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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
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Contents:
  Skittles (Alexandre Enkerli)
  RE: Aspartame ("James Fitzell")
  sulfites/vitamin c (Dane Mosher)
  Aspartame safety (Fred Johnson)
  lambic photo gallery? ("John Misrahi")
  re: Formaldahyde, Aspertame, heaadaches? (Ben Hanson)
  RE: The Chocolate Stout (Mike Anderson)
  Re: Sealing kegs for fermenting (hollen)
  Got Belgians? (Bill Rogers)
  re: Cold Pitching of Yeast (R.A.)" <rbarrett@ford.com>
  "mashring" design for mashtun ("Mike Eyre")
  Bottling yeast for lambic (susan woodall)
  Build a plate exchanger (Dean)
  Formaldehyde in brewing and malting ("George de Piro")
  Attention: Brewers In Ontario (Tim & Cindy Howe)
  Cocoa Additions to Beer ("Steven P. Bellner")


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Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2003 00:12:21 -0400
From: Alexandre Enkerli <aenkerli at indiana.edu>
Subject: Skittles

Anyone trying these?
http://crazyengineer.net/projects/skittle.php

Mirror here:
http://anthony.is.dreaming.org/skittle-brau.htm

Alex, in Montreal
[555.1km, 62.8] Apparent Rennerian



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Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2003 14:53:00 +1000
From: "James Fitzell" <JFitzell at tecbuild.com.au>
Subject: RE: Aspartame

Hi,

I know everyone's capable of using google, however I thought I'd add
this link for reference.
http://www.holisticmed.com/aspartame/

Aspartame has even been "accused" of causing Gulf War Syndrome since the
big drink manufacturers gave all the soldiers canned diet soft drinks
that were stored at above average temperatures prior to drinking.

Cheers,
James


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Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2003 00:46:30 -0700 (PDT)
From: Dane Mosher <dane_mosher at yahoo.com>
Subject: sulfites/vitamin c

Dave Burley writes:

>Papain is used to reduce cold haze in beer and isn't
a stabilizer in the biological sense.

True.  I should have said it promotes colloid
stability.  I also misspoke previously when I said
breweries used sulfites as a preservative.  They
actually are used as an antioxidant.  The
concentrations aren't high enough for a preservative
effect.  

>I wonder about your assertion that Bud and others use
sulfites in beer. Do you have a reference?  I believe
sulfites in beer is illegal in Britain and has been
for decades. Can't imagine the US didn't follow suit.

I left my Siebel texts with my former employer, so
I'll contact some friends there to hunt down the
reference.

The BATF has a blanket rule for all alcoholic
beverages for labeling sulfites, which I interpret as
meaning it is legally used in beer and spirits in
addition to wine in the U.S.  Anything less than 10ppm
does not need to be labeled.
http://www.atf.gov/pub/alctob_pub/at_news/apr_2002/page2.htm

>There is, of course, no evidence that sulfites cause
headaches.

You're right.  My mistake.  I bought into the popular
myth.  People who are sensitive to sulfites tend to
have allergic reactions (hives, anaphylactic shock,
difficulty breathing).

>Ascorbic acid used to prevent oxidation in a beer
that is under CO2 pressure?

Oxygen makes it into every bottle, can, and keg, no
matter how good the packaging line is.  Regardless of
CO2 presence, oxidation propagates as a chain reaction
via free radicals, and doesn't stop until an
antioxidant quenches it.  The damage speeds up with
increasing temperature.  

I don't which breweries are using ascorbic acid, but
personally this is the one additive I have no problem
with.  I've tried it myself in my homebrew at
bottling.  Whether it helped or not, I don't know, but
it made me feel good.  Who needs orange juice when you
can have beer?  It's unnecessary for homebrewers of
course.  Beer naturally contains many antioxidants
which are sufficient to protect it when handled
carefully, stored properly, and consumed in a
reasonable amount of time.

Dane Mosher
Fort Worth, TX



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Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2003 07:18:11 -0400
From: Fred Johnson <FLJohnson at portbridge.com>
Subject: Aspartame safety

Steven recently posted to the HBD regarding the approval of aspartame. 
He stated that the company seeking approval said, "We spent X-Million 
dollars proving that aspertame is safe for human
consumption."

