FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES Digest Janitor: janitor@hbd.org *************************************************************** THIS YEAR'S HOME BREW DIGEST BROUGHT TO YOU BY: Northern Brewer, Ltd. Home Brew Supplies http://www.northernbrewer.com 1-800-681-2739 Support those who support you! Visit our sponsor's site! ********** Also visit http://hbd.org/hbdsponsors.html ********* Contents: Re: Water Softener Using Potassium Chloride ("John & Joy Vaughn") Re: Apparent Rennerian ("John & Joy Vaughn") Beer Pouches ("Jeff Stith") Re: Anheuser-Busch Information (Teresa Knezek) Re: Beer Engine correction (Teresa Knezek) heat produced by fermentation (Andrew Larkin) RE: Blowoff affect flavor ("Mcgregor, Arthur, Mr, OSD-ATL") Re: cleaning aeration stones (Fred L Johnson) Bubble Gum (Michael Hartsock) Re: Splitting the Brew Day into Two Days ("Joel Plutchak") A-B (Michael Hartsock) Re: cleaning aeration stones (Wendy & Reuben Filsell) RE: tap-a-draft v party pig (beerbuddy) Re: Blowoff affect flavor?? (Jeff Renner) RE: bubblegum flavors (beerbuddy) Re: 1056 vs. WLP001 (Jeff Renner) Raising pH in dark beers (james ray) White labs 001 use (homebre973) Re: Anheuser-Busch Information (Jeff Renner) Minikegs for beer engines & heated fermentation chambers (LJ Vitt) Re: Orval (Jeff Renner) No-sparge lessons learned (Kevin Crouch) Incandescent Light Causes Skunkiness? ("Hedglin, Nils A") RE: Heating/Cooling Questions (Donald and Melissa Hellen) Lagering Box (Donald and Melissa Hellen) Cute Tank Names ("Peter Garofalo")
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---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 19:32:49 -0900 From: "John & Joy Vaughn" <hogbrew at mtaonline.net> Subject: Re: Water Softener Using Potassium Chloride On 11/20/2002 at 10:39 AM Jeff Renner wrote: >John Vaughn <hogbrew at mtaonline.net> writes from Wasilla, AK > >>I had a water softener installed and am using potassium >>chloride to recharge the resin bed. ... Can I use this water for >>brewing? I assume I will need to add calcium for the mash. > >Probably not. It depends on what the anions are in the water - the >negatively charged ones like sulfate (SO4-2), bicarbonate (HCO3-1), >chloride Cl-1). You exchanged one cation (positively charged), >potassium (K+) for one or two others that caused water hardness, >calcium (Ca+2) and magnesium (Mg+2). You apparently also got rid of >some iron, not sure which form. > >So, if you still have bicarbonate, you shouldn't brew with it, at >least not pale beers. The alkalinity of bicarbonate (often expressed >as carbonate for convenience) needs to be balanced by the acidity of >dark grains. > >I'm not sure what high levels of potassium might do in water. > >As John Palmer writes in his book How to Brew (available online at >http://www.howtobrew.com/), "In general, you should never use >softened water for mashing." > >You might try aerating, boiling and decanting your water. That's >what I do. It precipitates out the bicarbonate as calcium carbonate >(limestone) and judging by the tan color of the precipitate, it also >takes out the small amount of iron I have. > >Then you would add calcium as gypsum or CaCl2. > >Jeff >-- >Jeff Renner in Ann Arbor, Michigan USA, JeffRenner at comcast.net >"One never knows, do one?" Fats Waller, American Musician, 1904-1943 Thanks Jeff, I expect chloride to be present. The water was medium hard but the main problem was the clear-water iron. You don't see it until it has time to react with air and oxidize. The water was slightly acidic (pH 6.8) before the softener was installed. I used an old ColorPhast strip tonight and it came out at 5.7. I hope that is wrong or my plumbing is in trouble. Obviously, I need to have a water analysis done. Since this will cost me money (it is my own well), what do I need to ask the lab to run? A.J., are you there? John Vaughn Wasilla, Alaska Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 19:50:27 -0900 From: "John & Joy Vaughn" <hogbrew at mtaonline.net> Subject: Re: Apparent Rennerian Dave, The internet is a wonderful tool/toy/resource/reference/waster-of-time. We live in an amazing era. Thanks to all on the HBD for the spirit of sharing knowledge. John Vaughn Wasilla, Alaska *********** REPLY SEPARATOR *********** On 11/20/2002 at 7:22 PM Dave and Joan King wrote: >>From the 11/18 post, John & Joy Vaughn are from >Wasilla, AK >[2938, 320] Apparent Rennerian > >I have to say, that's a mighty big Apparent Rennerian ! I see it doesn't >matter much if you're a