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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
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Contents:
  Server Troubles? (Pat Babcock)
  Coconut Cup (Scott Graham)
  Re: Invert Sugar and Wollondilly Fauna (Wes Smith)
  Coffee and Beer: Roasting and Brewing (Alexandre Enkerli)
  Really old beer or The Sanitation Test (Pat Babcock)
  Bottling Beer ("Jim Dunlap")
  Re: creating clear canned wort ("Rob Dewhirst")
  On bulk aging v bottle aging ("Raj B. Apte")
  Anchor Old Foghorn Clone ("David Craft")


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Date: Wed, 7 Jan 2004 17:49:47 -0500 (EST)
From: Pat Babcock <pbabcock at hbd.org>
Subject: Server Troubles?

Greetings Beerlings! Take me to your Linux Faith Healer...

Woe unto the HBD world! WOE! The server mysteriously stopped
accepting articles for publication some time last night. Upon
arriving home (I'm now a model employee and I won't log in to
the server from work...), I received a query from Alexandre
asking if something was wrong with the beloved server as he had
posted, but received no acknowledgment, and the queue was
mysteriously empty of posts! Sooth, says I!

An immediate investigation showed multiple zero-length pre-post
files where there should have been none, and no posts in the
incoming basket! Aah! Eeek!

Well, it took a laying on of the hands of about fifteen minutes,
but the issue is now fixed, and the HBD should once again
graciously process your submission. My sincere apologies to
anyone who tried to post yesterday and were "dissed" by the
server. To those who tried to post and never noticed that they
received no acknowledgment ('specially all you goils and
fellers who have munged up your addresses so that the automation
can't reply to you...): you must repost as you material was,
regrettably, lost.


- -- 
 -
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: Wed, 7 Jan 2004 20:36:27 -0500 (EST)
From: Scott Graham <grahams at cs.fiu.edu>
Subject: Coconut Cup

Greetings from the members of the Miami Area Society of Homebrewers (MASH)
in Miami, FL.

It is almost time for this year's (and 7th annual) Coconut Cup homebrew
competition. We are accepting all BJCP categories, as well as our special
COCONUT BREW category.

Entries of TWO bottles are due by January 31st. Please use the on-line
entry form available at the Coconut Cup website,
http://hbd.org/mash/coconut.html .

This year's Coconut Cup is being sponsored by Briess, Ecologic, Gordon
Biersch, Left Hand/Tabernash, New Belgian, North Coast, Northwestern,
Puterbaugh Farms/Hops Direct, Rogue, Sierra Nevada, and the Titanic
Brewing Company; others are still pending. There will be more prizes and
raffles than in past years, so please enter early and enter often.

Judging will be held on February 7th, 2004 at the Titanic Brewing Company
in Coral Gables, FL. Please contact me if you are interested and willing
to judge.

We would like to invite our out-of-town guests to join the members of
MASH in partaking of the events of Fab Fest (http://www.fabfest.com),
which will be held on Miami Beach the same weekend as the Coconut Cup.
On Friday, February 6th, Fab Fest will be holding a beer pairing dinner
hosted by Garrett Oliver of the Brooklyn Brewery. Saturday and Sunday, Fab
Fest will hold a beer, wine, and food festival on Miami Beach. If you
are planning to come down, please let me know which events you'd like to
attend. Once we have a head count, we will attempt to arrange discounted
tickets and transportation to these events.

I hope to see you (or at least your beers/meads/ciders) in Miami!

Scott Graham
Coconut Cup Judge Coordinator
MASH Librarian








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Date: Thu, 08 Jan 2004 13:29:01 +1100
From: Wes Smith <wsmith at rslcom.net.au>
Subject: Re: Invert Sugar and Wollondilly Fauna

Just to add a little to Greg Lehey's excellent post on invert sugars, my 
understanding is that using the citric acid method, you will achieve around 
65% inversion - ie there will be 35% sucrose left in the solution. Some of 
the other forms of invert sugar are of a similar inversion % like Golden 
Syrup (light Treacle) at 60 to 70%. To get a higher level of inversion 
requires some form of proprietary process. I have used for some years now a 
product from the baking and confectionery industry. Sold in Australia as 
Trimoline, the one I have is made by Erstein in France and is 95% invert 
sugar (5% sucrose), with a pH of 5.5. Jeff Renner may care to comment on 
Trimoline use in the US.

