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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
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Contents:
  BarleyWine Fermentation ("Scott & Lisa")
  Re: Crankandstein Grain Mills ("arnold_neitzke")
  re: Lager Starter Question ("Steve Alexander")
  re: extractiondDifficulties ("The Artist Formerly Known As Kap'n Salty")
  Re: Primary vs. Secondary ("Chad Gould")
  dramatically lower efficiency (Aaron Robert Lyon)
  Re: "Extraction Effeni."  (sic) (Kent Fletcher)
  RE: Barleywine ("Dan Gross")
  Pot fermentations (Roger & Roxy Whyman)


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Date: Fri, 6 Sep 2002 23:55:58 -0500
From: "Scott & Lisa" <scottandlisa at mindspring.com>
Subject: BarleyWine Fermentation

I don't know what happened to my first post, somehow it got truncated right
in the middle - or I had already had too many homebrews to accurately type
my question!

Anyway, I recently brewed a batch of barleywine.  Everything went fine with
the primary fermentation; however, when I racked to secondary, I only got
about 3.5 gals. into the 5 gal. carboy because of siphon problems.  The brew
has been in the secondary for about a month, has reached its target gravity,
but is still very cloudy.  I'm concerned about leaving it too much longer in
the secondary because of excessive headspace and oxidation issues.  Any
opinions?

Scott
Greenbrier, TN



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Date: Sat, 7 Sep 2002 07:23:44 -0400
From: "arnold_neitzke" <arnold_neitzke at ameritech.net>
Subject: Re: Crankandstein Grain Mills

> Date: Fri, 6 Sep 2002 08:56:21 -0700
> From: "Cave, Jim" <Cave at psc.org>
> Subject: Crankandstein Grain Mills
>
> Does anyone have any experience with these mills?  They look pretty
> beefy.
>
> Jim Cave

Jim

I have one and love it.  I bought the adjustable model, that adjusts at both
looked a little small to me though).  I wanted to build my own base anyway,
so thid worked great for me.

Hope this helps

Arnold Neitzke - Brighton Mi
(Just a bit north of Renner)



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Date: Sat, 7 Sep 2002 09:35:46 -0400
From: "Steve Alexander" <steve-alexander at worldnet.att.net>
Subject: re: Lager Starter Question

Donald Miller writes ...

> I am
>building a starter with 2 cups of water and one pint of DME.  I let the
wort
>starter coll to 74 degrees and then poured the Czech Pils yeast into the
>bottle.  I let the starter go for about 48 hours at room temperature.
>Yesterday I moved the starter to my chest freezer which is set at 50
degrees
[...]

Hmmm - well I generally agree w/ the comments of Marc Sedam and
Kap'n Salty (Cap'n Crunch's evil twin) but let's take it a bit further.

I don't know what the DME+water formula gives, but starters should be
around 10P and not above 12P. Also the Kap'n  says your starter is
too small but so is his.  You should pitch 5gal of lager wort with the
yeast from at least a half-gallon starter and preferably a full gallon!
Because of this I'd suggest next time you brew a pale modestly
hopped wort you make a few extra gallons to freeze for starters.

I agree with Marc's methods but not his line of reasoning.   Yeast
don't generally 'get used to' or acclimate to their environment in the
sense that the handle it better or ferment more efficiently when
grown for a couple generations under comparable environments.
They have simple metabolic behavior based on the environment
and it's worthwhile trying to understand that behavior.

Lager yeast achieve the highest growth rates around 30-35C(!),
but they accumulate unsaturated fatty acids (necessary for alcohol
tolerance, os-pressure tolerance,  cold-shock tolerance and lower
ester & fusel flavor product generation) preferentially at lower
temps and only when oxygen is present.  You can grow a lot of
yeast mass at high temperatures, but you should plan on growing
them in a cold oxygenated environment - fattening them up -
before pitching into cold wort.  Just dropping the temp in the
now anaerobic starter has no positive effect.

A 'cool grown starter' should do as well or better than a 'warm
grown starter' when pitched into warm wort , so it isn't
acclimatization at work here.  The notion of yeast acclimating to
environments leads folks to do bad things to their starters like
allowing high salt concentration (a la Burton) or  high gravity
starter worts or high alcohol concentrations.  These are always
counterproductive to producing an optimal starter. It's just
torturing the yeast and getting no benefit.