long way from the center of Home Brewing, isn't the >internet great! > >Dave King, the Hop Head from BIER >Endicott, NY >[396, 89] Apparent Rennerian Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 23:03:01 -0600 From: "Jeff Stith" <jstith at kc.rr.com> Subject: Beer Pouches Something that may be of interest to anyone who might also backpack as I do... Saw in Backpacker Magazine today that a company in Alaska manufactures oxygen proof, light proof pouches for "bottling" beer. They come in several sizes including 16 and 22 ounce and fold down flat. They also sell the sealer for them. The advantage is less weight and, when empty, take up little room at all in the pack. Supposedly the beer also keeps longer than in glass. I emailed them today asking if they cater just to microbreweries (as the info seemed to lean towards) or if they were available to small home brewers. I'll let you all know what I find out. Has anyone heard of these pouches or even used them? I know the "purist" might have a problem with it but I'd love to kick back with a couple of homebrews in the back country while gazing out over some awesome scenery after a long day under a pack! Jeff S. Lee's Summit, Missouri "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." -Edmund Burke Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 20:42:07 -0900 From: Teresa Knezek <teresa at mivox.com> Subject: Re: Anheuser-Busch Information On or thereabout 11/21/02, Peter Garofalo spoke thusly: >Anyway, that's about all that leaps to mind. My thanks to those at A-B who >were so gracious and informative. > >I hope this is interesting to others, as well. Very interesting... did you have a chance to taste some "brand new" product? I'm not a big Bud fan, to say the least, but the Czech Bud isn't a bad beer at all... After your description, I'm wondering if all the care and attention you describe is producing a decent beer that's bottled in good shape, but ruined during storage and transport... - -- :: Teresa :: http://www.mivox.com/ "It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit." -- Harry S. Truman Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 20:48:06 -0900 From: Teresa Knezek <teresa at mivox.com> Subject: Re: Beer Engine correction Aigh! My delete key is possessed... this paragraph in the last digest was *supposed* to read like so: >With the beer engine system, it appears all you need on the keg end >of the deal is a hose to hook up to the beer engine. The diagrams >always show a full size keg laid on its side, with the tap on one >edge of one end to maximize gravity feed. While those gravity feed >mini kegs are meant to sit upright, since the built-in tap's at the >bottom, I don't see why it wouldn't work. There is the possible issue of "overkill" with this whole set-up, but I think that's offset by the outrageous "cool factor" of having a beer engine installed on my kitchen look-through counter. :-) - -- :: Teresa :: http://www.mivox.com/ "It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit." -- Harry S. Truman Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 22:56:12 -0800 (PST) From: Andrew Larkin <aj_larkin at yahoo.com> Subject: heat produced by fermentation How much heat does fermentation produce? ie. if I perfectly insulated 5 gallons of 1.060 wort and it fermented to 1.010, how much would the temperature increase? Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2002 08:27:19 -0500 From: "Mcgregor, Arthur, Mr, OSD-ATL" <Arthur.Mcgregor at osd.mil> Subject: RE: Blowoff affect flavor Hi All, In HBD #4097 Brendan Oldham asked about blowoff effects on beer flavor ... A few years back I was fermenting 5 gallons in 5 gal glass carboys which required a blowoff tube. I used a sanitized large 1.25 inch (?) OD vinyl tubing that went from the carboy neck into a sanitized 1 gal plastic jug (e.g., milk/water jug with top cut off), and enough water to keep the blowoff tube submerged. On a number of occasions I had 1/2 to 2/3 of a gal of blowoff. The blowoff beer ended up fermenting in the plastic jug, just like the larger batch in the carboy. I was concerned about losing all that beer and about its effect on the final flavor of the batch of beer. I collected the blowoff beer and treated it as a separate batch. I transferred the blowoff beer to a secondary with an air lock, let it complete its work then bottled it and compared it to a bottle from the original batch. As a note, I brew with pellet hops and dump the wort (hop pellets and all) into the primary and let it ferment, then