Steven said
"No mention was made of how much money they spent trying to find any 
negative
effects from it."

It sounds like Steven is skeptical that the company did an adequate job 
looking for negative effects. The studies to prove safety of something 
ARE the studies to show the negative effects. That is what a safety 
studies are designed to do. A safety study is a study in which one 
tallies the negative effects associated with consuming the product. The 
company has undoubtedly spent X million dollars accumulating the 
adverse events associated with the product. The FDA is not staffed by 
fools.

Fred L Johnson
Apex, North Carolina, USA



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Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2003 08:14:21 -0400
From: "John Misrahi" <lmoukhin at sprint.ca>
Subject: lambic photo gallery?

Hi to all you lambic wannabe brewers out there,

I was looking at my fermenting p-lambics the other day (there are 3
different batches).

Anyways, two of them  have an identical looking pellicle..One looks
diferent. Hard to explain, but I am gonna take some photos.

I was wondering if anyone is interested in starting a little photo gallery
to put pictures of things like this, to help uncertain people like me
determine if there is a problem.

One has a thin 'cracked glass' layer (underneath the 'normal' layer of
bubbles) that looks a lot like the first 'horrible infection' photo on Alan
McKay's Bodensatz site..

http://www.bodensatz.com/gallery/view_photo.php?set_albumName=FermentationFo
tos&id=strange_growth

any thoughts?

John Misrahi
Montreal, Canada




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Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2003 08:50:14 -0400
From: Ben Hanson <bhanson at rica.net>
Subject: re: Formaldahyde, Aspertame, heaadaches?

Coincidentally enough, I was just researching food additives yesterday 
for a company newsletter article, and can answer a couple of  the 
formaldehyde questions. 

Fermentation always produces some VERY small quantity of methanol along 
with ethanol.  Did I say very small?  Now, methanol cannot be eliminated 
by the body very well.  It first is broken down into component products 
which the kidneys then get rid of.  One of those byproducts that would 
be disturbing is Formaldehyde.  Presumably, that small amount of 
methanol could react in a bottle under the right circumstances (maybe 
non-iced, trunk stored beer?) and produce very tiny but measurable 
amounts of formaldehyde.  The good news is that the bodily production 
doesn't really ever happen because the 'antidote' to methanol is 
ethanol, which binds to that tiny amount of methanol in yet another 
reaction and is easily and quickly eliminated without bad byproducts 
being produced.  The moral o this story, then, should be to drink FRESH 
beer that hasn't been sitting in your trunk for a long time.  Sounds 
like common sense to drink fresh beer to me anyway.

What should be much more disturbing to know is that fully 10% of the 
composition of aspartame is methanol, which amounts to around 24-30 ml 
per canned soda.  The toxicity threshold for small children is set by 
the FDA at 56 ml, or roughly just 1.5 canned 'diet' sodas.  It's not 
fully decomposed and processed, so this statistic isn't quite as easy to 
quantify as it looks like.  The methanol is made 'active' from the 
warming of the aspartame above 86 deg. F.  Note:  Humans typically run 
around 98-99 deg F.  Until 1996 the FDA didn't approve aspartame for 
anything other than 'cold' or 'dry' uses, but the lobby groups won out 
and now you can make nutrasweet JELLO that starts with heated water, 
thereby making almost all the methanol available to our bodies.  In 
fact, aspartame was NEVER approved by the FDA after eight years of being 
annually reviewed, but the one guy in charge was wined and dined quite 
well, so on year nine, he overruled the committee's recommendation and 
rubber stamped it anyway.  According to a report they released in '94 
(FDA), fully 75% of all U.S. food reaction complaints involve 
aspartame.  As a final irony, nutrasweet is essentially zero calories, 
since the body cannot process it, thus making it useful for 'diet' 
colas, but it is an Appetite Stimulant!  I'm not going to qualify these 
statements with sources;  you are all on the internet and you'll find it 
very easy to come up with them on your own - and probably find my 
numbers vary be a percent or ml from one or another.  There are lots of 
studies.

