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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
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Contents:
  How to make a Berliner Weisse... (Grant Family)
  Re: Malty and Dry: The Holy Grail (Grant Family)
  The HBD-Benefit Auction is closed! (Pat Babcock)
  RE: Thermocouples (Jeff Berton)
  A couple of questions... ("Chris Keenan")
  Re: politics of hatred & beer. (Larry Bristol)


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Date: Tue, 09 Dec 2003 21:51:44 +1100
From: Grant Family <grants at netspace.net.au>
Subject: How to make a Berliner Weisse...

G'day,

I'm considering making a Berliner Weisse and I have quite a few
questions:

1) How should I sour it? I'm thinking I could:
 - do a sour mash (long acid rest - not sure if this can drop the pH
enough)
 - use soured wort (a la Papazian, where the wort is produced,
"innoculated" with grains/grain dust and fermented around 30-35C
(86-95F) for "a while". I've also heard of people innoculating with
yogurt cultures...
 - use large amounts of acidulated malt - I have access to this,
luckily, but am unsure about how it would work.
 - ferment (in primary/secondary) with lactobacilli of some kind -
is there a cheap option for sourcing these?
 - use another (perhaps more authentic) method.
What have people tried, and what works?

2) What yeast(s) would be appropriate for the normal
fermentation? Would a phenolic yeast such as Wyeast 3942 be
off the mark?

3) What proportion/type of wheat is usual? The Great John
Palmer suggests 75% wheat (maybe unmalted... I can't
remember? Would that be Reinheitsgebot?), while my trusty
BJCP guide says wheat MALT is usually used, but at levels well
below 50%. Should it be malted wheat? How much should I use?

4) For anyone who's tried a B Weisse, what else should I know?

Thanks
Stuart Grant
Hobart, Tasmania, Australia



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Date: Tue, 09 Dec 2003 19:15:39 +1100
From: Grant Family <grants at netspace.net.au>
Subject: Re: Malty and Dry: The Holy Grail

Hi Dave,

George Fix once did a little research on "maltiness" and linked it with the 
no sparge technique. I tried to emulate this in a dunkelweizen which I've 
only just bottled. The idea in essence (at least as I take it) is to cut 
off the runnings very early. ie. I stopped my dunkelweizen runnings at 
1.033, which seems like a waste, but we'll see. I've been getting an 
efficiency of 88-92% my system, and this early cut-off lowered that to 79%.

Google "yummy malt flavours" to find it cos I can't remember.

And if "malty but dry" and "hophead heaven" are your two most indulged beer 
flavor experiences, I've got three words for you! I, P, A. Okay, so IPAs 
aren't necessarily that dry, but that's only because they scale the heights 
of specific gravity. ie. even if you mash an all pale-malt IPA at 65C 
(149F), the strength of the beer means enough dextrins are produced to make 
it less than dry. So maybe you might try a VERY low temp mash 
(63-4C//145-7F), which, at an OG of 1.060+, would still give you decent 
body. And since the Brits have no Reinheitsgebot, you might as well try an 
IPA with 100% Vienna. You could also use some kind of added amylase enzyme 
to dry it out a bit. Okay, so that's turning two holy grails into 
sacrilegious swill, but maybe your tastebuds won't mind...

See ya later, (metaphorically speaking, unless one of us travels to the 
other side of the world)
Stuart Grant
Hobart, Tasmania, Australia



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Date: Tue, 9 Dec 2003 07:39:08 -0500 (EST)
From: Pat Babcock <pbabcock at hbd.org>
Subject: The HBD-Benefit Auction is closed!

Greetings, Beerlings! Take me to your lager...

Congratulations to rstueven and beercat22 who are the winners of
the e-bay auction for the two sets of Glenn Raudins' Classic
Brewing and Distilling Series. The books netted their
original retail selling price (plus 12 cents, in one case) -
Thanks Glenn! And thanks to our bidders!

- -- 
 -
God bless America!