leave the hop pellets and trub at the bottom of the carboy when I transfer the beer from the primary to the secondary. The blowoff beer had a much higher bitterness than the remainder of the batch, and was more watery, and appeared to have lower alcohol content. The higher bitterness stands to reason since the blowoff contained a large amount of hop pellets. Some folks may disagree with this line of reasoning, since hop bitterness is only supposed get extracted during boiling, but I can taste more bitterness in beer that I have dry hopped even though dry hopping is not supposed to add bitterness. YMMV :^) After brewing a few batches and saving the blowoff beer for the experiment, I ended up adding the blowoff beer in with the remainder of the batch when I transferred to the secondary. I eventually went back to doing primaries in 6 1/2 gallon plastic buckets for ease of cleaning. I will probably do another experiment with the glass carboy as a primary to see how much of a difference the glass makes in the beer's flavor versus the plastic buckets. Hoppy Brewing, Art McGregor Lorton, Virginia [424.1, 123.3] Rennerian Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2002 08:12:36 -0500 From: Fred L Johnson <FLJohnson at portbridge.com> Subject: Re: cleaning aeration stones Reuben asks me in a recent post to the HBD: > Well now Fred, that's the second suggestion you have shot down so how about > just describing the materials methods and rationale you use so the rest of > us can benefit from your critiques. I did when I said "water and bases." This is not news for the following reasons so I didn't expand on the statement, but since Reuben asked... The cleaning agents typically sold for cleaning equipment in the brewhouse are water-based and often contain sodium hydroxide (called lye or caustic soda) or potassium hydroxide (caustic potash) or some other fairly strong base like trisodium phosphate. (I think this is part of the reason that bleach solutions work pretty well. They are usually highly alkaline.) I think the big boys just have big barrels of sodium hydroxide for their clean-in-place operations. I've never purchased the commercial concoctions that are easily found in your local homebrew store, but I'm pretty sure they typically use a strong base (in the chemical sense) as their basis (in the construction sense). Good old detergents work also! Fred L. Johnson Apex, North Carolina, USA Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2002 06:13:21 -0800 (PST) From: Michael Hartsock <xd_haze at yahoo.com> Subject: Bubble Gum About this bubble gum flavor, I have noticed it in my traditional wheat beers, which I understand is to be a desireable trait in this style but not in others. Its sort of a juicy fruit taste. I think this is due to fruit esters. It is strong at bottling and then mellows out to a light fruity essence. I think it is not a flavor, but instead an aroma (the two are remarkably difficult to distinguish). I would say that it is a function of the yeast, but I use dried ale yeast, usually nottingham's for everything. I think it is temperature and more importantly the use of wheat in the brewing. Any one agree or dissent? michael Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2002 14:22:11 +0000 From: "Joel Plutchak" <plutchak at hotmail.com> Subject: Re: Splitting the Brew Day into Two Days In HBD #4099, Scott <courtney03 at iquest.net> writes: >I read something somewhere (BYO/Zymurgy) about >splitting the brew day into two shorter segments, i.e. mash and >sparge one day/evening, and boil/pitch the next day or days). >Has anyone tried this technique? Are there any detrimental >effects of storing the runoff overnight/several nights? I do this several times per year-- mash and sparge in the evening, then get up and continue with the boil the next morning. It works fine, and allows me to fit my brew day to the constraints of real life (and still get sleep ;-). I've had no problem with off flavors due to bacteria. However, I've also intentionally soured wort, and based on my experiences would recommend that you not wait more than overnight. If you're still concerned with that and it'll make you feel better, heat the wort as you collect it and make sure it gets above about 160F before covering and letting sit overnight. That should kill off (or at least highly discourage) wort spoilage bacteria. >I'm also thinking that this technique may be only marginally >time-saving >since set-up and tear-down times are now present >on both days. There's zero