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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
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Contents:
  Carpet cleaning and real homebrewers (Michael)
  old yeast ("Patrick Hughes")
  Re: Distilled Beverage Digest (Jeff Renner)
  brown malt ("Andy and Tina Bailey")
  apologies ... (Alan McKay)
  re: Helm's test/Petite Mutants ("-S")
  need advice on fruit beer (Dane Mosher)
  Back to Basic Grain Mills (mbauer)


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Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2003 00:29:55 -0500
From: Michael <grice at binc.net>
Subject: Carpet cleaning and real homebrewers

Michael O'Donnell" wrote:

>Hey, someone should have mentioned that as a solution.  When I spill a
>lot of beer on the carpet, I usually just sell the place and find one
>with clean carpets :)

Now, if you were a *real* homebrewer, you'd build a new house with clean
carpets.

Michael
Middleton WI


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Date: Fri, 24 Oct 2003 23:35:20 -0500
From: "Patrick Hughes" <pjhinc at eriecoast.com>
Subject: old yeast

Two people wrote in about using old yeast. Recently my LHBS offered me a
free pack of yeast that had it's inner seal ruptured and was already
expanded. Since I was planning on brewing right away and already had a
healthy starter of known good yeast going, I decided to split the 10 gal.
batch and pitch the old yeast and the new. The ruptured pack was dated 1/03.
Had no idea how long it had been ruptured and expanded. Brew date was Aug.
03.  Made a starter with the old yeast, which was slow to take off. Tasted
both starters before pitching , healthy yeast tasted great, old yeast tasted
off. I almost changed my mind at that point. But pitched it anyway. Using
hindsight I would now have only pitched it into a 1 gallon fermenter and not
gambled with 5 gal. of good wort with  questionable yeast.
I  now have a firm grasp on what autolyzed yeast smells like . Sulphur,
brothy, chemical somewhat, dirty diapers, all that - but not burning rubber.
The batch with the healthy yeast turned out great. It actually is much
better then average. The beer is an amber ale with a little added dark
character malts. It is complex, the bitterness is appropriate, everything is
well ballanced, it's a great beer, you can enjoy many different flavors and
aromas.
The stale yeast beer,  after watching it and tasting it as it went thru a
bunch of different off flavor changes, turned out somewhat average,
ordinary, and boring. It wan't completely terrible like I thought it would
be from the smell of it fermenting. But all the great flavor combinations
were lost. The bitterness was raw tasting, the malt had no aroma, the flavor
hops were completely lost. It tasted like a lot of other below average beers
I have tasted over the years that I didn't know what was wrong with.
In all it was a worthwhile test and I learned a lot about identifying
flavors and problems associated with old and autolyzed yeast. From now on
for me if it is not a known fresh and healthy yeast it will be pitched only
in the trash can.
With all this talk lately about what goes into the research and development
of Lallemands dried yeast line, I am anxious to give dried yeast a try
again.
Patrick Hughes
Litchfield, OH





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Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2003 10:58:38 -0400
From: Jeff Renner <jeffrenner at comcast.net>
Subject: Re: Distilled Beverage Digest

I wrote:

>If you see your address here and want to
>resubscribe, send the word "usubscribe", without the quotes, to
>dbd-request at hbd.org.

Doh!  [Forehead slap]  Of course, I meant to send the word 
"subscribe."  You probably knew that.  That's what comes from cutting 
and pasting.

Jeff
- -- 
Jeff Renner in Ann Arbor, Michigan USA, JeffRenner at comcast.net
"One never knows, do one?"  Fats Waller, American Musician, 1904-1943


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Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2003 09:01:10 -0700
From: "Andy and Tina Bailey" <atmlobailey at cox.net>
Subject: brown malt

I am considering brewing a porter with a substantial portion of the grist
being brown malt-something along the line of 5# pale, 5# brown, and 1/2#
darker crystal (5 gal).

I prefer robust to brown porters, and really enjoy anchor porter. I am not
interested in cloning anchor, just getting a nice robust flavor. Will the
above grain bill give me that robust flavor I am looking for, or should I
add 1/4-1/2# chocolate as well.

