructed the post by "copy and paste" and didn't proof read it.

The example was supposed to be a ** 12 P ** solution from 13.6 gm of sugar
and 100 gm DH2O.

Regarding how I make the solutions.  I have a 100 ml graduated cylinder ( at 
20C) and a bullet reloading scale calibrated up to 320 GRAINS (1 GRAM =
15.43 GRAINS).


Todd said:
- ---------------
I'd also be concerned about water being associated with the sugar.  Drying
it at 110C prior to weighing it out might be a good idea.
- ------------

Me:
I was under the impression that "table sugar" does not "pick up" any water.
Anybody have information to the contrary?

Todd
- ------------------
P.S. Can I borrow your solutions when you're done?
- -----------------

Me:
Well, given my method of making the solutions, I doubt if they are sanitary
so I suspect they will ferment/rot quickly.


Pete Calinski
East Amherst NY
Near Buffalo NY


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



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Date: Thu, 11 Jul 2002 13:07:13 -0300
From: "Wayne Love" <wlove at fdchoice.com>
Subject: Zymurgy vs Brew Your Own

Over the past month several threads have sung high praise for the "New
and Improved" version of the AHA and as it has been several years since
I was a member, I am in no way disputing these claims and am in fact
encouraged to re-in-state my membership.

Living in eastern Canada, (Rothesay,NB. Not sure where this places me in
the Rennerian scale) the immediate benefit from a renewed membership is
the Zymurgy magazine. At $45 usd for a Canadian subscription for 6
magazines ($7.50 usd per issue) this is twice the price of my current
renewal for Canadian delivery of 8 issues of Brew Your Own magazine.
($30/8 = $3.75 usd)

My question to the Digest is to those members who are familiar with both
magazines to help me rate the value of either subscription. Is Zymurgy
worth twice the price of Brew Your Own. Is one magazine much larger than
the other? Are they aimed at different target markets i.e. beginners vs.
intermediate home brewers?

Thanks for any feedback. ;~)

Wayne Love
Rothesay, NB.
(506)637-7025
wlove at fdchoice.com





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Date: Thu, 11 Jul 2002 11:18:44 -0700
From: "Parker Dutro" <ezekiel128 at edwardwadsworth.com>
Subject: Cold Conditioning Ale

I have a raspberry wheat ale I am just about to transfer to a secondary
for settling and conditioning.  It's a Ruby take off, (Ruby is a
raspberry beer brewed by McMenamins, a Northwest brewpub chain) I know
that fruit ales get hazy as a result of pectin being boiled, and Ruby is
naturally hazy.  But how would a home brewer go about cold conditioning
an ale in a temperature controlled chamber?  I use Son of Fermentation
Chiller, and it's working superbly!  I thought I remembered reading
about this practice, but I can't recall if it was bottle conditioned
beer or kegged being discussed.  Any thoughts?

Thanks,
Parker Dutro,
Portland, OR


"Excuse me doctor, but I think I know a little something about
medicine!"
 -Homer Simpson






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Date: Thu, 11 Jul 2002 15:00:53 -0400
From: Jeff Renner <JeffRenner at comcast.net>
Subject: Re: retrograded starch

Belated thanks to Marc Sedam <marc_sedam at unc.edu> of Chapel Hill, NC 
for his better explanation than mine on cereal mashing a week ago. 
Today he wrote:

>Corn will gelatinize between 65-70C, depending on what kind
>of corn you have.  Most "regular" corn is between 65-68C.
>Why does this matter?  Because the mash often sees 65-70C
>temperatures in everyday brewing.  I have no doubt that you
>can be perfectly fine making CAPs this way.  However...
>
>I like a very attenuated CAP.  What I'm looking for is a
>reasonably dry, hoppy lager.  I find that temperature rests
>below 65C suit that best.  This isn't to say that the corn
>wouldn't gelatinize over time at 62C, but that it happens
>slower.  I do think that there's a certain "something",
>likely carmelization, that comes out of the cereal mash.