time savings at best-- you still have to do everything you'd do otherwise. But set-up and tear-down in my case isn't an issue since I set up in the evening, leave up during the night, and get up and continue the next morning. No extra set-up or tear-down. (Though depending on the schedule of the rest of your household they may have to work around you a bit.) You can do some time-sharing as usual; on split brew days I get up and turn the stove on under the collected wort, then go shower/shave/etc and have breakfast while it gets up to boiling. But as I mentioned above it's more a way of fitting your brew day into your life. Have fun! - -- Joel Plutchak Preaching what I practice in East-Central Illinois Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2002 06:28:37 -0800 (PST) From: Michael Hartsock <xd_haze at yahoo.com> Subject: A-B As a missourian, I know that you don't say anything bad about A-B, especially in the east part of the state, Frankly, everyone should know that if you are in St. Louis, you'd best not order a miller or a Coors (not that anyone here would). The reason for my post is to ask if anyone else had purchased the michelob christmas taster pack. There are two all-malt lagers included that are quite excellent. Their Marzen is quite remarkably good. As far as mass markets beer, its a shame they don't sell it year round. michael Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 23:30:41 +0800 From: Wendy & Reuben Filsell <filsell at myplace.net.au> Subject: Re: cleaning aeration stones > From: Fred L Johnson <FLJohnson at portbridge.com> > Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2002 08:12:36 -0500 > To: <filsell at myplace.net.au>, Homebrew Digest <homebrew at hbd.org> > Subject: Re: cleaning aeration stones > > This is not news for the following > reasons so I didn't expand on the statement, but since Reuben asked... I asked because not everyone on this list is a chemist "water and bases" leaves a lot of ambiguity. > > The cleaning agents typically sold for cleaning equipment in the brewhouse > are water-based and often contain sodium hydroxide (called lye or caustic > soda) or potassium hydroxide (caustic potash) or some other fairly strong > base like trisodium phosphate. (I think this is part of the reason that > bleach solutions work pretty well. They are usually highly alkaline.) I > think the big boys just have big barrels of sodium hydroxide for their > clean-in-place operations. So how does that apply to us ? quick wash and rinse or overnight soak? > > I've never purchased the commercial concoctions that are easily found in > your local homebrew store, but I'm pretty sure they typically use a strong > base (in the chemical sense) as their basis (in the construction sense). > > Good old detergents work also! Do you use aeration/carbonation stones Fred? Reuben. W.A. "In theory, theory and practice are the same, except in practice" Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2002 16:05:28 +0000 From: beerbuddy at attbi.com Subject: RE: tap-a-draft v party pig <<<<<< One problem I do have is that I feel you really need two people to fill the Tap-A-Draft bottles since they do not have flat bottoms to sit on. The last thing I want to do is drop and spill one of those. One person supports the bottle while the other works the filler and sets it aside. - -- Take care, Mark >>>>> I also use the tap-a-draft, and really enjoy it. The shortening of bottling day is great, and it's a nice thing to have in the fridge. I typically use two tap- a-draft bottles and 10 to 12 16oz for each 5 gallon batch, depending on the size of the trub. I agree, one of the hard things is that you do need an extra hand to hold up the bottle while filling, thank God for supportive wives (supporting filling bottles as well as adictive hobbies)! I think this could be corrected with an easily built stand, but I haven't had time to fashion one yet. I have found that the cartridges will generally last through each 6L bottle, if it is finished within about a week. Any longer and you need to replace the cartridges (which are available reasonably inexpensively at the grocery store). As for the concern that it would lose pressure after the height of the mouth, the CO2 has enough pressure to push the beer out, until the cartridges are near empty. I was a little concerned that the small pickup tube would pickup sediment and clog, but after about 5 bottles of even a heavy sediment chocolate stout, have not seen that happen. I've also tried force carbonating a