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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
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Contents:
  My indelicate remarks (bobsheck)
  Re:  Electric beer cooker (Bill Tobler)
  Re: Fermenter recirculation (Bill Tobler)
  UMAMI ("Fred Scheer")
  Re: Fermenter recirculation ("Angie and Reif Hammond")
  Refractometer question ("Matthew D. Schultz")
  RE:producing yeast for homebrewers ("Beer Guy")
  What's In YOUR Stocking? (Dan Jeska)


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Date: Tue, 24 Dec 2002 22:03:39 -0800
From: bobsheck at earthlink.net
Subject: My indelicate remarks

OK, I was most inappropriate in my reply to Kelvin Keh in HB 4127. 

If you want to further beat my up over it, lets take this off list and get
back to brewing.

I will admit I tend to be xenophobic, racist, small-minded, insensitive, far
to the right of Rush Limbaugh, etc, but I too, have a keen appreciation and a
stong craving for BEER.
Certainly not the type of person who _normally_ inhabits this august body of
brewing gurus.

I'm not going to be like my hero, Trent Lott, and continue to apologize. The
feds and muslim truth squads are already converging on my hombrewing
coordinates- except I'm posting this from a terminal far away from my home PC.


So if anyone cares to further help me correct my ways, please lets take it
offline.

Bob SHeck
bobsheck at earthlink.net



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Date: Wed, 25 Dec 2002 07:52:52 -0600
From: Bill Tobler <wctobler at sbcglobal.net>
Subject: Re:  Electric beer cooker

JJJ is looking for a 5 gallon batch beer cooker.  The Grape and Granary sell
an electric boiler called the "Cordon Brew Brewers Bucket"  It's a 6 gallon
plastic bucket with an electric element and controller.  I hear they work
good if you don't plan on going bigger.  Happy Holidays!

http://www.thegrape.net/browse.cfm/2,1240.html

Bill Tobler
Lake Jackson, TX
(1129.7, 219.9) Apparent Rennerian




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Date: Wed, 25 Dec 2002 08:25:01 -0600
From: Bill Tobler <wctobler at sbcglobal.net>
Subject: Re: Fermenter recirculation

David Towson is circulating his fermenting beer.  Interesting idea.  Keep us
posted on how it works.

On your temperature problem, you could add a cooling coil on the discharge
of the pump to help keep the wort cool.  Some kind of finned copper tubing
with a fan blowing across it would work.  You would have to be careful about
temperature swings that might effect the yeast.  For us gadget freaks, a PID
temperature controller with a variable pitched fan and a flow controller on
the discharge of the pump.  I'm going to need more room in my brewery...
Happy Holidays!

Bill Tobler
Lake Jackson, TX
(1129.7, 219.9) Apparent Rennerian




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Date: Wed, 25 Dec 2002 08:42:35 -0600
From: "Fred Scheer" <FHopheads at msn.com>
Subject: UMAMI

HI:

During the 2002 GABF, David Housemann, Michael Hall and I discussed flavors.
Michael brought to the table that there are more than tastes beyond
the four classic four of sweet, sour, salty and bitter.The flavor he was
talking about is  UMAMI.
After talking with some of our customers at BOSCOS, which are in the
medical field, I would like you to know what we came up with.
The UMAMI taste is a natural taste occurring in lots of food, including
GLUTAMATE.
The taste is described as "rich", "well-rounded", savory", "brothy"
and "chicken-like".
Glutamate is an amino acid which is also found in the human body.
Protein rich food such as  cheese, fish and milk contain it.
Now, my question is if food contains monosodium glutamate (MSG),
couldn't there be a misperception of the UMAMI flavor?
MSG only contains 1/3 the amount of sodium and is used in many foods to
reduce the total amount of sodium by 20 to 30%, while maintaining
an acceptable flavor?
Laine, Phil, Neil and Hong,  any thoughts on this???

Fred M. Scheer
Boscos Nashville
The Restaurant for Beer Lovers


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Date: Wed, 25 Dec 2002 12:17:41 -0500
From: "Angie and Reif Hammond" <arhammond at attbi.com>
Subject: Re: Fermenter recirculation


Dave,

A few thoughts:

1)  Your thermoelectric cooler may not be large enough (powerful enough) to
remove the heat generated by fermentation of 10 gallons of 1.075 Porter.
>From Alan Meeker's post to the HBD on June 9, 20002, the heat released by
fermentation of 1 kg of glucose is about 160 kCal.  In 10 gallons of 1.075
wort, there are about 16 lbs or 7.4 kg of glucose.  Assuming that 80% of
this is fermented, 0.80*160kcal/kg*7.4kg=950 kCal.  If all of this heat
stayed in the wort, then you would see a temperature rise of (1 kCal = heat
to raise 1 L of water 1 degree Celsius) 950kCal/38L = 25 degrees Celsius
(assumes specific heat of the wort = specific heat of water).  Meeker points
out that fermenting 5 gallons of wort with 10% fermentable sugar by weight
yields about a 10 degree Celsius rise, you have about 7.4/38=20%, so 25
degrees Celsius does not seem unreasonable.  

