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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
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Contents:
  Cold Pitching (Lee) (darrell.leavitt)
  Way to go, Spencer (Ken Schramm)
  Immersion Chiller Efficiency ("Pete Calinski")
  Yoicks .. is this the FDA FORUM ? ("-S")
  First Annual Hogtown Brew-Off Results ("Mark Tumarkin")


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Date: Sat, 18 Oct 2003 06:40:19 -0400
From: darrell.leavitt at plattsburgh.edu
Subject: Cold Pitching (Lee)


Lee;
  I have read and heard here that yeast can experience "osmotic shock" if 
you use wort...unless, I guess that it is real low in gravity.  I have 
read and heard that it is best to use sterile and warm water to let them 
build their cell walls first, before exposing them to the more dense 
wort...

 Happy Brewing!

 ..Darrell



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Date: Sat, 18 Oct 2003 08:25:44 -0400
From: Ken Schramm <schramk at mail.resa.net>
Subject: Way to go, Spencer

Thanks Spencer.  I am always glad to see someone steps up and take some
of the burden off of a long standing volunteer, not that you haven't put
in more than a few hours on Michigan State Fair and many other tasks.  I
know Pat's hands are full to overflowing, and I'm thankful that you are
able to help him out.

Ken Schramm


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Date: Sat, 18 Oct 2003 09:25:35 -0400
From: "Pete Calinski" <pjcalinski at adelphia.net>
Subject: Immersion Chiller Efficiency

While chilling a batch yesterday, I did a little experiment that pointed out
how important it is to keep an immersion chiller moving while chilling.

In order to occupy my mind and keep it from turning into a complete
vegetable, I was feeling the temperature of the water exiting from the
chiller.  I noticed it was quite cool.  I moved the chiller up and down a
few times and the water warmed up considerably.  Then, it quickly returned
to being cool.  By quickly I mean in 10 seconds or less.

In more detail, the wort was at about 100F at this time.  I have no idea
what the flow rate was or what the temperature of the tap water was but,
consider them to be "normal".  If I moved the chiller up and down about 10
times, gently to avoid HSA, the exit water would feel warm to the touch.  As
I said above, in 10 seconds or less, it would feel quite cool again.  Move
the chiller, warm again, wait 10 seconds, cool again.  I must have done this
20 times or more.

To me it means the chiller should be moving almost constantly.  Anybody ever
experience this or tried continuous movement?



Pete Calinski
East Amherst NY
Near Buffalo NY

http://hbd.org/pcalinsk


***********************************************************
*My goal:
*      Go through life and never drink the same beer twice.
*     (As long as it doesn't mean I have to skip a beer.)
***********************************************************



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Date: Sat, 18 Oct 2003 23:25:31 -0400
From: "-S" <-s at adelphia.net>
Subject: Yoicks .. is this the FDA FORUM ?

I'd prefer that "food additive week" on HBD was
over but....

Pete Calinski (?) stopped a bit too early.

The metabolic sequence is
methanol ->
   formaldehyde ->
      formic acid ->  [not very nice either]
         formate ->
             CO2 & water
 ...
Pete asks about the level of methanol in beer.

I don't know the specific amounts in beer, but it's low.  Methanol is
produced when pectins (not amylopectin) is degraded.   Fruits high in pectin
produce relatively great amounts of methanol while grains like barley have
very little in the way of methyl groups subject to this degradation.  A tiny
bit is from  cellulose.  The FDA permits something like 100ppm of methanol
in wine, and 3500ppm in brandies.  For beer it's at least one and probably 2
orders of magnitude less than wine.  BTW fruit juice can produce several
times the amt of methanol as an aspartame sweetened drink.

Chinese beers have recently been accused of adding methanol !
http://taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2003/07/21/2003060266
<<Tsingtao has not added methanol to its beer for many decades," said Peter
Tsai [...], deputy general manager of the company>>.   Mr.Tsai has a rather
dismal future as a PR agent I think.

====

Ben Hanson deserves an award for the highest concentration of fallacies
added
to an urban
legend in 2003.   Too many errors to recount but the list begins ....

>[methanol]  is broken down into component products
>.  ... Formaldehyde.

No breakdown - simple oxidation.

>methanol could react in a bottle under the right circumstances (maybe
>non-iced, trunk stored beer?) and produce (...) formaldehyde.

Not unless your trunk is around 1400 Fahrenheit !!

> the 'antidote' to methanol is  ethanol, which binds to
>that tiny amount of methanol in yet another
>reaction and is easily and quickly eliminated ...

Ethanol is not an antidote for methanol poisoning, tho' it's a treatment.
Ethanol does NOT bind to methanol.  Methanol during ethanol treatment is NOT
"easily and quickly eliminated".  The ethanol treatment for methanol
ingestion is only effective with *very* high doses of ethanol;  > 0.1% blood
level.  A few beers has little impact on methanol poisoning..

Ethanol treatment for methanol poisoning 'jams' the liver enzyme, alcohol
dehydrogenase with so much ethanol that methanol substrate isconverted to
formaldehyde more slowly and so partly excreted.  Dialysis may still be
required.

 >The moral o this story, then, should be to drink FRESH
>beer

FRESH, OLD - makes no difference re methanol.

>methanol, which amounts to around 24-30 ml
>per canned soda.

That's 3 orders of magnitude too high !

>The toxicity threshold for small children is set by
>the FDA at 56 ml, ... 1.5 drinks.

The FDA sets no toxicity thesholds.  The EPA and OSHA limits
would be set as mg/KG of body weight.  I've read abstracts i.w.
50mg/kg of aspartame was given to children (roughly 1gm or the
amount ion a case of pop).  Far from toxic levels.

>As a final irony, nutrasweet is (...) an Appetite Stimulant!

Just the opposite, Aspartame is an appetite *depressant*.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?
cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12782208&dopt=Abstract

Hats off to you Ben, I didn't think so many errors could fit in
4kbytes.  Your keen grasp of the erroneous is impressive.

===

I'm no fan of aspartame, but it's not the great-satan as the
know-nothing crowd often suggests.  Now let's review the
known carcinogens in crystal and munich malt (really) !


 -S






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Date: Sun, 19 Oct 2003 22:14:54 -0400
From: "Mark Tumarkin" <mark_t at ix.netcom.com>
Subject: First Annual Hogtown Brew-Off Results

Results for the First Annual Hogtown Brew-Off can be seen on our website
(pictures coming soon) -
http://www.hogtownbrewers.org/Brewoff.html

We had a great time, everything went smoothly for a first time event ....
well, not really everything, but the glitches were all small & everything
important went smoothly. We want to thank everyone who helped out, including
our many sponsors and especially the entrants & judges from out of town. We
had 160 entries, some from as far away as California (including a winning
entry from QUAFF.... those guys Rock!). We also had some great judges. Jim
Snow, a national judge, came all the way from Belgium to help out. Our judge
panels included nine national judges & one master judge. So hopefully the
entrants are happy with the judging feedback.

The Hogtown Brewers had a terrific time, and we plan on making this an annual
event. So mark it on your calendars for next year. Plan on sending in your
entries, and hopefully more of you will be able to join us for the fun.

Mark Tumarkin
Hogtown Brewers
Gainesville, FL




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