cider, per their suggestion of giving it a week then replacing the cartridges. The carbonation was just enough for a cider, but would not provide enough, IMHO, for even the least carbonated beer style. Only two things I see as negatives: The first is the bottles are fairly expensive, and pretty easily damaged. If you fill the bottle with water/cleanser, and turn it upside down to empty, the force of the water will suck the sides in. I am on the lookout for alternatives, and think the tap uses a fairly standard mouth, so hopefully something else will show up. The other negative I see is that the tap is fairly hard to clean, especially the integral small pickup hose (I'm guessing the ID is about 1/16") with a weight on the end to keep it at the bottom. The above said though, I really enjoy the tap-a-draft system for a convenient way to bottle, which saves time and space. Timothy North Bend, WA beerbuddy at attbi.com Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2002 11:02:54 -0500 From: Jeff Renner <JeffRenner at comcast.net> Subject: Re: Blowoff affect flavor?? "Chad Gould" <cgould11 at tampabay.rr.com>, who must be in the Tampa area judging by his address, wrote: >My current batch rode its krausen *right* up >to the rim of the neck... geesh. >http://tilt.largo.fl.us/dbbc/dbbc012ferment.jpg Actually, that is perfect. The "braunheffe" (the brown sticky crud) all sticks to the glass that way (as your photo shows) and is removed. Big breweries (I think A/B is one) have designed their fermenters so the kraeusen rises to the top and it sticks to the "ceiling". Whether or not to skim or otherwise remove the braunheffe is an oft discussed subject on HBD, and has never beer fully resolved, but I like to do it. It seems to smooth out the bitterness and make it cleaner, less harsh. Jeff - -- Jeff Renner in Ann Arbor, Michigan USA, JeffRenner at comcast.net "One never knows, do one?" Fats Waller, American Musician, 1904-1943 Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2002 16:13:16 +0000 From: beerbuddy at attbi.com Subject: RE: bubblegum flavors Thanks to everyone who replied on and off list to this topic. The most common suggestion was that it was related to yeasts, specifically belgian ale yeasts, and that temperature probably has something to do with the intensity of the flavor. When I asked, I wasn't looking to recreate the flavor, just to help train my pallette to understand the intricacies of where certain flavors come from. I enjoyed the beer for an evening, but think it would become overbearing if I actually had 5G of the stuff! Thanks again. Timothy North Bend, WA beerbuddy at attbi.com Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2002 11:17:57 -0500 From: Jeff Renner <JeffRenner at comcast.net> Subject: Re: 1056 vs. WLP001 Apparently, both of these yeasts are from the same source originally. It is the old Ballantine's yeast, and is the one used by Sierra nevada. I believe SN got it from a yeast bank. Wyeast and White labs may have got theirs from the same source or elsewhere, maybe even from a bottle of SNPA. Who knows? But as the FAQ from WhiteLabs says (below), even yeasts from the same source may diverge. From http://www.whitelabs.com/faq.html : "Do you have a map between your yeast strains and others? "No, we do not have a direct "correlation chart". Some of are strains are similar to those offered by other companies, but some are different. Even for the strains with similar origin, they have been obtained at different times from different locations. They are stored different, grown in different conditions and different media. Each yeast strain produced by White Labs has been carefully selected from breweries worldwide, and further selected for advantageous brewing characteristics. In general, yeast strains of similar origin exhibit similar, but not exact properties. In our descriptions of the yeast strains, we describe the area of origin and the flavor profile parameters of each strain." Jeff - -- Jeff Renner in Ann Arbor, Michigan USA, JeffRenner at comcast.net "One never knows, do one?" Fats Waller, American Musician, 1904-1943 Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2002 08:41:19 -0800 (PST) From: james ray <jnjnmiami at yahoo.com> Subject: Raising pH in dark beers Jim Dunlap,Woodinville WA writes: For the darker beers I still need to figure out how to raise the pH some. Is it more effective to raise the pH with CaCO3 to the base water first or mash water? Are there other methods? I had a similar problem with the relatively soft