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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
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Contents:
  RE: Piraat Yeast ("Don")
  re: Guiness bottles ("robertjm at hockeyhockeyhockey.com")
  Re: passivating stainless steel (Dion Hollenbeck)
  Re: Mash heating and enzyme denaturing (Dion Hollenbeck)
  Re: Re.Energy Sources (Dion Hollenbeck)
  WLP005 vs Too High a Mash Temp ("Lou King")
  re: Stability test ("Steve Alexander")
  Re: Piraat yeast (Dion Hollenbeck)
  Re: Whilpooling and Wort Transfer Question (Jeff Renner)
  RE: HERMS redux - the Juan Valdez method (Ronald La Borde)
  RE: HERMS redux - the Juan Valdez method (Jonathan ROyce)
  old grain (Ben Hanson)
  HERMS Redux (Kent Fletcher)
  Newbie needs help ("A M")
  Re; Stability Test (Dean Fikar)
  Recipe desired... (Steve and Linda Patterson)
  RTD calibration/correction (David Passaretti)
  Beer and politics ("Patrick Twohy")


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Date: Fri, 21 Feb 2003 21:00:21 -0800
From: "Don" <don at steinfillers.com>
Subject: RE: Piraat Yeast

Jason Henning asks about what yeast to make a tripple like Piraat

That yeast is actually banked at White labs (I think).  While in Belgium in
2001 I was at the Van Steenberg brewery; brewers of Piraat and Gulden Draak.
I asked for and was given a small vial of their yeast, as I also did at
Orval, and a few others.  Not to digress to much, but when traveling it
doesn't hurt to take a few sterile vials.  Anyhow, when I got home I sent
all my vials to White labs to be banked and (hopefully) available later to
all homebrewers.  The Orval is now their "Bastogne" yeast.  If asked,
perhaps WL may release the Van Steenberg yeast.

But to answer your question with what is available, I would recommend the
White labs WLP550 or WLP570.  I just did a tripple and use the 550 with good
results.  It just took a loonnng time to ferment.

Don't forget, whenever doing a high gravity beer use extra yeast - like two
vials or stepping it up with a starter and pump some air through your wort
or use O2.
Don Van Valkenburg



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Date: Sat, 22 Feb 2003 00:03:06 -0800
From: "robertjm at hockeyhockeyhockey.com" <robertjm at hockeyhockeyhockey.com>
Subject: re: Guiness bottles

The widget contains CO2 that is released when you open a Guiness bottle, so 
there's no way to gain any type of benefit from a used widget. 

Here's an indepth article URL that talks about Guiness and their widgets:

http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,49020,00.html

Robert
- ------------------------------
> 
> Date: Fri, 21 Feb 2003 15:37:23 -0500
> From: MJHarper at adelphia.net
> Subject: Old grains and Guinness bottles?
> 
> 
> ...Next question:
> 
> A friend and I were downing a couple of Guinness the other day and the
> question was posed "hey Matt, could you bottle a stout in these
> bottles and get the benefits of the widget?"  My response was "I
> dunno.... Maybe." First I'd be concerned about sanitizing the things,
> then I wonder, would it work?  Anybody tried it?
> 
> Thanks much!



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Date: 22 Feb 2003 07:05:30 -0800
From: Dion Hollenbeck <hollen at woodsprite.com>
Subject: Re: passivating stainless steel


There is one other reason for passivating stainless steel that no one
has seemed to mention.  If stainless steel is worked with plain steel
tools, or with any sort of abrasive that has previously been used with
steel, passivation is done to remove any embedded regular steel from
the surface of the stainless.

Having worked in my father's electroplating shop for many summers as a
teen, I can tell you that we did passivation with straight nitric acid
at room temperature.  In the aerospace industry which we supplied,
after passivation, stainless is baked in an oven for a prolonged period
of time to relieve the hydrogen embrittlement which occurs at the
surface during passivation.  Since brewing equipment is not subjected
to structural loading, this should not be a concern.