It's no coincidence that all of the eight lager fermenting
schemes described in Kunze begin by pitching the yeast into
oxygenated wort cooled to BELOW fermentation temps and
then permit a temperature rise to fermentation temps.

>1) Should I have this starter at the 50 degrees right now or did I jump
> the gun?

You are probably too late.   A starter step size should ferment
out almost completely in 2 days at room temp.   I'd suggest stepping
up & reoxygenating the starter at 50F.

>2) Will the 48 hours at room temperature screw up (technical term)
>the starter?

The 'starter beer' fermented at room temp may have a poor flavor
profile with excess esters, fusels & VDKs.   A pint in 5gal might be
OK, but if you were adding a 1/2gal or more you'd certainly want
to separate the yeast from the starter beer.

Again the yeast are likely to be cold-shocked when they go
from RT to 50F and I'd try to make them happy about fermenting
at 50F temps before pitching.

>3) How long before the starter is ready when fermenting at the lower
> temperature of 50 degrees?

>From various tables, commercial 12P lagers are fully attenuated at
9C(47-48F) in 7 days.  Your yeast may not be happy about the 50F
climate shift and they've probably almost fully attenuated the starter
before this so it's anyone's guess.

 -S




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Date: Sat, 07 Sep 2002 11:07:54 -0500
From: "The Artist Formerly Known As Kap'n Salty" <mikey at swampgas.com>
Subject: re: extractiondDifficulties

Andrew E Hipkiss asks 

>I am relatively new to all-grain brewing and am having some serious
>difficulties with my extraction.

You'll no doubt get a lot of answers on this, ranging from poor sparge
to mash pH to improper attire (plaid) when brewing. 

While there are any number of possible causes for poor extraction, the
firat thing I'd check for as a newbie is whether or not you are really
collecting the volume of wort you think you're collecting, and whether
or not your post-boil wort volume is really what you think it is. 

Being off by a gallon or so when brewing small batches (5-6 gallons)
can result in significant errors in your calculations. If you haven't
already done so, consider calibrating your pots so you can be sure
that a given level of liquid in the pot equals a given volume (be
aware boiling wort takes up more volume than cooled wort -- 4%, I
think). This seems to be a pretty common issue with new brewers not
yet familiar with their equipment.

If volume estimation isn't the problem, then you can optionally start
worrying about the other stuff. Or -- as others have mentioned -- just
don't worry about it at all and scale your recipies up a little. 

Repeat this mantra to yourself: "Grain is cheap ... Grain is cheap"
until you get comfortable with the idea. In the end efficiency really
isn't that big a deal, at least until you begin to approach the
capacity of your mash tun with higher gravity beers. 

Hope that helped -- tafkaKs
====
Teleoperate a roving mobile robot from the web:
http://www.swampgas.com/robotics/rover.html



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Date: Sat, 7 Sep 2002 14:34:18 -0400
From: "Chad Gould" <cgould11 at tampabay.rr.com>
Subject: Re: Primary vs. Secondary

> I have never used a secondary in 10 years of brewing.  I always leave my
> beer in the primary to make sure fermentation is done.   I have never
> experienced any off-flavors as a result, as far as I can tell.  My
> concern with the secondary is that the transfer process is one more
> place for contamination to creep in, as well as oxidation.  I'm also too
> lazy to clean another set of fermenters and too cheap to buy them.
> I even went 3+ weeks in the fermenter once when I was away on business
> and didn't have time to bottle.  No problems even then.

The maximum time I have left a beer in the primary is three weeks, and I had
no problems. I think you can go a bit longer than that without yeast
autolysis occuring - 4-5 weeks, perhaps. I have heard of people fermenting
barley wines in just a primary for a year or more.

Aside from the risk of autolysis, I think the main advantage you gain with a
transfer to a secondary is clarity and less sediment in the bottles. Perhaps
there are other advantages I'm not aware of, but there is a risk of
additional infection and oxidation with a primary -> secondary transfer.




