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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
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Contents:
  Offensive comments (Kent Fletcher)
  Microbiology tests ("Steve Alexander")
  re: Bob's remarks ("Mark Tumarkin")
  Brewing with Partial Mash / Extracts ("Chris M")
  hop back construction and placement (Ed Jones)
  Fermenter recirculation #2 (David Towson)
  Refractometer ("Bill Frazier")
  Hefe yeast and Bob Sheck ("Bill Smith")
  Re: UMANI (MSG) (Demonick)
  re: It's Christmas, drop the attitude (Bill Wible)
  Why such long boils? ("Ralph W. Davis")
  Yeast for Homebrewers (Thomas Rohner)
  Wyeast Analysis Program ("Mark Tumarkin")
  Brewing Techniques Back Issues (Bill Tobler)


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Date: Wed, 25 Dec 2002 21:56:47 -0800 (PST)
From: Kent Fletcher <fletcherhomebrew at yahoo.com>
Subject: Offensive comments

I guess one offensive comment sometimes begets
another.  While I too, was offended by Bob Sheck's
remarks (in responding to Kelvin's inquiry), Bob
has acknowledged the impropriety of his post.

Personally, I was equally offended by the comments of
Wayne Love:

"It's exactly this type of racial profiling that's
responsible for the World
Trade Centre not standing tall today."

Our collective attitude has little to do with the
fanatics who are still trying to pay back the
"infidels" for the Crusades.

We have enough Blame America Firsters here, without
importing that roll-over-and-play-dead invective from
Canada, of ALL places.

Kent Fletcher
(another U.S. veteran)
Brewing in So Cal



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Date: Thu, 26 Dec 2002 05:48:24 -0500
From: "Steve Alexander" <steve-alexander at worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Microbiology tests

Fred L Johnson,
g
>Are there any providers of microbiology, water, IBU, etc. testing designed
>with brewers in mind that provide services available to the homebrewer at a
>price the homebrewer could afford?  [...]

I like the idea Fred, but after you invest in  lab equipment and pay for the
regular maintenance and calibration required and hire a qualified lab tech
you aren't talking about a service affordable to  HBers.  $50 a test is a
lot to an HBer, but probably not enough to throw off a profit as a real
business.   You may be able to offer a service as a sideline business
and make a few bucks but I doubt it would pay a real salary.

Yes there are services that brewery testing.  The big boys have in-house
capability, but I used to have web-links for a couple of labs that catered
to
MicroBreweries and BrewPubs.

>Perhaps we've wanted to know if there
>are petit mutants lurking about.  Homebrewers want to know!  I'd even
>consider this myself as a retirement career (unfortunately several years
>away).

You'd need a steady stream of business to break even Fred.    Drop me a
note when you start up.   I'd like to be your first customer.

I can save you a tetrazolium overlay test.  Respiratory deficient
petite mutants normally occur in brewing yeast at significant a rate -
around
 1% to 4%.  Yes Virginia, there are mutants in your fermenter.

I'd suggest you look a little farther afield as far as offering testing to
HBers and
Micros.   Some very basic services don't require a lot of hardware yet are
beyond the means of the homebrewer or micro.   Haze measurement, alcohol
measurement, fusel and ester assay, Accurate gravity measurement. I suspect
diacetyl can be assayed easily too. You are right that testing cultures for
infection would be a great service, but maybe a more profitable approach
would be to make up and sell kits of plates with the differential media used
to
ID infection + instructions.

Same with  vitality & viability measurement.  You can't send a yeast  sample
in
the mail and expect to get the answer as to the viability & vitality at the
time
of posting, but if you could create a V&V test kit that the Microbrewer
or HBer could easily and safely use for a decent price you'd have something
with a lot of sales potential.

