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


Contents:
  Yeast starter from homebrew bottle (Len Reed)
  Siphoning without a mouth, liquid yeast (David Schwartz)
  Re: Bottling technique (boubez)
  run-off (HOLTSFOR)
  Head retention (boubez)
  Thanx a lot for the HBD (GOPINATHRTAR)
  Weiss/Weizen beers -- cloudiness of the Bavarien style (Chris Shenton)


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Date: Mon, 11 Jun 90 22:24:22 EDT
From: holos0!lbr at gatech.edu (Len Reed)
Subject: Yeast starter from homebrew bottle

In #436 Bob Techentin (techentin at Mayo.edu) writes:
> The bottles are (supposedly) sanitary, and they should contain nothing 
> but dormant yeast and a little wort.  My intention is to create a 
> starter from one of these bottles shortly before brewing.

Works great.  Dave Miller recommends this in a zymurgy article couple of
yearts ago.  This article also recommends home canning a batch of wort for
use in creating starters.

Here's what I do.  Sterilize a starter jug, air lock assembly, and funnel.
Open the bottle, flame the neck with a lighter, pour the beer into a glass,
leaving the slurry behind.

Swirl the slurry off the bottom of the bottle and pour it into the jug.
Add some wort.  (I use home canned wort.)  Aerate well by swirling the
jug.  A couple of days later your ready to pitch.

The beer you poured into the glass should be carefully checked for off
smells and tastes.  (This means you'll have to drink it, but those are the
sacrifices it takes.)  Any evidence of contamination or yeast autolysis
disqualifies that bottle.

Miller recommends this only for first generation beers.  (The bottle should
have been made from a culture, not from an earlier bottle.)  He also
recommends that the bottle not be more than a few months old.

I think that this method is safer than repitching from a carboy, since
you are dealing with a finished beer whose characteristics are known good.
Repitching from a carboy requires storing the slurry or timing things
right between batches.  It does allow for copious quantities of yeast,
though, a good thing.

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Date: 12 Jun 1990 11:09:48 EDT
From: David Schwartz <DSCHWART at umab.umd.edu>
Subject:  Siphoning without a mouth, liquid yeast


I am pretty new to homebrewing (on my third batch now), and have
really been enjoying this digest.  Very, very informative.
Now I have two questions:

In a recent posting, it was suggested that one use a turkey baster
to get a siphon started, rather than using one's mouth.  Could
someone explain that in more detail?

Another question: can someone suggest a good mail order place to
purchase liquid yeast?  The local shops and the mail order shops
(around Baltimore) I know of do not carry anything but Red Star,
and I'd like to try others.

Thanks.

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Date: Tue, 12 Jun 90 12:50:03 EDT
From: boubez at bass.RUTGERS.EDU
Subject: Re: Bottling technique



Paul Bigelow writes: 

>The weakness in my production line is bottle filling. Has anyone found
>a really good technique or equipment?
>
>I have a spring loaded bottle filler tube that attaches to the end of
>my siphon hose, but it is way too slow (insufficient flow). If I just use
>the siphon hose and clamp it by bending the tube, I get a small flood of
>beer on the floor. The last few inches of the tube below the clamping point
>that go down into the bottle always release their contents when the tube is
>inbetween bottles. The top end of the siphon hose is always guaranteed
>to slither out of the pail part way through the bottling operation,
>in spite of (often unsanitary) attempts to tape the hose down.

Paul, I found that the easiest (and most fun), is to have people help
you do it :-). I use a flexible tube connected to a rigid siphoning tube
with holes at the bottom, to improve flow and eliminate run-off, and a
pinch-clamp.

I put the wort container on the kitchen counter, and have somebody
hold the tube and make sure it stays in the wort, above the sludge.
This same person, hands me an empty bottle, I fill it up (about 3
seconds) and hand it to a third person who caps it and puts it in the
case. It takes very little time and creates no mess. The only potential
problem right now is that I have to start the siphon with my mouth,
but lots of Listerine helps :-) and I haven't had any problems yet.
Good luck.

toufic


Toufic Boubez
boubez at caip.rutgers.edu

- -- We didn't inherit the earth from our ancestors,
   we borrowed it from our descendants.			-- H.D. Thoreau


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Date:     Tue, 12 Jun 90 12:44 EST
From: <HOLTSFOR%MSUKBS.BITNET at CORNELLC.cit.cornell.edu>
Subject:  run-off



> Since you're using the double-bucket lauter tun with 1/8th-inch holes (the
> Papazian recommendation), you shouldn't be concerned about Miller's time
> estimates for run-off.  Miller recommends much smaller holes (1/64" ?)

>>Huh? I was reading Miller last night and recall a suggestion for 1/8" holes
>>on 1/4" centers. Note however that he also recommends double-filtering---
>>putting the first few gallons back through the mash after it has settled
>>into a solid bed, in order to get out more of the fine stuff.


My mistake. It's Noonan who recommends the little bitty holes.

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Date: Tue, 12 Jun 90 12:55:08 EDT
From: boubez at bass.rutgers.edu
Subject: Head retention


Ken Weiss writes:

>Now for the silly question of the week. Anyone got a clue as to why I got beer 
with
>good carbonation, but no head retention at all? It's like, if I pour out the 
beer
>with extra effort to produce splash and head, I get a *really* huge head on 
it, but in
>five minutes, it looks like there's no carbonation at all. There is, though. 
Agitation
>brings up a head again. It's as if the CO2 is there, but is unwilling to come 
out of
>solution at ambient pressure. I don't think it's a detergent residue issue, 
since I
>used to get a nice head on my beer, and I haven't changed any of my routines 
lately.
>Oh well, it still tastes just like beer to me...

Ken
   I know that problem! I've had beer that looked like coke :-), ie lots of 
carbonation
and a good head when you pour it, then nothing. I'm not sure exactly what cured 
it,
but ever since I've started using irish moss and gypsum in my batch, the 
problem
has gone away. I say that I'm not sure what cured it, because this also 
coincided
with my starting to use grain in my brewing, a step up from all-extract. I'd
suggest you try irish moss and gypsum. Good luck.

toufic


Toufic Boubez
boubez at caip.rutgers.edu

- -- We didn't inherit the earth from our ancestors,
   we borrowed it from our descendants.			-- H.D. Thoreau


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Date: Tue, 12 Jun 90 15:24 MST
From: GOPINATHRTAR at CHE.UTAH.EDU
Subject: Thanx a lot for the HBD

Please sign me out of the mailing list as i no longer will be accessing
this account.
Ashok "the taller on of the Brews Brothers" Gopinath

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Date: Tue, 12 Jun 90 19:03:46 EDT
From: Chris Shenton <chris at asylum.gsfc.nasa.gov>
Subject: Weiss/Weizen beers -- cloudiness of the Bavarien style

I just returned from two weeks of drinking my way through Munich (heaven!).
Great beer -- puts my homebrew in it's place, but points to what I should
be doing...

I drank a lot of weizen and dunkelsweizen. *All* were cloudy because of the
yeast-in-suspension. Frequently, when the waitron was pouring the last
dregs into the glass, [s]he swirled up the sludge to get all the yeast.
Clarity is clearly (:-) not an issue for this type of beer.

None of these Bavarian style weizens were tart like the Berliner Weizens
I've had. Not so clovey, either. 

Does the AHA have one or two categories for weiss beers (Bavarian/Berlin)?

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End of HOMEBREW Digest #438, 06/13/90
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