About 7 years ago, I got an acid paste from some company up in the Los
Angeles area that is a "mixed acid" and was recommended for clean up
of weldments on stainless.  No, it is nowhere as friendly as citric.
I don't have any experience with citric, so I won't comment.  And I no
longer have the contact to get the acid paste.  Try talking to welding
suppliers, as I think that I got it through a welding supply.

dion

- -- 
Dion Hollenbeck  Email:  hollen at woodsprite.com
Home Page:       http://www.woodsprite.com
Brewing Page:    http://hbd.org/hollen
'85 4runner    '86 4x4 PU


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Date: 22 Feb 2003 07:08:42 -0800
From: Dion Hollenbeck <hollen at woodsprite.com>
Subject: Re: Mash heating and enzyme denaturing


Localized heating is the reason why if you have a single probe for
temperature control on a RIMS, it should go on the output side of the
heater chamber.  If you do not let the exiting wort get over the
setpoint, then, although your mash may take a small amount of time to
stabilize at the recirculating wort temperature, you will never
overshoot the setpoint with the recirculating wort.

I totally agree that too slow a flow can cause localized hot spots.

dion

 

- -- 
Dion Hollenbeck  Email:  hollen at woodsprite.com
Home Page:       http://www.woodsprite.com
Brewing Page:    http://hbd.org/hollen
'85 4runner    '86 4x4 PU


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Date: 22 Feb 2003 07:18:48 -0800
From: Dion Hollenbeck <hollen at woodsprite.com>
Subject: Re: Re.Energy Sources

>> Patrick Hughes writes:

PH> Hope I am not too far behind,on this one but I can never keep up
PH> on my reading. Dion responded to Rick about using household LP gas
PH> for his brewery and got me more confused. I put together my
PH> brewery [over 4 years now and still not done] in my new house
PH> excited about the prospect of using the propane that Iwould pipe
PH> thru the house for cooking and drying clothes anyway. I talked to
PH> my LP supplier and he told me that the gas they supplied to the
PH> house was of low pressure about 9lbsand would not work with a King
PH> Kooker type unit gecause they were designed for a much highr
PH> incoming pressure.

Well, incoming pressure has to do with how you plumbed the house.
Sorry to have confused you, so I will explain differently on how I got
it to work and can support 3 simultaneous Kamp Kookers going full
bore.

The gas comes out of the tank to a regulator which takes it down to
15psi, the normal pressure that the gas company where I live uses for
"high pressure distribution" to buildings from the tank in situations
where multiple buildings are fed from the same tank, or one building
is a considerable distance from the tank.

When the gas pipe reaches my workshop, I Tee off to my brewery
directly from the 15psi line and that is what feeds my burners.  A
second leg of the high pressure incoming line feeds a local regulator
which produces about 3-4 inches (yes, inches, very low) of pressure
which is what is needed for household furnaces and appliances.

If you are trying to drive a Kamp Kooker from the low pressure side of
the regulator on your house, you should expect it to fail.  If you are
trying to drive any kind of burner with that low of a pressure, you
will certainly not get the BTUs you are used to expecting from a "hand
held" LP tank.

If you plumb it correctly, it will work.  If you try to just take
"house pressure" it will fail.

dion

- -- 
Dion Hollenbeck  Email:  hollen at woodsprite.com
Home Page:       http://www.woodsprite.com
Brewing Page:    http://hbd.org/hollen



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Date: Sat, 22 Feb 2003 09:23:08 -0500
From: "Lou King" <lking at pobox.com>
Subject: WLP005 vs Too High a Mash Temp

As I mentioned on Tuesday, I did my first RIMS batch last Sunday.  It is
possible, just possible, that there was a calibration issue and my mash
temp was too high.  The RIMS was set to 152, and the temp read 152
throughout the process, but I have been having issues with my mash tun
dial thermometer and it indicated a higher temp throughout the mash.
The glass thermometer indicated about 153 during the one check I made so
I didn't worry too much.

HOWEVER, my fermentation is going more slowly than other recent batches,
having dropped from OG of 1.053 to 1.035 in five days (normally I have a
much steeper falloff in the first couple of days).

I also looked back at my records, and there were two other times I used
WLP005 (White Labs Brittish Ale) I let one ferment for three weeks
(normally I ferment for two weeks), and the other for 16 days.
Unfortunately, my fermentation tracking for the previous two sessions
that I did use WLP005 was not as detailed as the tracking I do these
days -- i.e., taking a reading every day and graphing of the result.  I
do remember a slow ferment on the first one (which I had attributed to
an aeration issue -- the result was phenolic), but the second one seemed
fine.  

OG/FG on the other batches was 1.052/1.017 (21 days, basically the same
nut brown ale as this recipe) and 1.059/1.015 (16 days, IPA, came out
fine).