 -S



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Date: Thu, 26 Dec 2002 07:04:18 -0500
From: "Mark Tumarkin" <mark_t at ix.netcom.com>
Subject: re: Bob's remarks

I just want to make one comment about Bob's remarks. And it's not directed at
Bob, or his remarks, but rather toward the response from the HBD community.
Frequently, people react to these types of hateful & prejudiced remarks by
shaking their heads in dismay; but often nothing is said out loud. The
reaction of our group was overwhelming, quick, and vocal. A good number of
people were not shy in pointing out the error of Bob's ways and clearly
showing that the HBD won't tolerate that type of behavior.

We know that the HBD is the an awesome resource in terms of brewing knowledge
and the willingness to share it. This incident shows the strength & quality
that runs deep in our brewing community. Thanks to all of you that spoke out.

Mark Tumarkin
Hogtown Brewers
Gainesville, FL






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Date: Thu, 26 Dec 2002 23:41:14 +1100
From: "Chris M" <chrismac_aus at hotmail.com>
Subject: Brewing with Partial Mash / Extracts

Hi,

I have been brewing using Can's over the past 12 months and am looking to 
move onto Partial Mashing with Extracts to provide some complexity to the 
beers i brew, particularly in terms of style.

I have read the following document " Focus on Ingredients - Malt I 
Converting All-Grain Recipes to Extract Partial Mash 1998 by Ken Schwartz 
kenbob at elp.rr.com Presented at the AHA National ... "

Are there similar documents or sites i can use to learn more about this 
process of brewing, in particular boil times and hopping.

Thanks.

Chris.




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Date: Thu, 26 Dec 2002 06:14:11 -0800 (PST)
From: Ed Jones <cuisinartoh at yahoo.com>
Subject: hop back construction and placement

My next brewery project is to build a hop back. My system (
http://ironacres.com/brewery.html ) is a standard two-tier converted
keg system with a pump. I'd like something sealed, easily opened while
in place, and not fragile (i.e. the mason jar hop backs). I'm looking
for ideas or plans from the collective if you'd care to share. Also,
does it matter if the hop back is placed between the kettle and pump or
if it's placed between the pump and my counterflow chiller? 

I've seen some stainless steel pasta canisters in the home section of
several stores that have plastic lids with snap down clamps. You've
seen the ones I'm talking about. Will the lids and rubber seal hold up
to near-boiling wort? I like this idea because I keep the empty hop
back in the system on the input side of the chiller. I like to sanitize
my chiller by recirculating boiling wort for 5 minutes. Prior to
chilling the wort I could drain the hopback via a small petcock on the
bottom, add hops, seal, then chill the wort through the hopback. 

Thanks for any tips or ideas you can provide!


=====
Ed Jones - Columbus, Ohio U.S.A - [163.8, 159.4] [B, D] Rennerian

"When I was sufficiently recovered to be permitted to take nourishment,
I felt the most extraordinary desire for a glass of Guinness...I am
confident that it contributed more than anything else to my recovery."
  - written by a wounded officer after Battle of Waterloo, 1815



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Date: Thu, 26 Dec 2002 10:03:52 -0500
From: David Towson <dtowson at comcast.net>
Subject: Fermenter recirculation #2

First off, thanks to those who have provided comments so far, especially to 
Reif Hammond for the detailed run-through of the heat generation and 
removal calculations.  I read through it quickly, and I'll digest the 
numbers at my leisure.  I don't know the answers to your questions, Reif, 
as I bought the system  ready-built from B3.  Perhaps Colin Kaminski, who 
designed it,  will chime-in with some performance figures.  And while I 
failed to say it in my first post, I have never had the cooler fail to 
maintain the very modest setpoint of 68 degrees before this, and I 
routinely make high gravity brews.  What I found significant was that the 
constant recirculation increased the vigor of the fermentation so much that 
the cooler "lost it" .

Last night we had a high wind here in Bel Air, and it apparently blew 
something down across a power line.  The juice went off sometime around 10 
PM.  So we lit the oil lamps, turned off those light switches we could 
remember were on, and went to bed.  Around midnight, the power came back, 
and the restarting of various items of home machinery woke me up.  I went 
around turning off lights we had missed on the first go-around, and then 
went to check the fermenter to make sure the pump got going again 
okay.  Should have done that first, as I arrived to find the blowoff 
receptacle had filled to overflowing, and partially fermented wort was 
drooling down the front of the fermenter.  Just as I had begun mopping, the 
power went off again, and stayed off for another three hours.  The siren at 
the fire station went off right after that, so I guess the power company 
missed something that needed fixing when they first turned the power back 
on.  Anyway, this time I unplugged the pump, so I could be present when it 
was restarted.