Invert sugars have a couple of endearing features; they taste very sweet 
due to the split into fructose and glucose and they NEVER crystallise. 
Trimoline looks like an unclarified honey with an opalescent colour and 
always remains a very thick liquid. Actually honey is also invert sugar, 
but once again the level of inversion varies as witnessed by the odd jar 
that will partially crystallise on extended storage. Invert sugars are used 
extensively in the confectionary trade as an "interfering agent" to stop 
crystallisation occurring in things like soft toffee and icing for cakes. 
As a brewing adjunct they are ideal as they ferment very cleanly without 
having to rely on the enzyme invertase in the yeast to do the "inversion" 
which once again is sometimes not always complete. There is a school of 
thought that this is one of the factors that leads to "citrusy flavours" in 
high sugar adjunct brewing.

Steve Jones makes reference to a method of making your own candi sugar 
using the Graham Sanders method of boiling the sugar with some citric acid. 
We have an oxymoron here - candi sugar is crystalline sugar, invert sugar 
is exactly the opposite as outlined above. What Graham has outlined is fine 
 - just skip the citric acid and you will certainly be able to produce a 
more interesting sucrose solution. I think this procedure is on the Aussie 
Craft Brewers site as well but cant remember what level of citric acid he 
recommended there.

Candi sugar as used in the European brewing industry is commercially 
produced in a crystalline form as "rocks" or ground to a fine powder. 
Mostly now sourced out of Spain, it is made from the roots of the Sugar 
Beet and Chicory plants. It is a "pure" sucrose product but for what ever 
reason, does not seem to throw the same flavours as cane sugar derived 
sucrose. Certainly the caramalised versions of candi sugar do offer an 
interesting flavour profile.

Poor Phil, first the Wollondilly Wombat and now the Wollondilly Water Frog. 
He really is having a major culture clash with the Wollondilly fauna. But 
Mate, its no good telling everyone I am an "expert" in solving your toilet 
problems. If you hoped I would be flattered enough to actually fix the 
problem I'm sorry to say you have failed. There is no way I am putting my 
arm down that thing to retrieve the frog. No, this is something you must do 
and return the poor creature to the pristine waters of the Wollondilly 
river - even if you run the risk of being forever nicknamed "Harpic" (clean 
around the bend...).

Wes.



>To do this, make a solution of sucrose in water (about 1.030-1.045
>SG), bring to the boil, add a teaspoon or two of citric acid and boil
>for about 10 minutes, or until your polarimeter shows that the
>reaction is complete.
>
>Greg


>Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2004 09:40:58 -0500
>From: "Jones, Steve (eIS) - Eastman" <stjones at eastman.com>
>Subject: RE: Invert Sugar
>
>Rick Theiner asks about the process of making invert sugar.
>
>Graham Sanders has a set of instructions on making Candi sugar by
>boiling a sugar solution with citric acid, and I have a copy of those
>instructions on our club website. The link is
>http://hbd.org/franklin/public_html/docs/candi_sugar.html. I've not yet
>made any, but it seems rather easy. Rick, if you try it be sure to let
>us know how it works.
>
>Steve Jones, Johnson City, TN
>State of Franklin Homebrewers (http://hbd.org/franklin)
>[421.8 mi, 168.5 deg] AR




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Date: Wed, 7 Jan 2004 22:02:54 -0400
From: Alexandre Enkerli <aenkerli at indiana.edu>
Subject: Coffee and Beer: Roasting and Brewing

Spencer's right, coffee roasting provides you with a level of freshness 
that nothing else can achieve. I'm still using a hot air popper and 
haven't done any mod on it, but I'm delighted with the results. BTW, in 
case you don't know, probably the best resource on homeroasting is 
http://www.sweetmarias.com/ where you can find primers (in the library) 
and the homeroasters mailing-list.

Now, getting back to beer. As Spencer says, an espresso stout is an 
obvious direction for experimentation. Here's a page describing the 
making of such a beer. Much of the details are for those who never 
homebrewed, but it might give you inspiration for pairing coffee with 
beer...
http://www.ineedcoffee.com/01/03/espressostout/
It doesn't mean that you can't brew other beers with coffee, if you 
like experimenting.

You can also experiment with roasting your grain. Not just for 
chocolate malt and such but for different grains also. For instance, 
torrefied wheat is an obvious choice. Roasted barley too. What about 
rye, buckwheat, rice? Jeff Renner replied about roasting grain sometime 
during the summer and his expertise could be tapped.