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Date: Sat, 7 Sep 2002 19:38:59 -0400 (EDT)
From: Aaron Robert Lyon <lyona at umich.edu>
Subject: dramatically lower efficiency

Brewers, I recently scaled my brewing operation down to 5 gallons to fit
into a small Chicago apartment.  I'm using my old mash tun (10 gallon
Gott) from my 10 gallon batch days, but have been getting significantly
lower gravity readings than I would expect with the amount of malt I'm
using.  I usually enjoy brewing big beers, but have ended up with readings
as low as 1.084 when using 21 lbs of grain.  Nothings else (grind, etc)
has changed.  What can I do to pull more sugars out of the mash?  Should I
forget the sparge and just fill and drain the tun after starch conversion?
Would that be the least bit helpful?

I used to get 70-75% efficiency (sometimes higher) with no problem.
Public or private e-mails would be appreciated.  Thanks.

 -Aaron

____________________________________________________________________________
Aaron Lyon  -  grad student / homebrewer / hasher

"Give me a woman who truly loves beer, and I will conquer the world."
	-Kaiser Wilhelm II (1859-1941)


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Date: Sat, 7 Sep 2002 18:39:39 -0700 (PDT)
From: Kent Fletcher <fletcherhomebrew at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: "Extraction Effeni."  (sic)

Falling somewhat short of proving Sir Arthur
Eddington's theorem, Byron typed:

> Date: Fri, 6 Sep 2002 00:47:33 -0500
> From: "Partner" <Partner at Netdirect.net>
> Subject: Extraction Effeni.
> 
> I've never seen so much  drivel in my life until
> tonight's reply's
(snip)
> this was pathetic reply's,  everyone knows your PH
> is to be 5.2-5.6
> 
> that    IS the answer and I'm sticking to it
> 
> Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesh

This coming from a guy who thinks that wild ducks are
darkening his brew: "Now I know I'm facing Mallard
Reactions  (Deeper Colour)," from 
http://hbd.org/hbd/archive/3946.html#3946-21
and wants to learn about "yeast acclamation" in zero
gravity: 
"What is interesting to me is yeast acclamation.  For
10,000 years, it;'s been done with gravity,
time to adjust for the next 500 years." from 
http://hbd.org/hbd/archive/3933.html#3933-15

Byron, I'm sure we all bow to your superior brewing
knowledge, after all, "everyone knows" that there can
only be one answer to ANY question about brewing, and
that high final runnings and lack of a mash-out
couldn't possibly have anything to do with reduced
extract efficiency.

Kent Fletcher
brewing in So Cal





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Date: Sat, 7 Sep 2002 22:26:12 -0400
From: "Dan Gross" <degross at starpower.net>
Subject: RE: Barleywine

Chris asks for advice on his first barleywine.

I have brewed a few with varied results.  The main problem that I have run
into is getting a good balance of malt and hop flavor.  Barleywine is a
tough one to ferment all the way down because of the high original gravity.
Yeast choice is important, but the amount of yeast you pitch could be more
important.  Lots and lots of healthy yeast is needed.  There are several ale
yeasts that should be able to do the job if you pitch enough from a starter
that you prepare in advance.
The other big problem is hop utilization.  A high gravity wort does not
extract hop bitterness as efficiently as a normal wort.  Fal Allen and Dck
Cantwell's book "Barley Wine" suggests that you should add 4% more hops for
a wort above 1.100.
The real fun with barleywine is that it can be drinkable for years to come
and they change considerably over time, usually for the better.

Dan Gross
Olney, Md



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Date: Sun, 08 Sep 2002 20:45:01 -0600
From: Roger & Roxy Whyman <rwhyman at mho.com>
Subject: Pot fermentations

Bill asks about;

fermenting in a SS Pot


I regularly ferment in a 10 gal. SS pot with a lid. I don't have the 
luxury of a nipple, so I have to siphon. My SMO is never to remove the 
lid until it's time to tranfer. Then I raise one side of the pot about 2 
in. to get the most out by putting the raking cane into the low side. 
Always comes out very clear with very little, if any, yeast. Since I 
brew 16.5 gal batchs, half my wort also goes into a 10 gal. cornie. This 
is where I always harvest my yeast, but I wouldn't be afraid to harvest 
from the pot, it's just easier to get the yeast out of the cornie. Never 
had a problem.
Roger Whyman
Parker, CO




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