water in Miami. I used baking soda. Be careful because a little goes a long way. I found one ounce worked well for a 5 BBL batch. I treated only the mash. Teresa Knezek asks about using mini kegs with a beer engine. They should work fine. I have used firkins as well as corny kegs. Cornies are easy to use by just venting the top. James Ray Montgomery, AL Formerly at Titanic Brewing, Miami FL Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2002 12:11:36 -0500 From: homebre973 at mindspring.com Subject: White labs 001 use I just used the pitchable tube of this yeast for an APA, and it seems to have performed quite well. I would like to use the yeast layer in the secondary to brew a different type of beer. Does anyone have suggestions on what other types of ales this yeast would be good for? I am leaning towards some type of British Ale. Thanks Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2002 12:21:33 -0500 From: Jeff Renner <JeffRenner at comcast.net> Subject: Re: Anheuser-Busch Information Thanks to Peter Garofalo <pgarofa1 at twcny.rr.com> of Syracuse, NY for his report on the Anheuser-Busch brewery, in Baldwinsville, NY. A few thoughts: >The mystery of the air stripper was explained to me by the brewmaster. The >hot wort is sent along a set of tubes in a laminar flow regime. The air flow >strips DMS and other sulfur compounds, but does not mix with the gently >flowing beer enough to cause HSA. They take HSA *very* seriously, and notice >it right away. It is a dead giveaway that they have a leak, for one thing. >It also ruins the shelf life, to paraphrase the brewmaster. Also, it happens >very quickly, so a short hot air exposure is bad. A-B, as you mention, is very fussy to keep the quality of their beers as high as possible at all times. Recently I read something somewhere about a new brewery with either smaller kettle doors, or perhaps none, or maybe just that someone thought they should be kept closed when they weren't adding hops. Anyway, it was found that the beer changed, and they had to add doors or keep them open. This made me thing of what the origin of this strange wort stripper that we saw in St. Louis and Pete saw in NY, where the hot wort flows in a spiral down the inside of tubes while hot air is blown up. I wonder if this may have been added when/if they replaced old style Baudelot coolers (see photo of old ones in Czechoslovakia at http://www.beer-kozel.cz/pvp46a.htm ). In a Baudelot cooler, hot wort flows over rows of pipes filled with cold water. The advantage of these was that they aerated the wort once it cooled. (Perhaps again, with smooth flow, hot wort isn't aerated?). I can well imagine that when new closed wort chillers were introduced, the flavor may well have changed for the worse. >Here's a nugget: Budweiser and Michelob (plus a few others) are kraeusened! >Also, rice is used in Bud and Michelob, but corn grits are used in Natural >Light. I heard that when they introduced Busch, they went to great lengths to keep the house character, which means no corn flavor. I suspect the air stripping may play a part in this. >the final bright beer tank, which has some cute name >that eludes me now. The government tank? Jeff - -- Jeff Renner in Ann Arbor, Michigan USA, JeffRenner at comcast.net "One never knows, do one?" Fats Waller, American Musician, 1904-1943 Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2002 10:06:31 -0800 (PST) From: LJ Vitt <lvitt4 at yahoo.com> Subject: Minikegs for beer engines & heated fermentation chambers Teresa writes about hooking a beer engine up to a mini-keg. This will be an interesting experiment. One product you should look at to give you an option to think about - Philtap - http://www.listermann.com/Store/Details.asp?ID=573 It is a CO2 system, but I think the picture on the web site will give you some ideas. I think if you leave the CO2 cartridge out and have a beer engine attached to the hose instead of the picnic tap, you can do what you suggesting. I think hooking a hose to that built in twist tap that pulls out of the side of the newer mini-kegs would be difficult. Teresa, you will need to inform us what you end up doing and how it comes out. I know a few people who use pins (they hold about 5.5 gals) with beer engines. They only do it for large parties. My answer up till now for mini-kegs is the air pump tap. - ------------------------------ Todd and John asked questions about heating a box to have a temp controlled place to ferment. One for ales, the other for lagers. I have seen a few of