HOMEBREW Digest #4368 Wed 08 October 2003


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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
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Contents:
  What Gravity to use for IBU Calculations (John Palmer)
  re: Decoction Gone Bad (Dane Mosher)
  Beer in Restaurants- Corkage ("Don Van Valkenburg")
  Re: Flax Seed in Beer (Todd Goodman)
  Re:  Brewers yeast,  dogs ("Houseman, David L")
  Racking to secondary ("Dave Burley")
  What is Bad Beer? (R.A.)" <rbarrett@ford.com>
  Decoction (MOREY Dan)
  Re: Insurance and CO2 Cylinders? (Kevin Wagner)
  Re: Insurance and CO2 Cylinders? ("Kent Fletcher")
  beer in restaurants ("dave holt")
  BREWERS YEAST, DOGS ("Mike Racette")
  Beer at Restaurants ("Lee and Ant Hayes")
  Beano Beer ("Steve Dale-Johnson")
  Re: Three pounds of Flax ("-S")
  Three pounds of Flax ("Chad Stevens")
  Low Efficiency=High Flavour? (Grant Family)
  re: Decoction Gone Bad (Leo Vitt)
  What's on Tap? (Alexandre Enkerli)
  pumps ("Patrick Hughes")
  Re: Asking for craftbrew (Kent Fletcher)

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---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 6 Oct 2003 21:54:57 -0700 From: John Palmer <jjpalmer at altrionet.com> Subject: What Gravity to use for IBU Calculations I just got back from Northern California Homebrewers Festival in Dobbins, CA, northeast of Marysville, which is about 40 minutes north of Sacramento. What a great time! Thanks to all the clubs for their hospitality and really good homebrews. And the 6 course Cajun dinner. And the duckballs, can't forget the duckballs. yum. *** In my book, my version of Tinseth's equation uses the initial boil gravity. Why? Because utilization is a function of boil time and wort concentration (ie. gravity). The higher the gravity, the lower the utilization. Thus, IMO, if you were to use the final gravity for the utilization calculation (mathematical model), you would potentially underestimate your final IBUs. If you use the average gravity of the boil, you theoretically would be closest to the actual number, but how many factors will you use to determine it. Will you use a weighted average of the total amount of hops, distributed over their various boil times and estimate the gravity at each of those times, based on the total evaporation? Is the evaporation rate linear? Or, you can choose the initial boil gravity, and base your total bitterness calculation on the gravity at the time of (typically) the greatest bitterness addition, and potentially overestimate the amount of bitterness from later additions, which typically only make up a third of the total bitterness. Thus your anticipated error is reduced to a matter of a few IBUs. This is the way I advocate doing it, and hopefully my rationale is fairly clear, but the other side of the coin is to always take brewing calculations with a grain or five of salt, since no one has ever proven that their model is correct to the exclusion of all others. We are just trying to choose a consistent way of getting our brewing into the same ballpark as other brewers with their own methods and equipment. It's a ballpark thing. John Palmer john at howtobrew.com www.realbeer.com/jjpalmer www.howtobrew.com - the free online book of homebrewing Return to table of contents
Date: Mon, 6 Oct 2003 22:08:27 -0700 (PDT) From: Dane Mosher <dane_mosher at yahoo.com> Subject: re: Decoction Gone Bad "I tried my first decoction mash and it did not go very well." -- Dave Larsen I bet those words have been said many times. I'm sure your beer will be okay though. I don't know what's up with your stove, but as long as the grain darkened in color, I think your decoction was effective. Gumminess is a definite sign of successful decoction. Runoffs are always tougher with decoction. It's even worse when wheat is involved. However extract efficiency should be much better. I also undershot my temps when I first started decocting. My solution has been to pull 50% or more of the thick mash for decoction. I use a strainer and keep pulling grain out until I have a hard time filling it up anymore. I'm probably pulling more like 60-70% of the grain. I now hit the temperatures that I want. Hope this helps. Dane Mosher Fort Worth, TX Return to table of contents
