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


Contents:
  Mike Leonard doesn't rate (Norm Hardy)
  Re: my cheap immersion wort chiller (Chris Shenton)
  Re:  Homebrew Digest #417 (May 15, 1990) (Brian Rice)
  Sacto Brew Pub Tour, anyone? (cckweiss)
  Bock tasting (John Mellby)
  Oak and Wyeast (Pete Soper)
  "Brewing Beers Like Those You Buy" (Eric Pepke)
  Homebrew in Ft. Lauderdale (Rob Enns)


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Archives available from netlib at mthvax.cs.miami.edu


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Date: Thu, 17 May 90 21:45:57 PDT
From: hplabs!polstra!norm (Norm Hardy)
Subject: Mike Leonard doesn't rate

Hooray for double meanings.

I was sipping on a Paulaner Thomas-Brau non-alcoholic beer when I read the
testing where Mike Leonard recognized that he was drinking a non-alcoholic
beer and refused to score it.  Why?

Is there something WRONG with beer that has less than .5% alcohol?  Does 
alcohol have to be a major part of the equation?  

Question:  would homebrewers like to try a brewing system that allowed them
to make excellent beers with a lower final alcohol level?

Oh, Mike, if you are reading this, please take no offense at the title;
although I did intend it to catch the eye.

Norm Hardy



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Date: Fri, 18 May 90 12:50:20 EDT
From: Chris Shenton <chris at asylum.gsfc.nasa.gov>
Subject: Re: my cheap immersion wort chiller

Kenneth R. van Wyk writes:
> A couple people asked me about my $13 wort chiller that I mentioned
> in my recent posting on half-mashing, so here's what I did:
> 
> 10 ft. (already) coiled 3/8 inch O.D. flexible copper tubing
>        lumber/home supply store.  I saw similar tubing in Sears with
>        their refrigerator stuff (used in an automatic ice maker) - see
>        note below.  Cost: $9.99.
> [...]

I recently did the same sort of thing, but I used 50 ft of tubing because I
wanted to extract as much heat from the wort with minimum water usage. That
amount of tubing cost $27, so the tubing seems to be the limiting factor.

I connected plastic tubing which over the end of the copper (secured with
homemade hose clamp), and the other end of the plastic to a garden hose
adaptor which went to my sink faucet.  I just let the outlet water run from
the end of the copper into the sink. Really easy.

The water initially absorbed so much heat from the near boiling wort that
it came out boiling at first. I guestimate it took about 15-20 gallons
cold tap water over 20 minutes to cool the wort from about 200F to 80F. I
started out with a fast flow, then slowed it down as the wort got below
about 120F.

I was trying to think of what I could do with 5-10 gallons of
nearly-boiling water and all I could thing of was to make a hell of a lot
of tea.

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Date:  Fri, 18 May 90 14:15:01 EDT
From: Brian Rice <rice at zip.eecs.umich.edu>
Subject: Re:  Homebrew Digest #417 (May 15, 1990)



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Date: Fri, 18 May 90 10:44:39 -0700
From: cckweiss at castor.ucdavis.edu
Subject: Sacto Brew Pub Tour, anyone?


I had dinner last night at Rubicon Brewing Company, on Capitol Ave. in
Sacramento.  Food edible, but not great, beer tasted okay to me. They were
serving a Summer Wheat beer (kind of like their 'Lite"), India Pale Ale 
(was almost as bitter as I would have made it), Amber Ale (yet another
Anchor clone, but nice), Spring Bok and a porter (unsampled due to need
to drive home [my standard tasting size being a pint]) As you can tell,
I'm no beer judge, just a beer drinker. I was impressed with the number
of selections, and especially with the fact that they had no attempt at
a 'Lite' beer. Every other brewpub I've ever been to made at least some
token effort to placate those patrons who didn't really want a *beer*, 
but needed a glass of something in front of them to fit in. (I'd rather
have a full bottle in front of me than a pre-frontal lobotomy)

Anyway, the waitress told me that the brewmaster there started out as
a homebrewer, and went on to some advanced study at UC Davis, scaled up,
and voila! His name is Phil Moeller. He wasn't around, but the waitress
said he's happy to arrange tours for brewers.