When the power came back and I restarted the pump, there was an explosion 
of bubbles from the blowoff tube, and about two quarts of porter burst 
forth into the receptacle, which I had now changed to one that would hold 
about a gallon.  Apparently, there was a load of carbon dioxide clinging to 
the little yeasties that was shaken loose when the recirculation 
resumed.  I could have anticipated that if I had bothered to think about 
it, as I have seen that happen plenty of times on a smaller scale when 
rousing yeast in a carboy.  But I was a dunce, and was rewarded with a nice 
mess to clean up.

So the moral of the story is, I should have unplugged the pump when the 
power went off the first time, and brought the flow rate up gradually when 
I restarted it.  BTW, with the garage temperature in the mid-to-upper 50s, 
the cooler has control again.

More as the saga unfolds.

Dave in Bel Air, MD



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Date: Thu, 26 Dec 2002 09:17:46 -0600
From: "Bill Frazier" <billfrazier at worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Refractometer

Matt Schultz has questions about refractometers.

Matt - Check out www.piwine.com for refractometers.
I have one similar to the $98.00 non-ATC model they
currently sell.  I mainly use it for grape work but have
used it to monitor the specific gravity of wort as it
drains from the tun to kettle.  I'm not sure it's worth the
extra $ to buy a ATC model.  Presque Isle says there
is only a 0.3% difference in Brix measurements over
a +/- 10C range.  Regardless, since you only need a 
drop of wort for each measurement it quickly comes
to room temperature when it contacts the instrument.
The 0-32Brix scale models measure up to 1.140 sp.gr.
This should be sufficient for any beer we make.  Brix
24 is usually the highest I encounter in my vineyard and
my wines contain higher alcohol content that my beers.
Refractometers are great little instruments.  The main
advantages are rapid testing and small sample size.

Regards,

Bill Frazier
Olathe, Kansas




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Date: Thu, 26 Dec 2002 15:45:23 +0000
From: "Bill Smith" <billsmith11 at hotmail.com>
Subject: Hefe yeast and Bob Sheck

Hello-

I brewed a hefe the other day with some of my relatives. With a house full 
of people and Christmas approaching, my mind wasn't focused on brewing.

For this beer, I normally mash 112->150 to get those clove precursors. Well, 
I forgot 112 rest and just did a 150 rest. Now I know this beer won't have 
the clove phenols I would like.

My question is what about the yeast. I was planning on pitching a big 
dunkle-dopple-weisen-bock beer on it. Will the yeast produce the clove I'm 
looking for?

- ------------------

In the HBD4129, Bob Sheck said, "I'm not going to be like my hero, Trent 
Lott, and continue to apologize."

Gee Bob, wouldn't you have to start to apologize before you can continue to 
apologize? You admitted that you and your comments are bigoted but you made 
absolutely no attempt to apologize. I can only assume that since you didn't 
express any contrition that your remarks to Mr. Keh stand as stated.

For me, your future posts will carry no weight or interest and therefore 
will get the page down key treament.

Cheers,
Billy Beer Smith



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Date: Thu, 26 Dec 2002 08:06:35 -0800
From: Demonick <demonick at zgi.com>
Subject: Re: UMANI (MSG)

>...there are more than tastes beyond the four classic four of sweet, sour,
>salty and bitter.The flavor he was talking about is UMAMI.
>...snip...
>The UMAMI taste is a natural taste occurring in lots of food, including
>GLUTAMATE.
>...snip...
>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???

I am neither Laine nor Phil nor Neil nor Hong, however, I have thoughts.