Let's assume that fermentation lasts 50 hours, then on average you would
have to remove 19 kCal/hour, or 22 Watts, or 75 BTU/hour to keep the
temperature from rising.  You would probably want to be able to remove
several times this since fermentation does not go at an "average" rate.
What is the heat removal rating of your cooler?  Note that 4 times this is
about a 100 watt light bulb - think of how hot that gets!

You can determine your heat removal rate by timing how long it takes to cool
10 gallons of water from room temperature by some amount, say 5 degrees
Fahrenheit.  Since a BTU is the heat required to raise the temperature of 1
pound of water 1 degree Fahrenheit, then you will be removing
(10*gallon)*(8lb/gallon)*(5degF)*(BTU/(lb*degF)) = 400 BTU.
If this takes longer then 400/75=5.33 hours, then it would not be able to
keep up with an "average" fermentation rate.  My guess is that to keep up
with "real" fermentation rates, that you would want to be able to cool this
water down in 2 hours or less.

2)  All of the power to run the pump turns into heat.  Some of it just heats
up the pump (inefficiencies); the rest of the power goes into the work of
moving the fluid.  This work ends up as heat in the liquid.  You might want
to try an experiment to see how warm water would get if you just pumped it
around in your system for a day or so without the thermoelectric cooler
turned on.  Also, with the cooler on, how much (%) does it run to keep your
fermenter at the desired temperature with just water, both with the pump on
and off?

3)  How is the thermoelectric cooler attached to your stainless steel
fermenter?  Stainless steel is a good insulator compared to most other
metals and will slow down heat transfer through the wall if the cooler is
attached to the outside.  Did you use thermally conductive grease between
the fermenter and the cooler to help with heat transfer?  

4)  A fast fermentation (due to the large amount of yeast pitched) means
that the heat has to be removed faster, which may also exceed the ability of
your cooler.

5)  What wort temperature did you start at?  Was it warm to begin with?



Apologies for jumping between Metric and English units

Reif Hammond
Durham, NH






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Date: Wed, 25 Dec 2002 11:43:37 -0600
From: "Matthew D. Schultz" <matt.schultz at tds.net>
Subject: Refractometer question

Happy holidays everyone. Hope you're all enjoying all your
homebrew winterfests out there in HBD land.

I have a few questions on refractometers that hopefully
some of you can answer. I looking to buy one of these
suckers to help with the brew process, but I'm not certain
what is considered a "good" model to purchase. Do I settle
for the simple 0-32% Brix scale with ATC? Are there models
out there that go beyond a 10 to 30 degree centigrade
auto-temp correction? Any recommendations on models that
are considered a "best buy" would be appreciated.

Matt Schultz
Madison, WI



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Date: Wed, 25 Dec 2002 14:46:52 -0500
From: "Beer Guy" <beerguy at 1gallon.com>
Subject: RE:producing yeast for homebrewers

Sorry to get away from the stupid comments made to Kelvin, but I DO have a
thought for what he might be able to produce.

More varieties of DRIED yeast that have decent shelf lives. If it were
possible to get some of the unique flavor characteristics of some of the
liquid yeasts, but in a dried state, more brand-new brewers would get these
benefits. I've found that the early period of your home-brewing history is
almost always spent using dried yeast, so if the selection was greater, more
beginning brewers would find the advantages of different yeast varieties.

I know that most liquid yeasts don't lend themselves to dry storage, but
this might just be a problem that modern biology can attack.

As for the idiotic comments, I don't feel a need to apologize for the
stupidity of someone else.

Henry in Portage, MI
www.1Gallon.com



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Date: Wed, 25 Dec 2002 17:23:56 -0800 (PST)
From: Dan Jeska <goldenloafer at yahoo.com>
Subject: What's In YOUR Stocking?

I got a really cool brewing related gift this
Christmas from my dear wife. It's a digital scale made
by Royal, model EX5. It's sold as a postal scale but
is great for homebrewing. It can weigh up to 5 lbs in
0.1 oz. increments and has a tare and hold function
also. I think she bought it at Sam's Club. I'd
recommend it to any brewer who wants to measure out
bulk grain and hops accurately. 



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