Last note:  Regarding  Dave Burley's post about other additives.  Check 
out the relatively MASSIVE list the AHA provides for free, of additives 
breweries in the U.S. DO put in their beer despite the fact that it 
seems counterintuitive, that they DON'T have to put on their labeling.



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Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2003 06:24:21 -0700 (PDT)
From: Mike Anderson <miander2 at yahoo.com>
Subject: RE: The Chocolate Stout

"Parker Dutro" <pacman at edwardwadsworth.com>
wrote...
So I am wondering about experiences of anyone here
that has brewed a stout using any form of chocolate.

Recently, I brewed a Chocolate Porter using
unsweetened cocoa powder.  The information I found
prior to brewing suggested that adding chocolate for
the entire boil would impart a strong bitterness.  So
I added it during the last 5 minutes.  At bottling
time, the beer tasted great with only a hint of
chocolate and not any unusually strong bitterness.  I
have also read that letting bottles age will mellow
out any chocolate bitterness.

On a related note, I brewed a clone of Rogue's
Hazelnut Brown Nectar from a recipe in Zymurgy that
calls for 0.75 oz of hazelnut flavoring.  Upon
searching for sources of this flavor, I found
information suggesting that Rogue uses all natural
Flavor-Mate brand flavoring in the secondary or at
bottling.  There are a variety of flavors including
Hazelnut and Dutch Chocolate available in 1.25 oz
bottles from wildroots.com (NAYY).  This may be what
Rogue also uses in their Chocolate Stout.  I plan on
trying it soon.

Good luck with the stout!

Mike A.




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Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2003 10:29:10 -0400 (EDT)
From: hollen at woodsprite.com
Subject: Re: Sealing kegs for fermenting

Mike said:

> How do those of you who ferment in corny's get them to seal?  I have
> found that it is hit or miss whether I get any bubbling out my airlock
> or whether the CO2 from fermentation just leaks out through the unseated
> poppets or lid...

I have fermented over 60 batches in kegs (all but my very first batch) and
I never have this problem any more.  The secret is to fix your leaking
kegs.  Replace the poppets and keep them lubricated with silicone.
Replace the lid O-ring with one from Williams Brewing that is fatter and
softer.  Gently use a soft stick and a wooden mallet and tap out any dings
in the lid seat of the keg.  Always keep the lid O-ring lubricated with
silicone.

If, after all this, a particular keg will not hold a *small* amount of
pressure, don't use it for a fermenter.

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: Thu, 16 Oct 2003 08:06:18 -0700 (PDT)
From: Bill Rogers <bill6beers at yahoo.com>
Subject: Got Belgians?

Franco-Belgian Challenge Cup
French- and Belgian-style ales (Categories 18, 19, 20)
Entries Due: October 28, 2003
Judging: November 1, 2003

Got Belgians?  Sure you do!

I am pleased to announce that the Madison Homebrewers and Tasters Guild 
will host the Franco-Belgian Challenge Cup homebrew competition on 
November 1st (10am; be there by 9am) at the Great Dane Pub and Brewery 
in Fitchburg, WI.  Entry fees are $5 for the first entry, $3 for each 
additional entry.  This is an open, sanctioned competition and will use 
the standard BJCP/AHA style guidelines judging only FRENCH- and 
BELGIAN-STYLE beers.  Entries should be shipped for receipt by 
October 28th to:

   The Wine & Hop Shop
   1931 Monroe St, Madison, WI 53711
   (608) 257-0099
   
Two brown or green bottles with no markings are required.  
Any standard entry forms identifying the brewer and the appropriate 
entry category/subcategory are acceptable.  Judges and Stewards will 
be needed and they should contact me to secure a position.  Judges and 
Stewards can hand carry their entries if they pre-register with payment.
Checks should be made out to "MHTG".  More information will be available
at the Madison Homebrewers and Tasters Guild web site http://mhtg.org.

Bill Rogers
Competition Organizer
bill6beers at yahoo.com




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Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2003 11:34:02 -0400
From: "Barrett, Bob (R.A.)" <rbarrett at ford.com>
Subject: re: Cold Pitching of Yeast

A few days ago John Palmer asked about cold pitching of yeast:
 
>I was participating in the Chat group at Homebrew Adventures on Sunday 
>night and one of the guys asked about the practice of pitching yeast 
>that had been stored cold to the (fermentation temp) wort, saying that 
>he had heard that it performed well or showed (an improvement).......
>Anyone else heard of this or have some references?
 