My first thought is that we need a little more explanation of what Fred is
talking about.  UMANI?  Is that an acronym?  Is this an inadvertant post,
meant for another list?  Who are Laine, Phil, Neil, and Hong?

I do have strong opinions concerning MonoSodium Glutamate (MSG), so as the
topic has been brought up, I'll share.  MSG is an interesting food
additive.  It does absolutely nothing to the food to which it is added.  
MSG works on your tastebuds, not on the food.  Glutamate, an amino acid, is
used in your body as a neurotransmitter.  It increases the rate of fire of
neurons.  MSG increases the irratability of the neurons in your tastebuds.  
This makes the food taste more intense, because your tastebud neurons are
being over stimulated.  MSG works on your mouth, not on the food you put
in your mouth.

Monosodium glutamate is a drug.

This increased neuronal irratability is the reason that MSG gives some
people splitting headaches, commonly called, "Chinese food syndrome."  
Glutamate is preferentially and quickly picked up in the gut and dumped
into the bloodstream.  This increased blood glutamate concentration does
the same thing to your brain as it does to your tastebuds.  The result in
some people is headache.

I cannot attest to the implication above that the use of MSG allows lower
sodium levels in food.  In my experience, MSG is used in considerably
larger quantities than salt, and when I experience a "Chinese food"
headache it is always accompanied by great thirst.  I have always
attributed this to the huge amount of sodium that a huge amount of MSG adds
to the food.

MSG is classified as a "flavor enhancer" by Federal regulation.  When it is
added to a product the label must include "monosodium glutamate" on the
label.  Glutamate is a naturally occurring amino acid, present in
relatively high levels in animal protein.  Bound in protein, glutamate is
not a problem.  Protein takes considerable time to be digested and the rate
of release of glutamate from digesting animal protein is slow.  HOWEVER, by
"pre-digesting" animal protein the food industry can add MSG to a product
without explicit label indications.  Hydrolyzed animal proteins, used by
the food industry to enhance flavor, are simply animal proteins that have
been chemically broken apart into free amino acids.  The chemical breakdown
of animal proteins result in the formation of free glutamate that joins
with free sodium to form MSG.  In this case, the presence of MSG does not
need to be disclosed on labeling, though "hydrolyzed animal protein" is
required to appear on the label.  Explicit labeling is required only when
MSG is added as a direct ingredient.

In my opinion, MSG, in all its forms, should be banned as a food additive.

Cheers for the holidaze!  

Domenick Venezia
Venezia & Company, LLC
Maker of PrimeTab
(206) 782-1152  phone
(206) 782-6766  fax
Seattle, WA
demonick at zgi dot com
http://www.primetab.com



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Date: Thu, 26 Dec 2002 11:17:36 -0500
From: Bill Wible <bwible at pond.com>
Subject: re: It's Christmas, drop the attitude

>It's exactly this type of racial profiling that's
>responsible for the World Trade Center not standing
>tall today.

Sorry for the non-beer related post, but I had to
respond to this.  This is an issue I've been worked
up over and writing politicians about for a long time
now.
 
I don't know what motivated Bob's original comment.
I wrote to him and asked, but didn't get a reply.
However, I couldn't disagree more with the comment
above.  In fact, I think the exact opposite is true.

The World Trade Center fell because of a LACK of
profiling or caring about who we let into this country.
The people who committed that act were admitted into
this country on legal VISAS.  The FBI knew they were
here, knew who they were, and was even warned in so
many words of their exact plan MONTHS before the
attack.  Yet they never went after those people
and got rid of them.  They let them do the deed,
instead.  We're so concerned about providing
'rights' to terrorists that we're just allowing
them to kill us.  In fact, we're helping them.

If anything, the war on terrorism is going to
continue.  And the minute you let your guard down,
these religious idiots will get you.

Maybe if we took more of an interest in our security
and paid attention to who we let in, or better yet,
reduced the number to zero and not let any more of
these people in, then we'd be safer.

It's only a matter of time until one of these anti-American
groups gets their hands on a nuclear, chemical or biological
weapon.  And they will not hesitate to use it here. So why
don't we just give them a free passport and put them up in
a high priced hotel suite in New York, so they can do it?
That's the attitude I get here.