these. Two were made from plywood lined with 2 inches of Styrofoam insulation and heated with a light bulb. The light bulb is in a can to keep the light affect down. The can has holes to let heat out. One had a biscuit fan blowing air through the can. You can get one carboy into it. A thermostat controls the light bulb. I have one made out of a otherwise useless chest freezer. The heat source is also a light bulb, but is a wooden box, with a biscuit fan. it will hold 3 or 4 carboys, depending on the carboy size. I have used in in the garage in the winter to do lager primary fermentations, ales in winter when the basement is rather cool, and to hold bottles at a warm temp for bottle conditioning. ===== Leo Vitt Rochester MN Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2002 13:39:12 -0500 From: Jeff Renner <JeffRenner at comcast.net> Subject: Re: Orval Paul Edwards <pedwards at iquest.net> asks: >Original Gravity: 13.4 deg Plato >Color: 22 EBC >Bitterness: 32 EBC > >(can somebody translate these last two to SRM and IBU?) EBC color is close enough to double SRM for government work, but I don't recall that Orval is as dark as 11 SRM, which is the same as Bass pale ale. EBC bitterness is the same as IBU - ppm of isomerized alpha acid. Jeff - -- Jeff Renner in Ann Arbor, Michigan USA, JeffRenner at comcast.net "One never knows, do one?" Fats Waller, American Musician, 1904-1943 Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2002 12:39:51 -0800 (PST) From: Kevin Crouch <kcrouching at yahoo.com> Subject: No-sparge lessons learned Stuart (zzlay at yahoo.com) shares his experience with his first all grain and asks? >Are there other brewers who regularly no-sparge? Lessons learned? Stuart, I must say that breaking the chains of controlled-sparge brewing was the best thing to happen to me since I began All-grain brewing many years ago. I usually brew with a friend, swill plenty of brew, enjoy a puro or two, and invariably screw up the delicate sparge balance. I didn't know that it was having such an impact on my beers until I tried my first no-sparge brew. Combining this with a better understanding of water chemistry brought my quality to a new level. The biggest hurdle to get over for me was the deep-seated misconception that thin mashes favor beta amylase and thin beers. I don't know if it was the texts I read or my comprehension, but I had oversimplified it profoundly. The relationship that is most important to consider is between thickness and temperature. The lifespan of beta-amylase is shortened significantly in thinner mashes at higher temperatures. Thus, the thin mashes necessary for no-sparge brewing can actually lead to excessive dextrins in the wort if temperatures are not kept under control. Single-temp infusion mashes are more problematic, however, as step mashes generally provide better control over maltose/dextrin balance. I am not going to pretend to understand all the relationships of temperature, thickness, and pH, but I urge you to research it a bit (if you haven't already) and take it into consideration. Also, when making higher gravity brews, don't be afraid to do mini-sparges if you run out of room in your tun. What I mean is that if you can't fit all your sparge water into your mash/lauter tun all at once, it won't hurt to top up your tun as it drains down a bit, or even control-sparge the remainder. I tried this with a Dopplelbock recently and got high marks for efficiency. Kevin Crouch Vancouver, Washington, USA Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2002 13:45:06 -0800 From: "Hedglin, Nils A" <nils.a.hedglin at intel.com> Subject: Incandescent Light Causes Skunkiness? Hi all, I always assumed that incandescent light caused skunkiness, but I recently read something that indicated this may not be the case. Is there something scientific that has proven (or disproven) the lightstuck affect of incandescent light on beer? Or is it just "common knowledge" pass from brewer to brewer? Thanks Nils Hedglin Sacramento, CA [1978.7, 275.3] Apparent Rennerian Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2002 17:03:21 -0500 From: Donald and Melissa Hellen <donhellen at horizonview.net> Subject: RE: Heating/Cooling Questions Todd Kenna asks about heating/cooling controls . . . The Ranco temperature controller will switch from heating to cooling mode, has variable temperature differential, and will read in degrees F or C. It also has a digital readout. For cooling, you hook up your refrigerator to it (you wire it yourself or pay extra for