Also, I would appreciate anyone's opinion on the flavor quality of brown
malt in porter. Is economics the only reason that brown malt usage fell off
when roasted malts came along, or are their quality of flavor differences
too?

Thanks,

Andy Bailey
Las Vegas



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Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2003 16:27:08 -0400
From: Alan McKay <amckay at neap.net>
Subject: apologies ... 

Folks,

It seems some folks were offending by my use of an alternate
word for "pee".  My sincerest apologies.  When you and most of
the people you know use a word day-to-day matter-of-factly you 
tend not to remember that perhaps others do not.

But the stuff works!  I just checked my bottle and it seems
to be a PetSmart name brand called "Petzyme".  I've gotten
out all sorts of stains with it, including beer (to keep it
on topic)

cheers,
 -Alan

- -- 
http://www.bodensatz.com/
TCP/IP: telecommunication protocol for imbibing pilsners
        (Man-page of Unix-to-Unix beer protocol on Debian/GNU Linux)


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Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2003 18:02:57 -0400
From: "-S" <-s at adelphia.net>
Subject: re: Helm's test/Petite Mutants

The always curious Fred Johnson asks,

>1. Can someone provide the details of the Helm's method for measuring
>flocculation?

"Brewing Yeast & Fermentation" by Boulton & Quain (a great book btw)
describe the Helms sedimentation test as an extension of the Burns test.

The Burns test simply washes yeast then resuspends at 5% w/v in an acetate
buffer at pH 4.6.  After standing ten minutes that sedimentation power(or
clumping power) , is measured by collecting and measuring the sediment vs
the whole added.

Helms test is noted as "perhaps the most popular" has been recommended by
the IoB and the ASBC.  This test recovers the test cells by centrifugation,
washes in 250mMolar EDTA (nasty stuff btw), resuspends in 250mM sodium
chloride, pH 4.5 and 10^8 cell/ml w/ 4mM of calcium added (no detail on the
form of calcium).  The test volume is 25ml in a measuring cylinder.   This
is mixed/agitated by 18 inversions of the cylinder.  A 7 minute settling
time ensues.  A sample of 0.2ml to 1ml are removed from the top liquid and
the suspended cells are dispersed in a sodium chloride (250mM) solution.
Results are reported as spectrophotometer absorbance at 620nm ( OD620 ).

Burns test is published in [JIB,v47,pp10-14, 1941 J.A.Burns]
Helms in ['Wallerstein Laboratory Comm.',v16,pp315-326,E.Helm et al, 1953]
A more intense 4 hour variation called the "Stafford Test" is
at[JIB,v103,93-98, Soares&Mota,1997]

A very recent method under discussion is using 'bead technology'.
hydrophobic 1-2um polystyrene coated latex beads, or else biotin attracting
'dynabeads' ~3um   attracts hydrophobic non-flocculent cells.

>2. Anyone have an understanding of "temperature shock" and the formation of
>petite mutants? I'd like some in-depth information on this if it's
available.

I have nothing in depth.   There is a note in BY&F that some yeast strains
had high rates of petite mutants after freeze drying.  That it's not the
same as cold shock and I wouldn't jump to the assumption that this applies
to fridge storage or nitrogen freezing. The source is
[JASBC,v39,pp19-24,1981, Russel & Stewart].  A later paper
[Appl.&Env.Microbio,v62,pp4514-4520,1996 Barres Lopes, et al] demonstrates
that
freeze drying causes chromosomal breaks in yeast and this is a satisfying
explanation.

Despite what I(and many others) used to think about the matter, yeast truly
mutate at a very high rate .. it's not just expression differences.  Yeast
have numerous points of genetic instability and it's not surprising that
chromosomal breaks from freeze drying or chemical mutagens will often
trigger the same sort of mutation which is common in the fermenter (petite
mutants for example).     Petite mutants(PM) is a very well known phenomena
which spontaneously occurs in about 0.5-1% of cells and has been traced to
mutation in mitochondrial DNA.  High rates of PM causes increased levels of
diacetyl and fusels and decreases levels of ethyl acetate, sluggish growth
and changes flocculation.  PM cells have lower ethanol tolerance and lower
levels of certain sterols and fatty acids.  Oddly high ethanol levels and
lipid-deficiency stress can cause higher PM levels to appear.  More ethanol
tolerant strains generally have lower rates of petite mutation !