If anyone's interested in checking this place out and having a bit of a
tour, E-mail me and I'll try to set things up.

Ken Weiss
krweiss at ucdavis.edu
cckweiss at castor.ucdavis.edu

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Date: Fri, 18 May 90 11:45:03 CDT
From: jmellby at ngstl1.csc.ti.com (John Mellby)
Subject: Bock tasting

The Offical Mellby Beer-Tastings, year 3.

This is the Eighteenth such tasting stretching back over two years.

The tastings, in reverse chronological order were of:
Bochs
Belgians + Samichlaus
Misc. Lagers (including one Non-alcoholic)
Ales, mainly American
Misc.
Oregon and Michigan (ok its weird, but this is where our last trips were)
Available Ales (i.e. purchaseable in Dallas)
Northern Beers (Northern US and Canadian)
Belgian (and other odd European Beers)
California Micro-beers
Lagers, mostly American microbreweries
Ales (an odd lot which turned out to be poor quality)
Ales (Strong, including porters, stout)
Mixed Lagers
Ales
Lagers
Christmas and speciality beers
Mixed (mostly ales)

A few preliminary comments are necessary.  In general we are tasting
beers which are not commercially available in Texas (curse these
state laws!).  We're usually tasting special beers which may not move
off the retailer's shelves as fast as, say, Budweiser.
Hence some beer is not as fresh as it should be.  

The most important thing we have learned is:
        The condition under which the retailer keeps the beer is crucial!
Age, light, and handling all can cause a good beer to rapidly become bad.
Also we have learned to drink the beer rather than keeping it for
extended periods (except with a few bottle-conditioned beer, like
Celebration Ale, Thomas Hardy, etc.)

On with the beer:


Bochs
- -----
5/17/90 A few surprises here.  I guessed virtually every beer wrong, and
we haven't gotten too many good beers from Kessler, yet it tasted as good
as I expect a Boch can be.
		JRM Tim Roy MikeG Cary Paul	Total	Ave
EKU 28		35  43  35  36    44   42	235	39.2
Franziskus	31  32  36  30    32   34	195	32.5
Garten Brau	27  26  35        38   32	158	31.6
Sam Adams	36  37  37        41   41	192	38.4
Kessler		45  40  41        39   42	207	41.4
Celebrator	35  32  33        37   35	172	34.4
Shiner		16  18  25        26   23	108	21.6
Berghoff	24  28  25        33   30	140	28.0

EKU 28, Kulminator Urtyp Hell, Erste Kulmbacher Actienbrauerei, Germany
I prefer to put the strongest beer at the end, but for reasons all his
own, Roy decided to burn out our taste buds early.  EKU is VERY STRONG!
It is one of the few beers to have a strong smell of alcohol
It had a sharp, sweet, alcohol taste.  The alcohol almost overwhelmed the
malt.  This is so distinctive it is hard to rate.

Franziskus Heller Boch, Spaten, Munich, Germany
We named this the "Light American Skunk Bock" and were very surprised to
find it was by Spaten!  It didn't really taste or smell like a bock.
Skunky aroma, and reminded me of Oktoberfest beer.  A nice white head and
it was very light.  It had too much hops and was astringent and unbalanced
for a bock.

Garten Brau Boch, Capital Brewing, Madison, Wisconsin
This had a taste of alcohol, but was also watery.  It had a drying,
cardboard taste, with a thin, sour aftertaste.  Molassas and malt in the
aroma and taste.

Samuel Adams Double Bock Dark Lager, Boston Beer Company
Lovely malt aroma!  It had a nice taste, I thought I detected salt.
Very drinkable.

Kessler Boch, Helena Montana
We thought this was German in origin!  Great malt aroma with some hops.
A clean, malty taste with a little alcohol.  Excellent bock!!