Back on August 28, 2003 in HBD #4334 Dr. Clayton Cone posted a 
response to a series of questions by Mike Sapolski.  One of Mike's 
questions was about cold pitching of yeast.  Dr. Cone did not have
any studies to back up his comments, but guessed it centered around
the Trehalose content in the yeast cell.
 
Dr. Cone wrote:
"Trehalose seems to be an all around stress related factor. Almost
immediately upon the cold storage of the yeast, trehalose begins to build up
to help the yeast to adapt to its new environment.  Upon pitching this
stress factor assists the yeast to adapt to its new environment; warmer
temperature and higher osmotic pressure.   If the pitching yeast is allowed
to warm up for any appreciable time before pitching the carbohydrate
reserve, trehalose being one of them will be quickly used up as an energy
source.  The yeast would then take a longer time adapting to its new
environment in the wort thus increasing the lag phase.
   Something similar happens when using Active Dry Yeast.  The factory
builds into each yeast cell an abundance of the stress factor; trehalose. Our
recommendations is to rehydrate the yeast in warm water and pitch into the
wort (or must) within 30 minutes, because the yeast will begin to metabolize
its carbohydrate reserve including trehalose immediately upon reactivation
and weaken the yeast if it is not in the presence of a new supply of energy.
It will have also used up the stress factor that would have assisted it in
adapting to the new osmotic environment.
I am sure that there is more to the explanation than I have given."
 
Sounds logical to me.

We Make the Beer We Drink
Bob Barrett
Ann Arbor, MI
(2.8, 103.6) Rennerian
Saw Jeff last week at the AABG meeting.  He looks marvelous!!!!!




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Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2003 12:07:34 -0400
From: "Mike Eyre" <meyre at sbcglobal.net>
Subject: "mashring" design for mashtun

Hello all!

I just finished my new 3 tier gravity brewery and ran 'er on the maiden
voyage witgh good success. Not perfect, but the learning curve was good,
and I've got most of it's nuances worked out now I think. Just wanted to
pass along that I went with a "mashring" setup for the mashtun in a
converted keg, and that it worked very very well. If anyone is working
on a converted keg setup and it lookin' for a way to do the mashing
thing, I simply took a length of soft copper pipe and bent it into a
circle approx 6"--8" in diameter, hooked the ends together with a
T-fitting and ran the end out a coupling to the ball valve in the side
of the keg. The circular part of the mashring had a lot of small holes
drilled in it, and everything went smooth with a *very* clear wort after
a couple of pints were recirculated through. I have been doing full
boils in my one converted keg for a few brews before this utilizing a
copper ChoreBoy on the end of a single tube, and that worked well
enough.. But after this mashing experiment, I'll be working up a 10" or
so diameter "boilring" for the boil kettle to separate out the hops,
because it's so nice to work with. Anyone need any pics of the finished
thing, just give me a shout.

Mike




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Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2003 09:30:14 -0700
From: susan woodall <woodsusa at moscow.com>
Subject: Bottling yeast for lambic




I've had similar results with this method as Chad

dave w.






Chad Stevens asks "So how do y'all bottle your lambics?  Kraeusen at bottling?"

I've bottled two lambics. Each time I simply primed with sugar like a normal
beer. No added yeast. Even though both beers spent over 18 months in the 
fermenter they carbonated eventually, although they did take a little longer
than usual.

John Landreman
Colorado Springs, CO




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Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2003 10:33:27 -0700
From: Dean <dean at deanandadie.net>
Subject: Build a plate exchanger

Has anyone built a plate exchanger?  I am looking for principles and plans
(and something to do).

- --Dean - Unscrambler of eggs
- --
Take your time, take your chances
[2045.2, 273.7] Apparent Rennerian
- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
It matters not how strait the gate / How charged with punishment the scroll
I am the master of my fate / I am the captain of my soul.    -- Invictus --
                                                     -- William E Henley --


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Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2003 17:18:56 -0400
From: "George de Piro" <george at evansale.com>
Subject: Formaldehyde in brewing and malting

Hi all,

A couple of people have recently pondered the use of formaldehyde in beer
production, wondering if this is just a myth.