There are characteristic differences in the prevalence and conditions for PM
between lager yeast and ale yeast.  Lager yeast inherited their
mitochondrial DNA exclusively from it's S.bayanus (mother), rather than it's
S.cerevisiae ancestry so the differences are unsurprising.

Other common mutations which are thought to correspond with specific genetic
instability are decreased flocculence in ale yeasts, increased flocculence
in lager yeasts, decreased ability to ferment maltotriose in both and
changes in the ability to respire on specific oxidative carbon sources.

When I read "cold shock"  I assume we mean the problem of taking warm
fermenting yeast and reducing their temperature and instead of getting
reduced fermentation, we get the near cessation of growth and maybe
flocculation.   There are some notes in "The Yeasts"( ed. Rose, v2 I think)
which indicate the cold tolerance is improved with higher UFA levels and
that yeast grown at warmer temps have lower UFA levels.  I think that
explains cold-intolerance.

[[This is the reason I think pitching yeast into wort above fermentation
temp is *STUPID*.    Pitching yeast into warm wort gives the brewer
warm-fuzzies because the bubbler starts up faster.  The problem is that
yeast grown this way are lean, lipid deficient, and this predisposes them to
cold shock, poor ethanol tolerance, and limited total growth potential(iow
stuck fermentation potential).   There are probably advantages to pitching
yeast into wort BELOW fermentation temp and then allowing this to warm to
fermentation temp]].

It wouldn't be surprising to find that low-UFA cell membranes from warm
grown yeast become less flexible and the permeability properties are
inadequate under cold conditions.  Perhaps this stress cause higher rates of
PM - it's not implausible but I have no source for PM under cold shock

 -S




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Date: Sun, 26 Oct 2003 02:57:32 -0800 (PST)
From: Dane Mosher <dane_mosher at yahoo.com>
Subject: need advice on fruit beer

Howdy all,

It's in the early planning stages, but it looks like I
am going to get married this coming June.  I plan on
making many many beers for the event, one of which
will be a fruit beer for my sweetheart.

I'd like to make one with some character if possible. 
I wouldn't think kriek or framboise lambic is possible
in 7 months.  Is there something else that anyone can
recommend that could be finished in time?  I'd prefer
something on the tart side.

I've been eyeing Wyeast 3763, which looks like it
might be the Rodenbach (Belgian sour red) culture
blend.  I used to love Alexander Rodenbach, made with
cherries, before they stopped making it.  Any opinion
as to whether I could get something decent using this
blend under the deadline?

Thanks in advance,

Dane Mosher
Fort Worth, TX



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Date: Sun, 26 Oct 2003 13:40:57 -0500
From: mbauer at iupui.edu
Subject: Back to Basic Grain Mills

For the collective;
1) Does anyone have experience with the Back to Basic grain mill?  It looks 
like it is designed to make flour not crush grain.
2) Does anyone have any tricks/hints to keep hops from browning excessively 
while drying?  The ones on the screen seem to be maintaining their color better 
than the ones in the dehydrator.
3) The post from -S regarding the metric/English system hits the issue right on 
the head.  As a libertarian/physicist I rarely hear statements so true to my 
heart.  To think that there are people out there who actually believe that it 
somehow puts us out of touch with the rest of the world if we consume our beer 
in pints rather that half-liters when both are random units of measure (the 
everyone else is doing it argument).  It's strange how these same hand-wringers 
that seem to think we should be clones of the sophisticated Europeans when it 
comes to metrics, socialized health care, gas taxes, etc. tend to run like hell 
from other "sophisticated" European practices such as ubiquitous smoking, no 
drinking age, unlimited speed autobahns, and European style "public" schools 
among others.  I guess that we it just doesn't matter that we are out of step 
with the rest of the world on these topics.
Brew On!
Mark Bauer
Indianapolis


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