Celebrator, Ayinger Bier, Germany
I have rated this much higher before.  The bottle was probably old.
Caramel and old (but still nice) malt in the aroma.  The taste
was burnt/roast malt, with alcohol, papery, and a little oxidized.
Still quite drinkable.

Shiner Bock, Shiner Brewing, Shiner TX
Vegetarian Delight!  The aroma wasn't half bad, but it was completely
watery with strong DMS (sulfur dioxide).  Yuch!

Berghoff Boch, Huber Brewing, Wisconsin
This was again old.  It was probably a quite good beer earlier.
The aroma was still nice, but the taste and drinkability suffered.

Surviving the American Dream
John R. Mellby                       Texas Instruments
jmellby%ngstl1.ti.com                P.O.Box 660246, MS 3645
                                     Dallas Texas, 75266
(214)517-5370                       (214)343-7585
*************************************************************
* "A free society is one where it is safe to be unpopular." *
*                         -- Adlai Stevenson                *
*************************************************************

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Date: Fri, 18 May 90 17:33:17 EDT
From: Pete Soper <soper at maxzilla.encore.com>
Subject: Oak and Wyeast

>From: <R_GELINA%UNHH.BITNET at mitvma.mit.edu> (RUSSG)

>flavor to it and was really nutty (in flavor). Anyone have any experience
>with oak-aged brew? How about availability of oak casks (albeit smaller ones)?

  "Zymurgy" covered casks sometime ago as part of an article about brewing
traditional British style ales. One thing I recall is that using casks
designed for wine is risky since they were not intended to deal with internal
pressure.
  A very cheap alternative is to get about 6 grams of Oak chips, boil them
a few minutes three times in separate batches of water (to wash excess tannin 
and other gunk out of the wood and to sterilize it) and then put the chips into
your fermenter for the last week or so before bottling. A lot of suppliers
sell official English Oak chips in bags large enough to keep you going for
a year or two in case you don't have a tree handy. Take my advice and sneak 
up to the right amount of oak flavor - this is powerful stuff and is quite 
noxious if too much is used.

>From: Enders <enders at plains.NoDak.edu>

  (details of inflated Wyeast packet worries omitted)

  Everybody that has had a packet burst needs to send a skyrocket over to
Oregon via their supplier to get the message to Wyeast that this must stop.
This seems to be a very recent problem that almost certainly stems from the 
changes in package size and yeast and broth quantities that were put into effect 
last Winter. If is something that can be tuned out with a minor adjustment we
should all see the change very quickly considering the very small stocking
levels of most suppliers (and the fact that Wyeast is perpetually behind on
shipments and so has no stockpile of its own). Let's get this under control
before we develop a new batch of superstitions that persist for who knows how
long.
- ----------
Pete Soper (soper at encore.com)                          +1 919 481 3730
Encore Computer Corp, 901 Kildaire Farm Rd, bldg D, Cary, NC 27511 USA

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Date:    Sun, 20 May 1990 13:08:05 EDT
From: PEPKE at scri1.scri.fsu.edu (Eric Pepke)
Subject: "Brewing Beers Like Those You Buy"

John Polstra writes:

> The problem is that it is an English book, and the recipes call for all
> sorts of strange ingredients that just aren't readily available here in
> the USA.  (E.g., invert sugar, barley syrup, brewers caramel, demerara
> sugar, black treacle ...)  Also, many of the recipes call for "brown
> sugar", which is not the same here as it is in England.

It's not as bad as all that!  One of Dave Line's other books, _Beer Kits 
and Brewing_, explains the ingredients somewhat better.  Quotes are in 
quotes; my comments aren't.

"Invert sugar (sometimes labelled CORN SUGAR or DEXTROSE) can be regarded 
as regarded as the standard brewing sugar.  Ready made invert comes in the
form of a crystalline mass containing approximately 10 per cent water."

Dextrose is readily available, usually in the amorphous form as a 
powder.  So, multiply by 0.9 and use powdered dextrose.  