Formaldehyde was (is?) indeed used in both malting and brewing to reduce
haze potential in beer.  Adding formaldehyde to the steep water during
malting was thought to reduce the anthocyanogens while adding it to the mash
tun was thought to also reduce tannins by crosslinking them to proteins.

By reducing proteins and tannins, one reduces haze potential.  The above
info can be confirmed in Malting and Brewing Science, pp. 828-29.  I seem to
recall from my college bio that formaldehyde cross-links proteins, too, but
cannot recall the exact chemistry.

Formaldehyde use would not be Reinheitsgebot, and therefore not be found in
German maltings or breweries.  I wonder if any breweries are still using it?
A good reason to make your own!

Have fun!

George de Piro
Head Brewer
C.H. Evans Brewing Company
at the Albany Pump Station
Brewers of Kick-Ass Brown:  Two time GABF Gold Medal Winner!
(518)447-9000
www.EvansAle.com




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Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2003 21:34:36 -0400
From: Tim & Cindy Howe <howe at execulink.com>
Subject: Attention: Brewers In Ontario

Gilbertson & Page in Fergus, Ontario now retails malt to the home brewer. 
Available brands include Cargil, Dingemans, Thomas Fawcette & Sons, and 
Weyermann, as well as their own products which are malted on site. The malt 
is only sold by the 25kg sack, and there is no minimum number of sacks 
required per order. At the present time, they only offer "pick-up" service 
(no deliveries). I'm also told that they are working on a web-site, which 
they hope to have up and running by the end of the year.

Some sample prices (subject to change, in Canadian dollars): Dingemans Pale 
Wheat Malt $25, Thomas Fawcette & Sons Marris Otter $35, Weyermann Munich 
$41 and their own 2-row $23.50.

For further information, their phone number is (519) 843-1660 (I can e-mail 
a product/price list to anyone that's interested)

No affiliation, financial interest etc.

Thanks to Rick Duyck for originally sending me this information.

Cheers,

Tim Howe
London, Ontario



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Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2003 22:00:43 -0400
From: "Steven P. Bellner" <sbellner at chartertn.net>
Subject: Cocoa Additions to Beer

Hello All,
I am going to try an experimental beer that is a chocolate porter.  I would
like to add Hershey's baking cocoa into the mix to give the beer a
full-bodied, chocolaty flavor.  Here is the base grain bill fro a 5-gallon
batch:

Pale Malt - 8.5 lb.
Munich Malt - 1.0 lb.
Chocolate Malt - 1.0 lb.
CaraMunich 80 - 0.5 lb.
Crystal 80L - 0.5 lb.
Cara-Pils - 0.5 lb.
The recipe calls for 38.6 IBU EKGoldings at 60 min.

I have brewed this base recipe, and it is quite good.  Now I would like to
modify it by adding the cocoa.  My questions are: 1) How much cocoa should I
use for a nice balanced chocolate flavor?  2) When should the cocoa be
introduced into the boil?  3) With the additional chocolate flavor, should I
consider cutting back on my darker malts in the grain bill, or simply leave
them alone?  This grain bill produces around 33 SRM, and 1.054 OG. at my
brewhouse efficiency of 76%.  Single-step infusin mash at 155F for 90
minutes.

Another question I have been pondering (but not necessarily germain to this
batch) has to do with sparge water acidification.  Our tap water pH is
around 8.6.  I don't seem to have too much trouble with dark ales, but my
German lagers have been somewhat astringent.  Should I acidize my mash and
sparge water to around 5.4?  If so, is mineral acid (e.g. phosphoric) better
than lactic?  I have read several articles on this, and depending on who you
believe, either one is much better than the other one.  I am leaning towards
phosphoric, as the residual phophate ion is a good yeast supplement.  The
lactic has been known to cause off flavors if used in excess, but unless
total alkalinity is sky-high, I don't see the need for a tremendous amount
of acid supplimentation.  Thanks for the advice in advance.  Brew day T-36
hours and counting.

Steven P.  Bellner
sbellner at chartertn.net




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---