I also have come to appreciate a crisp, snappy, well attenuated CAP. 
My latest one (except for the one that is fermenting now), which I 
took to MCAB in Cleveland, was 80% apparent attenuation.  I brewed 
this with the schedule that has become standard:

cereal (corn meal) mash-in with 30% malt at ~153F/67C 20 minutes, 
then raised to boil over 10-15 minutes or so, boiled 30-40 minutes

Main mash-in to 145F/63C for 30-44 minutes (depending on when I get 
to next step,

Add cereal mash to main mash to boost to 158-160F/70-71C (may take 
additional heat), mash for 30-45 minutes

Heat to mashout of 170F/77C

So you note that the corn isn't mashed below 67C, yet it produces a 
well attenuated beer.

A question for you, Marc.  What is happening to the corn while it is 
being raised to a boil?  I don't think most of the starch is 
converted - it doesn't seem all that sweet at the end of the cereal 
boil.  What about rice?  If you recollect correctly that rice 
gelatinizes at an even higher temperature than corn, It would seem 
even more that the malt enzymes would be destroyed before rice is 
gelatinized.

Certainly the references I have say that for proper gelatinization of 
corn, it should be boiled from 30 minutes for fine meal to 60-90 
minutes for grits (if memory serves), and broken rice for 25-30 
minutes.  (If anyone wants, I can look this up to be sure).

Any chance you could look up those gelatinization temperatures since 
you aren't sure you've remembered correctly?  And maybe those of raw 
barley, wheat and rye while you are in that part of your resource.

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


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Date: Thu, 11 Jul 2002 19:57:09 -0400
From: "Eric Tepe" <erictepe at insightbb.com>
Subject: Beer and Sweat 2001-2nd Announcement!

Brewing Gurus, Brewing Lurkers, etc,

Beer and Sweat 2002 is almost here! What is Beer
and
Sweat? It is the nation's only keg competition
hosted by the Bloataring Brewing League in
Florence Ky (which is just south of Cincinnati,
OH). Last year David Faber of SAAZ took Best of
Show with his Bavarian Weizen. This years event
will be on August 17th at the Ramada Inn in
Florence, Ky. You can make reservations at
859-371-4700. Ask for the Beer and Sweat rooms as
we get a special rate.I believe it is actually
lower than last year! All beer styles, including
mead will be judged. As most of you know, Beer and
Sweat is a keg only competition and we will accept
corny kegs of all sizes, sankey kegs of all sizes,
party pigs and mini-kegs. Again, there will be no
2-liters this year. Entry fee is $5 for the 1st
entry, $4 for the 2nd entry, $1 for the 3rd entry.
Each additional entry over a total of 3 is free.
Last year we had a record 131 entries! Boy was it
a party! We will start excepting entries in July
at our web site www.hbd.org/bloat. As always there
will be a great raffle as well. Last year we
raffled off  (3) 50lb bags of malt, as well as
about 80 other prizes. There is plenty of food
near by so no one will have to starve.  For your
information, Florence, KY if only 12 miles from
Cincinnati, 70 miles from Dayton, about 120Mi from
Columbus, 130mi form Indy, about 4 hrs south of
Cleveland and Toledo, 5 hrs south of Chicago,
Pittsburgh, Detroit and Ann Arbor, 80 miles north
of Lexington KY, 100 mi N of Louisville KY, 3 hrs
N from Evansville IN, and about 4-5 hrs N from
Knoxville TN. We look forward to seeing everyone
and having a great time!



Sincerely,
Eric Tepe
Beer and Sweat Coordinator
Bloatarian Brewing League




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Date: Thu, 11 Jul 2002 23:49:30 -0400
From: ensmingr at twcny.rr.com
Subject: beer in Quebec City

Can anybody suggest a good pub or brewpub in Quebec City? I am
heading up there for a few days on Saturday morning. TIA.

Cheerio!
Peter A. Ensminger
Syracuse, NY
http://hbd.org/ensmingr




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---