one pre-wired) and place the thermal sensor in the fridge. When it shuts off the fridge, it shuts off power to the light as well, a small inconvenience. A temperature differential of 5 degrees F (range it will allow the temp to vary before cycling on the compressor) works well without wearing out the compressor. To heat, you have to supply a heater or element of some sort and you put the sensor in the box or container, plug your heat source into it and let it go. You could use the fridge as your container and a couple of light bulbs as the heat source, but you'll have to shield your brew form the light with a dark plastic garbage bag (or several, depending on the light transparency of the plastic) or something else. Do a web search for Ranco controller and you will find some sources. I bought mine at my local homebrew store. He price-matched an online supplier for me. Don Hellen Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2002 17:28:45 -0500 From: Donald and Melissa Hellen <donhellen at horizonview.net> Subject: Lagering Box John Misrahi asked about making a lagering box . . . Hi all I have a new project in mind. Rather than making room inside for an extra fridge, i'd like to build a lagering box that takes advantage of the natural cold and just has a heater to keep the beer from getting too cold. I have a few thoughts, but basically i'm thinking of some kind of plywood box with styrafoam or maybe fiberglass insulation. Just a simple hinge or latch to keep raccoons out ;-) Good start. Even a cardboard box will work, depending on how cold it gets where you live. For the heating part (a) light bulb painted black. don't know if it can generate enough heat, but i think in a small insulated enclosed space, it might be able to do it. No. I see problems with that, not the least of which is premature light bulb failure. Light bulbs as heating elements--yes. They work well, and I've used them myself in my own lagering box. No doubt you are concerned about the light affecting the beer. YOu can get around that with black plastic (as in garbage bags) thick enough to keep out the light. I used three cheap black garbage bags upside-down with a hole in the bags for the airlock to stick through. You can add a separate cover over the airlock if you wish but you want to be able to observe airlock activity easily. or (b) small electric space heater I tried that and my thermostat didn't regulate the temperature in the box as well with the heater. I felt like I had a fire hazard in there (it would get really hot in the box before it would shut off the heat), so I went back to light bulbs--two of them so if one failed you still would have enough heat to keep your temperature set point. I figure it will need some kind of controller...i know they sell gadgets you can plug a fridge into to maintain lagering temperatures. Could it work like this - sort of in reverse? I used a baseboard heater thermostat control and wired it with a cord, and a plug for the wall outlet, and an outlet on the other cord form the thermostat to the light bulbs. However, that was before I bought my Ranco controller for the fridge. It has both a heating and a cooling mode--one or the other at one time--and it would work better. However, it's about 7 times as expensive as a baseboard heater thermostat. It's up to you how you mount your light bulbs, but keep them away from anything that might get too hot by being too close to them. You don't want a fire. It would ruin your beer. Don Hellen Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2002 18:15:28 -0500 From: "Peter Garofalo" <pgarofa1 at twcny.rr.com> Subject: Cute Tank Names Thanks to a surreptitious HBD reader, I have remembered the name of the finishing beer tank at Anheuser-Busch: it's called the Schoene tank. As I only heard it and didn't see it written, it sounded like a woman's name, which spawned the "cute" reference. It is pronounced like "Shana". As for the wort stripper, I saw it first in St. Louis, but we weren't shown the one in Baldwinsville. The brewer did make a comment to the effect that it was the largest in the world, or maybe the largest in A-B. I don't think there was much to see, as it may well have been a closed system (it would be if I designed it). I hope more of the homebrew crown gains some respect for large breweries, especially ones so committed to quality. I regard A-B as a first-class outfit, top to bottom. Cheers, Pete Garofalo Syracuse, NY Return to table of contents
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