This batch's grain bill for 10 gallons of nut brown ale was 17# Brittish
Pale Malt (2-row), 1# Chocolate Malt, 1# Crystal 55L Brittish, 1#
Melanoidin.

I did make a starter in my normal way -- pouring the WLP bottle into 24
oz sterile wort, and letting grow overnight (around 15 hours).  Sterile
wort was made with about 1/2 c of DME.  The starter looked fine for the
most part, the right color at least, but the slurry did look somewhat
thin.

1. Does fermentation behave like this when mashed at too high a temp?

2. Have others had similar experience with WLP005?

Maybe I should just stop making nut brown ale -- I don't even really
like it that much...  However, I really don't understand why the recipe
would be the issue.

Lou King
http://www.lousbrews.com
Ijamsville, MD



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Date: Sat, 22 Feb 2003 13:27:29 -0500
From: "Steve Alexander" <steve-alexander at worldnet.att.net>
Subject: re: Stability test

Patrick Hughes writes ...

>Tried the stability test Steve A. and Dean F. spoke of. Put wort sample in
>small jelly jar about  .5" of air space. Opened 72 hours later smelled and
>looked fine. Opened 12 hours after that smelled looked and tasted fine. Did
>I conduct this test correctly?

Sounds about right.  The jar should be kept in a warm place (75-80F-ish)
and you should look for visible turbidity and surface colonies.  Sniff for
off-aromas and taste for off-flavors.   Shake and check for CO2 too.

84 hours without a problem is an excellent result, but just for grins keep
the stuff around till you do see infection - then get to know the signs of
the dominant house infection.


>Have been not able to achieve a good cold break,with the nice large clumps
>forming immediately after cooling

Big clumps are a very hit & miss thing.   Small changes in the pH or
differences on proteolysis and malt nitrogen content can change the
look of the break entirely.    Don't worry about large clumps vs small.


>Irish Moss ran thru C.F. chiller 60F. into fermenter. Perfect immediate
>cold break. What did I do right?

I've seen very variable results with IM.    It certainly works at times but
seems to have little effect at others. The IM itself and whatever clings
to it does form a nice satisfying pool of gunk, but the open question is -
did it make better beer ?

>Is it OK to leave wort sit overnight to rack off cold break material
>then pitch yeast. I thought I saw that Steve A. had said he did this?

I sometimes will put new wort in the freezer overnight (doesn't freeze)
when I want to make a very clean pils.   This causes an amazing amount
of cold break precipitation.   Again it's emotionally satisfying to view
the removable gunk, but it *may* be just as good to pitch as soon as
the fermenter hits fermentation temp and then to rack to a secondary
12-24 hours later.  This and the more complex CO2 trub flotation
removal are performed in some lager breweries.

 -S






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Date: 22 Feb 2003 06:57:36 -0800
From: Dion Hollenbeck <hollen at woodsprite.com>
Subject: Re: Piraat yeast

>> Jason Henning writes:

JH> I'm wanting to do a Belgian strong ale. One of my faves is
JH> Piraat. Is there any reason to think that the brown ring in the
JH> bottom of the bottle is anything but their normal fermenting
JH> yeast?

If my experience is any measuring stick, it is the normal yeast.  I
have successfully cultured yeast from van Steenberge Gulden Draak and
it ferments true to form.  My original culture is, in fact, now banked
and sold commercially by one of the well known yeast suppliers.  No, I
can't tell you which supplier or which yeast.

dion

- -- 
Dion Hollenbeck  Email:  hollen at woodsprite.com
Home Page:       http://www.woodsprite.com
Brewing Page:    http://hbd.org/hollen



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Date: Sat, 22 Feb 2003 14:29:49 -0500
From: Jeff Renner <jeffrenner at comcast.net>
Subject: Re: Whilpooling and Wort Transfer Question

"Pete Calinski" <pjcalinski at adelphia.net> admits:

>hops pellets ... plugged up the spigot.  To
>loosen them, I put a piece of tubing on the hose barb and blew back through
>the spigot.  It took quite a bit of force, held for many seconds before they
>broke loose.  When they did, I got a great burst of exhaled air to oxygenate
>the wort.

A better source of pressure is from a CO2 tank (if you have one). 
It's sterile and won't introduce oxygen if you are clearing a stuck 
mash.  No burned lips, either.