And by the way, when these people come over here,
they're taking jobs at American expense.  Visa holders,
particularly from H1B and its sister programs, now account
for just over 30%, or almost 1/3rd, of the high tech
work force in America.  I know because I'm a victim
of that myself.  I'm one of 3 million unemployed
American computer programmers who can't a job now,
while our gov't brings in over 200,000 of these people
annually, and sets them up with jobs and a new life
here.   It's outrageous.

In addition to hurting our own economy, which is already
in the toilet, this is a big security risk if I ever
saw one.

And the companies who aren't hiring H1B's here are opening
branch offices overseas in countries like India, where
programmers work 50 hour weeks to make $400/month.

So go ahead and keep supporting these people.  Pretty soon
you'll have to use your unemployment check to do it.  If
you live through the blast.

Bill



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Date: Thu, 26 Dec 2002 15:42:34 -0500
From: "Ralph W. Davis" <rdavis77 at erols.com>
Subject: Why such long boils?

I have a technical question for the more accomplished brewers:  Why do most
recipes call for at least a 45 to 60 (or even 90) minute boil?

I understand that bittering hops require a while for the proper oils to be
fully disolved....  (hence some IPAs advertise a "90 minute boil") however,
why not just boil the bittering hops for the required long time (and you
could use less in the brew-water too)  and add the mash liquor just for the
last 20 minutes or less? Sterilization will take place in boiling about 10
minutes.  I know in the making of mead, some recipes are almost no boil (or
very short boil)--in order to preserve some of the delicate aromas of the
honey, can't the same to be said for some interesting malts?

Isn't there something to be gained from not overboiling wort?



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Date: Thu, 26 Dec 2002 22:34:46 +0100
From: Thomas Rohner <"t.rohner_do_not _spam" at bluewin.ch>
Subject: Yeast for Homebrewers

Hi Kelvin, hi everyone
after the dust has settled, i hope Kelvin is still reading.
Like Mr. Beerguy wrote, i'd like to see some decent dry yeast
in my walk-in cooler. I'm from over the pond, and i like to have some
dried yeast's as a backup. Maybe my Wyeast doesn't swell, or smells
weird, or my starterbottle breaks. Then i'd like to have some dried 
yeast around. At the Interbrew
in Munich i got a lb sample of Safale yeast. It was K97 and it is a nice
yeast to brew with. We brew 12 gal all grain, and most of the time, we
get the yeasties from one of our local breweries.(lager yeasts)
DCL will bring a Weizen-wheat-yeast soon, but i guess there is a lot
of room, to bring different dried stuff.
The liquid arena is pretty stuffed already, except pitchable doses
for us "large scale" allgrainers. (I don't get Wyeast XL-packs
over here, lest i order them from Wyeast.)

I was pretty impressed about the reactions on Bob's posting.
This kind of flaming really doesn't belong here. It would be
about the same as to put every white male US-citizen close
to the KKK. Keep up the good spirit.

Thomas


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Date: Thu, 26 Dec 2002 17:27:05 -0500
From: "Mark Tumarkin" <mark_t at ix.netcom.com>
Subject: Wyeast Analysis Program

Hey y'all,

Wyeast has an incredible offer going right now (until Feb, 2003) where they
will analyze your homebrew - at no cost to you other than shipping it to them.
One little detail - your beer must have been brewed with there yeast. Pretty
interesting, has anyone done this?

http://www.wyeastlab.com/hbrew/QC%20questionnaire.htm

Mark Tumarkin
Hogtown Brewers
Gainesville, FL




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Date: Thu, 26 Dec 2002 18:51:20 -0600
From: Bill Tobler <wctobler at sbcglobal.net>
Subject: Brewing Techniques Back Issues

Mr. Stephen Mallery just sent me my three back issues of Brewing Techniques,
just in time for Christmas.  Better late than never.  Thanks Mr. Mallery.
Happy Holidays to ya.

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




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