Date: Mon, 6 Oct 2003 23:50:39 -0700 From: "Don Van Valkenburg" <Brewing at earthlink.net> Subject: Beer in Restaurants- Corkage Many of my friends call me a beer snob. Ok, I don't apologize - I do like beer - so be it, and have but one simple, modest request when dining out in nice restaurants; I would like a good beer with my food. Not that yellow fizzy stuff, but something substantial, something with flavor. Unfortunately the availability of good selections of quality beer in high-end restaurants is dismal, mostly mass-produced beer -the beer equivalent of cheep, bulk wine. But, there is a solution: Corkage. My solution is BYOB. Yep, I bring my own. The industry term for this is corkage. This is perfectly legal and most better restaurants do allow you to bring your own bottle. Corkage is where the restaurant will literally pull the cork for you and provides the glassware and ice if necessary. Of course restaurants can and usually do charge for this service, and the charge can vary considerably (usually more than I pay for the bottle), so ask first. But after thinking about it, most responded favorably, and about half the time I am not charged. Some may not want to pay an additional charge for simply opening their beer, but if you are passionate about beer and, like me, prefer beer to wine, it is worth the cost. Note; I am speaking here of higher end restaurants where a cheep bottle of wine might start at $20 and the average is more like $50. Suggestion of what to take: Don't take a 6-pack, take instead a nice looking magnum or at least 750ml bottle with a cork. If you are going to be charged a corkage it might as well be a magnum of Anchor Christmas or something of equal merit. Cheers, Don Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2003 08:30:32 -0400 From: Todd Goodman <tsg at bonedaddy.net> Subject: Re: Flax Seed in Beer * In HBD #4367, Chad Stevens asks: > Anyone else played with flax in their beer? Isn't flax seed about 40+% oil by weight? It seems like you'd have competing foam negative and foam positive components. It's the source of Linseed oil after all. Of course, I'd be real interested to hear how it works out... Todd Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2003 08:52:11 -0400 From: "Houseman, David L" <David.Houseman at unisys.com> Subject: Re: Brewers yeast, dogs Mike, I won't flame you for giving beer to your dog...lord knows they deserve it...but just what are you doing with the budlight that you have it around to give dregs from the bottle to the dog? ;-)) Dave Houseman Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2003 09:38:05 -0400 From: "Dave Burley" <Dave_Burley at charter.net> Subject: Racking to secondary Brewsters, Dane Mosher suggests that the best time to rack is after the yeast have settled and that waiting longer than two weeks will run the risk of yeasty autolyis flavors. I have a different suggestion. I rack after the major fermentation is finished and thrown a deposit but while the beer is still yeasty. The yeast in the secondary is clean of organic material and a good quantity of starting yeast for your next batch, so don't leave it behind, just leave behind the organic stuff from the fermentation. Frankly, I think this autolysis danger is far overdone. I have held yeast at the bottom of a naturally conditoned bottle for months and not noticed any real problem, so two weeks is a little silly in my opinion. Now this will depend on things like temperature and perhaps the strain of S. cerevisiae, but I wouldn't let avoiding autolysis be a guiding principle, especially since many cold fermented beers may stay over the yeast for six weeks in a quality lager production. Keep on Brewin' Dave Burley Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2003 10:24:20 -0400 From: "Barrett, Bob (R.A.)" <rbarrett at ford.com> Subject: What is Bad Beer? What is Bad Beer? I read things like, "life is too short to drink bad beer". What is bad beer? I know I've had bad beer before. At least I think it was bad beer. Maybe it was GOOD beer and I just didn't like it. Does a beer have to have a medal to keep it from being a bad beer? If a beer has a medal, does it mean it is a good beer? I read things like, "that beer won a medal at the GABF" and I think to myself, that must be a good beer. It can't be a bad beer, it won a medal. Then I look at the list of winners at the 2003 GABF and see that there are only 190 beers that won medals. Must be there are only 190 beers that are not bad beers. Does that mean that the other 1765 entries are all bad beers? Could a beer win a medal and still be a bad beer? How can you give a medal to a beer, if it's bad? Do bad athletes win medals? Do bad soldiers get medals? I read things like, "If I have to drink AB or Miller or Coors, I would just as soon have iced tea". Is AB bad beer? Does Miller make bad beer? How about Coors? AB won 6 medals at the 2003 GABF and Large Brewing Company of the year. Miller won 4 medals. Big Coors didn't win any medals, but their Sandlot Brewery at Coors Field won 4 medals. Pabst also won 4 medals. That's almost 10% of the medals!!! Beer is beer. Some we like. Some we don't like. If we don't like it, is it bad?? I don't think so! We make the beer we drink!! Bob Barrett Ann Arbor, MI (2.8, 103.6) rennerian Where has Jeff been? I haven't seen him in a while Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2003 09:28:49 -0500 From: MOREY Dan <dan.morey at cnh.com> Subject: Decoction Dave asks about decoction mashing: > I tried my first decoction mash and it did not go very well. It was a single > decoction with steps at 140 and 160 degrees. I mashed in with 1.33 quarts > pound at 11 lbs. I pulled about a gallon and a half of the thickest part of > the mash. > > The first problem: I heated and stirred but the thing never really came to a > solid boil, even after over an hour on full heat on my stove. It bubbled a > bit here and there, but I would not call it a boil. I kept adding a little > boiling water because it just kept getting drier and drier. After 75 > minutes of that, I decided enough was enough and I infused it back into the > main mash I might be in the minority, but I believe the "thickest part rule" is not justified. First of all, I have never seen "thick" quantified in decoction literature. In my opinion 1 quart per pound is thick and is difficult to work with even for a single infusion. Usually people keep too little liquor in their decoction. It is the liquid that boils, not he grain. There must be enough liquid to keep the grain in suspension. So here is my advice, keep the thickness between the main mash and decoction as close as you can. Stir the mash up to resuspend the grain and scoop out what you need. Yes, enzymes will be denatured in the decoction boil, but I content there are plenty of enzymes left in the main mash. On the opposite process the "thin part" is removed and brought to a boil. While there is not complete conversion in the turbid mash, the conversion is still significant. Because you will lose water due to evaporation during the decoction boil, you may want to start with a bit thinner mash such as 1.5 qt/lb. > That is where the second problem occurred. Instead of jumping up to 160 > degrees it went to less than 150, going up 10 degrees instead of 20. I had > to add a ton of boiling water to bring up the temp. However, my mash tun > filled up long before I ever hit 160 degrees. I think it settled in at > about 157. It was the most watery mash I've seen. The beautiful thing about keep the liquid to grain ratio equal between the main mash and the decoction, is it makes calculating the size of the decoction mash easy because the specific heat of both mashes is the same. As a result the decoction volume can be calculated from the desired temperature change: Mtotal = lbs_of_grain * (1 + (2.08 * thick_ratio)) = total mass of both mashes (lbs). where, thick_ratio is the ration of water to grain expressed as quarts per pound. lbs_of_grain is the mass of total grain bill. Mdec = Mtotal * (Ttarget - Tmm)/(Tboil - Tmm) = mass of the decoction in pounds where, Ttarget is the target temperature Tmm is the temperature of the main mash prior to adding the decoction portion back. Tboil is the boiling temperature (212F). To convert to volume measure, as it is easier to measure) use the following approximation: mash_density = (1 + (2.08 * thick_ratio)) / (0.093 + (thick_ratio/4)) = density in lbs per gallon. where 0.093 "fudge factor" to account for the volume of liquid in space between the grain. Vdec = Mdec / mash_density = Decoction volume in gallons > To make matters worse, the decoction made the mash really gummy. I ended up > with a nasty stuck sparge. A decoction will result in a gummier mash. Watch your grain bed depth and sparge rates to avoid a stuck mash. Dan Morey Club B.A.B.B.L.E. http://hbd.org/babble [213.1, 271.5] mi Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 07 Oct 2003 08:34:35 -0700 From: Kevin Wagner <kevin.wagner at watchmark.com> Subject: Re: Insurance and CO2 Cylinders? Bob Pelletier asks if his insurance co. can drop him if they found out he has a CO2 tank in his home... What is that 9oz tank rated at (1200psi?). My HPA 12oz tank fills at 3000psi. I was under the impression that normal tank pressure for dispensing beverages is in the 700 PSI range. I don't do my own fills because 1) the gear is expensive and 2) most operators won't let you play on their fields. I'll bet the shop owner thinks you've got a high pressure tank which, I don't know, maybe requires a rider on your homeowners policy. -K Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2003 10:39:57 -0700 From: "Kent Fletcher" <kfletcher at socal.rr.com> Subject: Re: Insurance and CO2 Cylinders? Bob Pelletier wrote: > So this week end My bro in law and I bought CO2 powered paintball guns. They > come with tiny 9oz tanks. I figure no problem I can fill it from my 20# > tanks at home. So I ask the paintball shop owner if he has the kit to fill > the small gun tank from my big tanks. He said he won't sell them due to > liability and that I shouldn't have the tanks in my house because my > insurance co. can drop my policy if they found out. > Does this make any sense? The question of your insurer possibly terminating (or more likely not renewing) your coverage is an interesting one. I was not able to find any listed exclusion regarding compressed gas cylinders in general in my policy (FUEL tanks were specifically mentioned). But the shop owner might have given you the short answer: You can't fill your paintball cylinder with your beer cylinder. That is, you can't fill it with anything other than compressed CO2 gas. Your beer tank doesn't have a siphon tube, to dispense liquid. If you fill your paintball tank with gas instead of liquid you probably won't get many shots off before you're empty. You could easilly be out of gas before you're out of ammo. Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 07 Oct 2003 10:57:55 -0700 From: "dave holt" <brewdave at hotmail.com> Subject: beer in restaurants This has happened a couple of times in recent visits to restaurants and I still get a laugh out of it. I ask the wait staff for a microbrewed beer. I get a dumbfounded look. They then recite the megaswill list. I then ask what else do they have. "Oh, we have imports too." They then recite the import list. Lo and behold, the microbrews are recited with the imports. Ok, I have one of those imported Sierra Nevada beers. Dave Holt Chandler, Az "Homebrewing is more than a hobby, it is a lifestyle." Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2003 12:46:29 -0600 From: "Mike Racette" <mike.racette at hydro-gardens.com> Subject: BREWERS YEAST, DOGS Michael Hartsock <xd_haze at yahoo.com> says: "My dog has chronic stomach problems so I once tried to get him to eat active yeast, in general its hard to get a dog to eat something really bitter (i've found). But my dog will lap up the dregs out of a home brew bottle, so sometimes I just dump it in his bowl. But don't be mean, give him more than just the last swallow, he needs at least a few ounces. Sadly (i'm quite embarrassed) he's more of a budlight kind of guy (sometimes i even have to cut it with water, but he loves it). He did like the CACA i made, but turns his nose up at stout." I always give 1 of my dogs (my other dog strangely doesn't like beer) the dregs from my homebrew bottles too, and he loves any style including stout and the hoppiest of IPA's. He makes a guttural, anticipating sound like Homer Simpson does as soon as I hold the bottle out. Come to think of it, I maybe make a similar sound just before that first taste of liquid nectar. Can't seem to locate it right now, but I've seen a dog biscuit recipe using yeast posted around here somewhere. Maybe you can search it out, Rob. Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2003 20:47:38 +0200 From: "Lee and Ant Hayes" <anleo at worldonline.co.za> Subject: Beer at Restaurants The trick is at booking stage. Mention that you'd like to drink Urbock with your meal. Ask if they have it. If not, ask what corkage they'll charge so that you can bring some along. This will elicit one of two responses: 1. They'll quote you a price. 2. They'll say no and list the beers that they have. Either way you get to decide whether to go there. Further, you will not embarrass your guests. (This idea comes from "Manners in the Cape Winelands 101") Ant Hayes South Africa Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 07 Oct 2003 12:00:42 -0700 From: "Steve Dale-Johnson" <sdalejohnson at hotmail.com> Subject: Beano Beer Jonathan Royce asked about using enzymes to lower the level of unfermentables and the FG of a beer. There was an article (a "Mr Wizard") or something in BYO about it recently where it was shown to be effective. No comments as to the taste, though. It's still current and online at http://www.byo.com/mrwizard/1112.html As I have several diabetic beer-loving friends, I decided to do an experiment with the Beano on an Irish red Ale. I used two standard doses of the liquid drops as per the BYO article. It was added at the apparent end of fermentation after racking to secondary and led to a slow bubbling that carried on for a couple of weeks. I'm going by memory here, but the OG was about 1.050, FG dropped to 1.012 using a 1 litre starter of Wyeast 1084 Irish Ale, and the final after-beano FG dropped to aboput 1.004, very low. Mouthfeel, surprisingly, is better than a budmillcoors-type lager even though the fg is lower, but the beer refuses to clear after 6+ weeks of cold-conditioning and being fined with Polyclar, which has been a no-fail in the past. Worse yet, there are some very noticeable disagreeable flavours (raunchy esters, a little diacetyl, as well as some I don't recongnize) in the beer. This may be either the Beano, an unrelated beer infection, or possibly a contaminant/infection introduced by the enzymes. I don't know, but I'm not ready to dump it just yet. I'd love to hear about others' experiences. Steve Dale-Johnson Brewing at 1918 miles, 298 degrees Rennerian Delta (Vancouver), BC, Canada. Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2003 15:29:16 -0400 From: "-S" <-s at adelphia.net> Subject: Re: Three pounds of Flax Chad Stevens notes ... > I managed to answer my own Flax Mucilage/Foam Stability question > http://www.herbalgram.org/iherb/expandedcommissione/he036.asp > > Flax mucilage appears to be: > > 8-10% Galactose > 9-12% Arabinose > 13-29% Rhamnose > 25-27% Xylose > > and roughly 30% Galacturonic & Mannuronic acids. > > Flax mucilage increasing mouthfeel seems fairly intuitive; it's gummy in > solution and composed chiefly of non-fermentable sugars. It would be like > adding gum arabic or xanthan gum to your beer. Right - that's an apt analogy. I have some concerns that the xantham gum type body may be distinct, odd and perhaps out-of-place compared to beer protein body & mouthfeel. Much the way that a MacDonald 'milkshake' (and I use the term loosely), fake whipped cream substitutes and many ice creams seem more like a mouthful of dilute rubbery chewing gum than a real proteinaceous product. Perhaps that's just a matter of degree. It's more than worth the experiment IMO. A certain difficulty is this noted in your source ... "Flaxseed contains fixed oil (30-45%); triglycerides of linolenic, linoleic, oleic [...]". Flax is a very high oil content seed and those UFAs are head-killers at well below the 1ppm level. Yeast will gobble up some of the lipids, but you are asking for a lot if you include a significant amount of flax. By comparison barley and wheat and their malts are ~2% lipids. Oats are ~6% lipids and give an interestingly silky smooth mouthfeel (perhaps due to lamanarin and other viscous gums) *but* oats cause foam/heading problems due to oils. At 30% lipids is you can't afford to use much flax. But perhaps you won't need to ... > These gums appear to provide the best foam stability at .05 to .1% (by > weight? volume?) Almost certainly by weight. -S Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2003 14:56:17 -0700 From: "Chad Stevens" <zuvaruvi at cox.net> Subject: Three pounds of Flax Steve writes, > "Flaxseed contains > > fixed oil (30-45%); triglycerides of linolenic, linoleic, oleic [...]". > > Flax is a very high oil content seed and those UFAs are head-killers at well > > below the 1ppm level. Mucilage is the outer coating. What I've done is boiled the whole seeds with adjuncts extracting the coating only, presumably leaving the majority of the oils intact inside the seed. Apparently pure mucilage (for a myriad uses from hair gels to constipation) is extracted by soaking the seeds for up to twelve hours at room temp then putting them in a "crock pot" for several hours. The limited heat/pressure/shear leaves the oil intact in the seed while putting the mucilage into solution. Chad Stevens Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 08 Oct 2003 09:46:30 +1100 From: Grant Family <grants at netspace.net.au> Subject: Low Efficiency=High Flavour? Has anyone noticed how ProMash assumes that colour extraction is static regardless of your efficiency - although if you end up diluting your wort because of extra efficiency, the colour will decrease... Anyway, this got me thinking about what efficiency does/doesn't measure. It's ostensibly a measure of the brewer's success in extracting sugars from grain - but does it also act as a measure of their success in extracting "malty flavours" from grain? I was wondering this because the above "dilution" scenario did happen to me. I was doing my first all-grain batch and had no idea what efficiency I would get. I used ProMash and set my efficiency at 70% (call me a pessimist...). I ended up getting 88%, and so chose to add more water to keep the OG down. What I was wondering was that if my extra efficiency in extracting SUGARS was not accompanied by extra efficiency in extracting FLAVOURS (eg. maltiness), I basically ended up with diluted flavour. What do people reckon? I suppose it comes down to whether or not the bulk of a beer's flavour can be directly attributed to its sugars or not. When looking through the "More Homebrew Favourites" book (with 260 recipes), my quick survey found that many of the award winning recipes in there had quite low expected efficiencies. Is this because people were stopping their sparge runoffs early and getting the "best" of the wort? Or is there some other link between low efficiency and high flavour? Sorry, that one's been brewing (so to speak) in my mind for a while... Thanks Stuart Grant Hobart, Tasmania, Australia. Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2003 16:59:32 -0700 (PDT) From: Leo Vitt <leo_vitt at yahoo.com> Subject: re: Decoction Gone Bad Dave larson described some problems he ran into with a decotion. It has been some time since I did a decoction mash. I'll tell you what I can remember. "The first problem: I heated and stirred but the thing never really came to a solid boil, even after over an hour on full heat on my stove. It bubbled a bit here and there, but I would not call it a boil. I kept adding a little boiling water because it just kept getting drier and drier. After 75 minutes of that, I decided enough was enough and I infused it back into the main mash." I use 1.33 qt/lb for infustions. For Decoctions, my choice has been 1.5 qt/lb. Because the liquid quantity will be reduced by the boiling. There have been frequent questions from the past about what is the think part of the mash. My approach has been to scoop of the majority of the grain with liquid mixed in. When you look at your decoction in its seperate kettle, there is enough liquid to keep all of the grain submerged. I occasionally checked the temp and it was at least 210F. So, I called it boiling. Boil - I have used thin kettles to do decoctions. That forced me to stir constantly (well, nearly constantly) during the boil. When I stir, it doesn't look like it is boiling. If I stop stirring, it does bubble. My typical time to boil a decoction was 15 min. A dark beer (dunkle, bock) would have at most 20 min. O'Fest would fall into the 15 min for me. I have done 5 min for Helles. "That is where the second problem occurred. Instead of jumping up to 160 degrees it went to less than 150, going up 10 degrees instead of 20. I had to add a ton of boiling water to bring up the temp." Quantity in the decoction: I started doing decoctions with 1/3. I never reached the step I wanted when recombining with that amount. I increased the quantity to 40-45% of the mash went into the first decoction. I have not had problems with a stuck sparge when doing decoctions. It was always normal. ===== Leo Vitt Sidney, NE Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2003 21:46:47 -0400 From: Alexandre Enkerli <aenkerli at indiana.edu> Subject: What's on Tap? Nice thread, full of technical advice. How to order beer in Swilltown... All tricks seem to work, at least in some situations. Here in Montreal, the issue takes a slightly different angle. Obviously, the Molson-Labatt oligarchy means that it's sometimes hard to get anything interesting but it also means that wait staff at a macro-selling bar will often say things like "we've got [Labatt, Molson] products," which is short enough. Not to give you the wrong impression as the situation is far from bleak here. The beer-drinking public is increasingly both curious and selective and there's a wide variety of places that do carry micros and imports, sometimes at a premium. Now, could someone explain this? Why is beer from a local microbrewery not considered "domestic?" ;-) Speaking of price, just figured out something. Maybe the major reason restaurants and liquor boards push wine instead of beer is just because of the higher profit margin. Doh! In terms of what to reply to the scarcity of choice, asking for water does seem to have an impact. Especially if it's done in a teasing way. As the joke goes "well, nobody else is having beer..." As for being labeled a snob, that's just between the waitperson and you. As others have said, tips and candid conversations do carry a lot of meaning. Alex, in Montreal [555.1km, 62.8] Apparent Rennerian Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2003 22:11:43 -0500 From: "Patrick Hughes" <pjhinc at eriecoast.com> Subject: pumps I am sorry to hear that Moving Brews is out of business. They were very helpful when I was building my system and much cheaper for the pump. U.S. Plastics also carries the March pumps and a selection of mag drive pumps . Great service easy to work with and they sent a discount coupon for my second purchase. Also go to the March pump web site and go to find a distributor in your area. That is how I found the pump housing to replace the one I broke . That is another subject. Stupid homebrewer trick # 179. Bought a Colder quick disconnect that attaches to the garden hose , and then I attach this to my HERMS plumbing. Use this to flush out system when needed with just plain hot water. I thought this was a pretty slick idea until I shut down the output valve without first turning off the water supply. The polysulfone pump housing burst like a ripe tomato. It was already developing some stress cracks so I had known it was due to be replaced. Just thankful it was during the cleaning stage and not brewing. About $7.00 per housing. I bought 3! Patrick Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2003 19:22:20 -0700 (PDT) From: Kent Fletcher <fletcherhomebrew at yahoo.com> Subject: Re: Asking for craftbrew While living in California certainly has it's downside, I do have to say that I'm lucky in this respect. I live 5 miles from one of the best LHBS to be found (as remarked by many non-local visitors), and less than 2 miles from a BJ's. Not only do they have some great brews of their own, they actually have a separate menu card for bottled Belgians! I give them all the support I can. Kent Fletcher Brewing in So Cal Return to table of contents
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