"Malt extract is manufactured, as we know, from _malted_ barley grains.  
Barley syrup on the other hand is made from _raw_ barley chemically dosed 
to change its natural starch store into fermentable extract...The flavour
it imparts in beer is not so strong as malt based syrups, as the latter 
tends to possess a characteristic tang of over maltiness."

Considering that even the lightest English malt extracts tend to be a bit 
on the malty side, a very light Holland extract makes qute a good 
substitute for barley syrup.

"Sold as BREWERS CARAMEL or BEER COLOURING it does what the latter 
suggests.  Basically it is just a concentrated solution of burnt sugar and 
will be used in recipes from the darkest stout to even the most delicate of 
lagers."

I guess one could make caramel, but the question is what the proportions 
would be.  However, if it can be used in the most delicate of lagers, it 
must not have an appreciable effect on the flavor, only on the color.  
Leave it out and close your eyes when you drink.

Demerara sugar should be available in any food co-op or "health" food store.  
It's even sometimes sold in ordinary grocery stores.  Ask for "raw" sugar.

Black treacle is molasses.  The variety in flavor between readily available 
American molasses is greater than the flavor difference between an 
"average" American molasses and an "average" English black treacle.  I have 
found that the molasses which comes out of the five gallon drum at my local 
food co-op is a very good match.  This is of no use to anybody else, who 
will have to experiment.  The same can be said for brown sugar.

Flaked maize is corn flakes.  The kind with the stupid pictures of people 
on the front works fine.  Flaked rice is also easily available.  Flaked 
barley should be carried by any reasonably well equipped brew store.  
Torrefied wheat is puffed wheat.  Torrefied rice is the stuff with the ads of 
the three annoying little men jumping around making noise.  Torrefied barley 
is also available.

Glucose chips are a bit hard to find, but you can find powdered amorphous 
glucose fairly easily.  Again, multiply by 0.9.  Finally, remember that 
when Dave Line say 5 gallons, he means 5 of his gallons, not 5 of yours.  
If you use 5 of yours, the difference between your O.G. and 1.0 will be 
about 20% too high.

So, converting is not much of a problem.  I have had as good or better 
results with Dave Line's recipes than with most American recipes.  As 
always, beer recipes only give you a place to start, and you still need 
copious common sense and skill and a little bit of experimentation if you 
are shooting for a first-class beer.

The major problem I have with the book is that it says "brewer's yeast" or 
"lager yeast."  Of course, the characteristics of the yeast have a lot to 
do with the result.  It would be nice to know what kind of attenuative 
characteristics are required by each recipe.  On the other hand, when you 
ask restaurants for recipes they will usually leave out one secret 
ingredient.  Perhaps the characteristics of the yeast are what 
breweries do not give out.

Eric Pepke                                     INTERNET: pepke at gw.scri.fsu.edu
Supercomputer Computations Research Institute  MFENET:   pepke at fsu
Florida State University                       SPAN:     scri::pepke
Tallahassee, FL 32306-4052                     BITNET:   pepke at fsu

Disclaimer: My employers seldom even LISTEN to my opinions.
Meta-disclaimer: Any society that needs disclaimers has too many lawyers.

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Date: Tue, 15 May 90 09:28:17 edt
From: Rob Enns <hpda!uunet!bnrgate!bcarh222.BNR.CA!robe>
Subject: Homebrew in Ft. Lauderdale
Full-Name: 

I'm going to be in Ft. Lauderdale in a couple of weeks, and I'd like
to visit a homebrew supply shop to pick up some liquid yeast and other
goodies which don't make it up to our local shops in Ottawa.

If anyone has any suggestions or pointers to good homebrew shops in Ft.
Lauderdale, I'd love to hear them.

Thanks,
Rob.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Rob Enns, Bell-Northern Research, Ottawa, Ontario
.uunet!bnrgate!wilde!robe                                          robe at bnr.ca


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End of HOMEBREW Digest #421, 05/21/90
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