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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
		Rob Gardner, Digest Coordinator


Contents:
  Re:  Sterilizing Bottles (harvard!ima!wang7!klm)
  Three gallon glass carboys (Mike Fertsch)
  sugar in your beer (Darryl Richman)
  More comments on using Champagne bottles (rogerl)


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Date: Sat, 7 Jan 89 06:12:23 EST
From: hplabs!harvard!ima!wang7!klm
Subject: Re:  Sterilizing Bottles


Hi!  I'm new to this digest and this is my first submission.

I've been following the thread on sterilizing bottles and thought
that I might put in my $.02 worth.

After getting the bottles physically clean, (i.e. no debris, yeast,
cigarette butts, etc.) I run them through a full cycle in my dishwasher
including a HOT dry WITHOUT detergent.  I do this several hours before
bottling time and I don't open the dishwasher until I am ready to start
using the bottles.  I haven't had any noticeable sanitation problems
in my bottling since I started doing this several batches ago.

Also, I use non-returnable green Molson bottles.  I have recycled most
of them several times now and have not had one break yet.

I prefer green bottles for aesthetic reasons and I don't worry about
skunking the beer because I always keep it boxed.

Oh, yes, about the cleaning step above... I first soak the bottles in
a weak chlorine solution for about 1/2 hour and then rinse them
thoroughly with a jet spray washer.  This does an excellent job of
removing even those tough deposits.

Cheers!

Kevin McBride
Wang Laboratories, Inc.
Lowell, MA
..!ima!wang7!klm   (work)
..!ima!wang7!gozer!klm  (home)


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Date: Thu, 5 Jan 89 08:56 EST
From: Mike Fertsch <hplabs!uiucdcs!meccad.RAY.COM!FERTSCH>
Subject: Three gallon glass carboys

Several members of our brewing club (Boston Wort Processors) have expressed 
interest in three (3) gallon glass carboys.  We are looking for a possible 
supplier for us to make a large order (around 20 carboys).  Can anyone on 
the net help us out?  We made an order around two years ago, but the 
company from which we got the carboys went out of business in the meantime.

Three gallon carboys are great for people who like to experiment and make
several small batches rather than fewer large batches.  When I make a small
batch, I start my primary in a 5 gallon carboy, and later transfer to the 3
gallon carboy for secondary fermentation and lagering.

I do my all-grain brewing in small 3 gallon batches.  I don't have a
brewpot or a stove large enough to boil 5 gallons of wort.  Three gallon
mashes are much easier to control, and the lautering and sparging is 
appropriately easier.

I really like using three gallon carboys for brewing, but I need to find a
few more for our club.  Can anyone help out? 

Mike Fertsch


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Date: Sat, 7 Jan 89 07:46:50 PST
From: Darryl Richman <darryl at ism780c.isc.com>

In the Jan 06 digest, "CRF at IFASGNV.BITNET" (Cher Feinstein) writes:
"KEGS:  I have read and been told that kegged homebrew tends to have problems
"with yeast stir-up when tapped.  I have avoided trying kegging on this basis.
"Comments, anyone?

I keg regularly with the 5 gallon Cornelius (soft drink syrup) kegs.
The draw tube, through which the outgoing beer passes, reaches all the
way to the bottom of the keg, so the first few pints come with a dollop
of yeast.  I mostly use Sierra Nevada yeast, which flocculates into a
very compact layer, and after the second or third pint I don't see
anymore yeast.  When the keg is empty, I have opened it up to find that
there is about a 1" inch radius circle around the draw tube that is
clean of yeast,otherwise there is a solid yeast pancake on the bottom.
This hardly seems to be a yeast stir up.  I have transported partly
full kegs with a minimum of yeast stirred into the beer, even when
tapping directly after arrival.  Of course, if you avoid it, that means
there is less demand in the used keg market for me. ;-)

		--Darryl Richman
(The Falcon's Nest homebrewing BBS sysop 818 349 5891)

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Date: Sat, 7 Jan 89 08:10:57 PST
From: Darryl Richman <darryl at ism780c.isc.com>
Subject: sugar in your beer

I'd like to take a step back from the AHA dictum that you should not
add sugar to your beer except for priming.  This truism is certainly
correct for general purposes, but may not be appropriate in specific
circumstances.  What we want to avoid is obtaining the title of
neo-prohibitionist beer making, where the only purpose of adding sugar
is to gain a higher alcohol content, regardless of the resulting
taste.

But if you read Dave Line's books ("The Big Book of Brewing" and
"Making Beers Like Those You Buy"), you'll see that he professed to
have used lots of different wierd British sugars in his brews.  There
is a reason for this:  the British Brewers themselves do it.  If you
want to make a beer that tastes like Bitter from 50 years ago, use
malt, but if you want to make a copy of today's Bass, you'll probably
want to add some sugar.  Note the word *some*.  We are talking about a
small percentage, like 10% for example.  All things in moderation, you
know.

Anyway, with all the postings on trading sugar for malt, I just wanted
to make sure it didn't get lost that sugar is one of the brewer's
ingredients.  The English do it, the Belgians do it, the Scots do it.
You can do it too.  But you must do it with the right purpose in mind.

		--Darryl Richman
(The Falcon's Nest homebrewer's BBS sysop 818 349 5891)

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Date: Sat, 7 Jan 89 15:53:56 EST
From: rogerl at Think.COM
Subject: More comments on using Champagne bottles

I guess I spoke to soon.  Today I was getting ready to bottle and
found the latest batch of bottles I received have a larger lip on
them.  Oh well.  I'm stll going to use these giants but will seal them
with the old champagne cork (plastic) and wires.  If you can find the
half bottles of champagne I do believe that the normal longneck cap
fits those fine.  Again, get to know a bar that serves champagne on a
regular bases and you will have a ready supply without having to
generate these empties on your own.  The wallet will like it too.  I
realize it's not as much fun, but being of limited means as many of us
are one does what one can do.

Keep on homebrewin'.
Roger Locniskar

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End of HOMEBREW Digest

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