Pat Babcock in SE Michigan         pbabcock at hbd.org
Home Brew Digest Janitor           janitor at hbd.org
HBD Web Site                       http://hbd.org
The Home Brew Page                 http://hbd.org/pbabcock
[18, 92.1] Rennerian
"I don't want a pickle. I just wanna ride on my motorsickle"
                                   - Arlo Guthrie




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Date: Tue, 9 Dec 2003 10:11:59 -0500 
From: Jeff Berton <jeff344 at galaxy.lerc.nasa.gov>
Subject: RE: Thermocouples 

Todd Snyder writes:
> Thanks for making me laugh this AM, great post!

Too funny!


> However, I'm not paying anyone $20 until they find a _brewery_ (meaning
> commercial) with the three items Jeff listed!

I agree with everyone's comments;  my only point was to prevent people from
thinking that thermocouples are only accurate to +/- a degree Celsius.  They
can be, but they can also be among the most accurate temperature sensors
available.  

I'm not interested in $20, so please don't think I'm fishing for it, but the
"isothermal junction box" I mentioned is little more than an insulated box
for wire connections to minimize thermal gradients, and an "ice reference
unit" can be as simple as a water/ice bath.  The only big-ticket item is a
voltmeter that can resolve a microvolt or less.  And these items are really
only needed if you need to resolve temperatures to the order of a few
hundredths of a degree, otherwise cheaper equipment and shortcuts can be
used.

Do breweries use thermocouples?  I don't know, but I'd be surprised if none
did.  

Regards,
Jeff Berton
North Royalton, OH




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Date: Tue, 9 Dec 2003 10:40:31 -0500
From: "Chris Keenan" <chrisk at flagshipcinemas.com>
Subject: A couple of questions...

Hello all,

I have been reading the posts here for a little over a month, and I figured
it was time to come out and ask a couple of questions that have been on my
mind.  I am new to this, I currently have my third batch brewing in my
basement.  The first batch was a success to some extent as it was finally
able to be tasted this weekend, and I cracked my 1st bottle of what I
believe is a porter.  It was made with the ingredients that came with the
home brewing kit that I bought, and this consisted of dark malt extract, hop
pellets, and a pound of crystal grain.  This spent three days in the primary
fermenter and then 11 days in the glass carboy and finally bottled and aged
two weeks for natural carbonation.  So the 1st question is, is this a
porter?

The second question has to do with the third batch that is sitting in my
basement now in the glass carboy for secondary fermentation (the second
batch of Christmas Ale got infected with a nasty smell and had to be offered
up to my lawn and trees for the smell almost killed some small children).
How long can it sit in the secondary fermenter before it NEEDS to be
bottled?  I cannot bottle it for a couple of days and it may run over a
couple of weeks.

The third and final question is this.  How do people feel about a kegging
system.  I am going back and forth on it.  At one moment I want to get it to
make life easier, but the other half is not sure about spending the money (I
am an accountant by trade).  Can I get some advice here.

Thanks for all of the advice!

Happy Brewing

Chris Keenan
Accounting Manager
Flagship Cinemas, Inc.



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Date: 09 Dec 2003 11:23:11 -0600
From: Larry Bristol <Larry at DoubleLuck.com>
Subject: Re: politics of hatred & beer.

On Mon, 8 Dec 2003 13:10:52 -0500, "-S" <-s at adelphia.net> penned:

> OK - I know I shouldn't bite this troll, but ... 

I managed to resist it.  I was so proud...

> We'd all be better off sharing a beer and a chat with those of opposing
> ideas rather aiming unjust personal insults at them.

It will never happen as long as there are people who already know
everything, and therefore no longer need to be bothered with mere
facts.  What are even worse, however, are those that let someone else
tell them what they must think, apparently because they are incapable of
thinking for themselves.

Everyone has to believe in something.  Right now, I believe I'll have
another beer.

I knew of a man named Renes Descartes.  One night, his bartender asked
Renes if he would care to have another beer before closing time.  "I
think not," said Renes, and promptly vanished.


- ---
Larry Bristol
Bellville, TX
http://www.doubleluck.com




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