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: Sat, 22 Feb 2003 14:36:01 -0800 (PST)
From: Ronald La Borde <pivoron at yahoo.com>
Subject: RE: HERMS redux - the Juan Valdez method 

>From: mailto:ktgold at umich.edu
>
>Here're my electrically-challenged questions:
>-Am I going to burn out the dimmer?

Yup, a 500 watt dimmer feeding a 1040 watt element is
too much of an overload.  You could start a fire, burn
out the dimmer, and ruin a brewing session.

>-I have another torchiere...if I hook up two 500W
>dimmers in series, do I
>get 1000W capacity?

Nope, it does not work that way. You can purchase from
Grainger, a dimmer designed for over 1000 watts. It is
not cheap, but would be your best bet.

The HERMS idea is great!  It probably eliminates all
the problems with the heating chamber type of RIMS. No
hot spots, even if the mash gets stuck. This, in my
opinion is a major advance over RIMS, (lookout
flames).

In my system, the HERMS coil is just inserted into the
HLT, and I use that heated liquor to transfer heat to
the mash.  I have a 4500 watt element installed in the
HLT, with variable power control.  I manually control
the power without any thermostat, and find that it
works well, things happen fairly slowly because I
probably have 8-10 gallons in the HLT.  Befor I begin
to circulate, I have the HLT about 10 degrees higher
than the desired mash temp.  The mass of the HLT
liquor allows a very smooth ramp up.  If I rock the
coil, things ramp up about 3x faster.  I am
considering a stirrer, but wonder about HSA.

I still dream about this wild crazy system where I
have a plastic tubing coil inserted into a microwave
oven and use the microwave as the heating device. 
Cannot figure how to safely input and output the vinyl
tubing without causing possible microwave radiation. 
Any ideas mucho appreciated.

Ron

=====
Ron
Ronald J. La Borde -- Metairie, LA
New Orleans is the suburb of Metairie, LA
www.hbd.org/rlaborde



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Date: Sat, 22 Feb 2003 14:45:25 -0800
From: Jonathan ROyce <jonathan at woodburybrewingco.com>
Subject: RE: HERMS redux - the Juan Valdez method

Greg McLane surmised:
"I'm guessing this would be some kind of asymmtotic (sp?) curve,
giving me decreasing delta T's as the water gets hotter."

Which is indeed the case, since heat transfer (convective and conductive)
is a function of the temperature differential. 

Convective heat transfer:
q=hA(T2-T1)
where A = area, h = heat transfer coeff., T2 = fluid temp, T1=surface temp

Conductive heat transfer:
q=kA(T2-T1)/x
where A = area, k = heat transfer coeff., T2= surface temp (1), T1 = surface 
temp 

There seem to be a lot of questions here and on r.c.b. regarding lengths of 
CFCs, HERMS coils, etc. If there's interest, perhaps I could put together a 
spreadsheet that would help out with those calcs. Let me know.

HTH,
Jonathan
Woodbury Brewing Co.
www.woodburybrewingco.com


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Date: Sat, 22 Feb 2003 22:45:41 -0500
From: Ben Hanson <bhanson at rica.net>
Subject: old grain

I think I can already answer this question, but am curious anyway.  Has 
anybody used some old grains mixed into a recipe and been happy with the 
results?  I bought LOTS of specialty grains at about a quarter a bag 
when the local homebrew shop decided to close its doors, and still have 
some----about three years later.  I don't want to keep it any longer, 
but would use it anyway if I got enough positive reinforcement....  
Thanks

Ben




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Date: Sat, 22 Feb 2003 22:33:00 -0800 (PST)
From: Kent Fletcher <fletcherhomebrew at yahoo.com>
Subject: HERMS Redux

Gary is making a HERMS heat exchanger out of an old
coffee urn, and doing his damndest to shorten his
brewing (and breathing) carreer:

>Here're my electrically-challenged questions:
>-Am I going to burn out the dimmer?  

(in a loud Rod Steiger "Heat of the Night" voice) OH
YEAH!


>Am I asking for > nice little electrical fire?

BEGGING would be a better word...  On the bright side,
 the heat and smoke from the fire MAY save you from
electrocuting yourself!

>-I have another torchiere...if I hook up two 500W
>dimmers in series, do Iget 1000W capacity?

Not on your (getting shorter by the minute) life. 
Ditch the 50 cent lamp dimmers!  I'm not sure why you
want to use one, anyway.  Just let the thing rip, and
control it with the Johnson Controls t-stat.

>-When I hook this thing up to my Johnson Controls
>temp controller (don't have the specs on it handy) am
>I in any danger of burning out my controller?

Probably not.  You most likely have an A19 of some
type, their good for up to 22 amps resistive, or about
double what you're running.

>Yes, yes, GFCI, yeah I know...

OK, but DO something about it.  Wouldn't want to have
that engraved on your marker, would you?

Kent Fletcher
brewing in so Cal




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Date: Sun, 23 Feb 2003 09:02:39 +0000
From: "A M" <onebigblah at hotmail.com>
Subject: Newbie needs help

Wow, I am new to the HDB and judging by the archives this looks like an
incredible resource, I look forward to any feedback.

I will be brewing my third beer ever in a week or so but I have a
question about trub and hops, especially pellets.  It seems to be an 
incredible pain in the butt trying to strain out the hop particles and trub 
from the wert boil when transferring to primary fermenter -- how important 
is it to remove this crap from the wert before the addition of yeast?  I'm 
thinking about just fermenting with the dissolved hop pellets and not 
worrying about it.

Regarding bottles,
1)screw top beer bottles: can these be capped just like bottles that
require a bottle opener to remove the cap? Does the cap seal properly or are 
screw  top bottle useless?
2)Bottles that lack a sufficient lip that a hand capper can grasp, do
some breweries use this type of bottle on purpose just to drive people 
crazy? (because you never realize you can't cap them until they are already 
filled with your freshly primed beer)  Bench cappers don't have trouble with 
these, I realize, but I only have the "emily capper".  Thanks.

Regarding spigots, I have purchased two of these so far, not from
williams brewing though, but they have a picture:
http://www.williamsbrewing.com/AB1605000Store/images/E39.JPG
they both leak, in the time I took me to bottle fill 5 gallons worth of
beer I lost probably 2 pints to leakage. Is this typical?  Can anyone
recommend a spigot to fits a 1" diameter hole that won't leak?

Thanks!





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Date: Sun, 23 Feb 2003 08:23:21 -0800
From: Dean Fikar <dfikar at alumni.tcu.edu>
Subject: Re; Stability Test

Patrick asks:

"Tried the stability test Steve A. and Dean F. spoke of. Put wort sample
in small jelly jar about  .5" of air space. Opened 72 hours later
smelled and looked fine. Opened 12 hours after that smelled looked and
tasted fine. Did I conduct this test correctly?"

Sounds like you did it right.  However, one important variable you
didn't mention was the temperature you kept the sample at.  It should be
held at least around 80F, if not a little more.  I have on occasion left
an unsanitized hydrometer sample (pre-pitching) out in my brewery in the
winter months at 50-60F and have come back days later only to find a
clean-appearing sample.  At 80F the unsanitized sample would get pretty
rank in 20-30 hrs. or less.

Cheers,
Dean Fikar
Fort Worth, TX




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Date: Sun, 23 Feb 2003 10:28:10 -0600
From: Steve and Linda Patterson <yooper at ev1.net>
Subject: Recipe desired...

Just had my first (and second) Double Chocolate Ale by Youngs...
does anyone have a clone recipie for it?  I think I need a third!!!!


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Date: Sun, 23 Feb 2003 13:38:44 -0800 (PST)
From: David Passaretti <dpassaretti at yahoo.com>
Subject: RTD calibration/correction

I have HERMS system based on Sanke kegs.  I recently
swithced from a thermocouple to an RTD probe for my
mash tun/PID controller. I thought that RTD probes
were self-calibrating and would not require correction
like a TC. Upon testing my probe I found that it is
very accurate when compared to a lab thermometer at
low temps, eg 70-80F, but off by about 6F at mash
temps (150F). Is there something wrong with the probe
or is this to be expected. Fortunately my PID has a
probe correction value for easy adjustment. This
explains the high FG on my last batch. Thanks for any
input
David Passaretti



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Date: Sun, 23 Feb 2003 14:09:18 -0800
From: "Patrick Twohy" <patrick at twohy.net>
Subject: Beer and politics

Berkeley, Calif.'s Mayor Tom Bates has taken credit for 
inventing brew pubs.

The student newspaper had this the other day:

"I was the person who created and founded the whole idea 
of brew pubs," Bates said. "It's an idea that has 
caught on across the country and around the world."

http://www.dailycal.org/article.asp?id=10990

So now you know.
- --
Patrick Twohy
(1784, 274) Rennerian, apparent
also known as Burlingame, CA


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---