What's interesting about brewing beer and coffee is that both 
activities are similar. For instance, you might be surprised to learn 
that the reason for tamping espresso is to prevent channeling, 
something we all know about. In a way, coffee brewing is like an 
extremely quick sparge at very high temperature (194F is best, IIRC). 
Roasting is equivalent to mashing itself in terms of conversion. You're 
looking at Maillard reactions rather than enzymatic action, but there's 
an analogy for you...
To go even further, you can compare the bubbles in latte milk froth to 
beer effervescence and head. In both cases, consistently-sized tiny 
bubbles make for better retention. And let's not talk about crema...
The advantage of coffee, though, is that it takes very little time to 
make, from green bean to cup. The advantage with beer is the large 
field for experimentation.

BTW, I've been thinking of an espresso smoked porter I'd like to do. I 
want my beer to be smokey, sweet, malty, full-bodied, and complex. I 
don't really want chocolate nor roasted taste and I don't think any 
significant fruitiness would be appropriate. Any idea on bean and grain 
bills?

Apologies for length but beer and coffee are both among my current 
passions.

AleX in Moncton, NB
[1568.9km, 68] Apparent Rennerian



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Date: Wed, 7 Jan 2004 21:38:10 -0500 (EST)
From: Pat Babcock <pbabcock at hbd.org>
Subject: Really old beer or The Sanitation Test

Greetings, Beerlings! Take me to your really old brew...

Digging around in my beer fridge, next to yeast from 1999
through 2002, I found a bottle of that honey-wheat recipe some
may remember me having brewed in '97 when I was teaching a bunch
of fellow launch engineers how to brew while in Edison, New
Jersey. Curiosity getting the best of me, as it usually does, I
cracked that bad puppy open to see what was left of it. After
almost seven years, I found just a hint of brett in the palate.
The lemon was still present, and the honey was detectable; wheat
was clearly present. Carbonation was a bit more lively than I
recalll it having been in its heyday, but it was not foamy/gushy
or unpleasant. All in all, it is a testament to the sanitation
practices we used when brewing and bottling this beer. And,
frankly, we did nothing out of the ordinary: cleaned the
bottles, sanitized in iodophor, rinsed with Plainsboro tap
water, and driped dry.

I have a few bottles of beer brewed back in '94 that I came
across on my brewing shelf, too. I think that after 10 years, it
is time to sample from this beer archive and see what has become
of that, but that will be for some other day.

- -- 
 -
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: Thu, 8 Jan 2004 07:11:24 -0800
From: "Jim Dunlap" <jdpils at comcast.net>
Subject: Bottling Beer

Greetings Beerlings,

For those wondering how much sugar per bottle I use the folling guidelines.
First I prefer higher levels of carbonation in beer.  If it is too much for
a style I just pour my beer straight into the class and wait like the
Germans do with pilsener.  Second beer with very low levels of carbonation
will not absorb as much oxygen and therefore have a lower shelf life.

Third, I do not keg at all for several reasons.  1)  How to bottle for
competitions and gifts?  2)  I would need about 10 kegs and an additional
chest freezer, unless I abandoned lagers, to handle the variety of beer I am
serving and eliminate bottles, except for competitions.  I can neverjustify
this cost over buying better brewing equipment or even another freezer.  It
takes me 2.5 hours to clean and bottle two carboys as I use lots of big
bottles.  The only 12oz ones are for competiton.

I have an accurate scale which I have measured 3/4 cups of sugar to weigh
about 100 - 110 grams.  The accuracy is in the measurement.  I figure 50
bottles per 5 gal carboy which is topped to the neck.  So 2 grams per bottle
is my usual amount.  For those looking for lower levels about 1.5 grams
should work.

I hope this helps.

YFbottlingfool

Jim Dunlap
Woodinville WA








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Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2004 13:22:36 -0600
From: "Rob Dewhirst" <rob at hairydogbrewery.com>
Subject: Re: creating clear canned wort

I mentioned that I get an unacceptable high amount of break material in my
pressure-canned wort that I use for starters.

A summary of the replies I recieved, and my responses are below.

1) Ignore it.  It won't hurt anything.

I disagree and so do most of the brewing texts.  We're not talking about
a few floaties in the bottom of the jar.  This is something close to
5-10% of the volume of the liquid in the canning jars.  That is an
unacceptably high level to me.

2) Decant to another container.

That defeats the purpose of pressure canning in bulk, which in the end
saves much time and mess.  If I must sanitize another container (which
then must ALSO be cleaned afterwards) to make a starter, it is
marginally more effort to just make the starter from scratch at the time I
need it.

3) there's no oxygen in your starters.  You should decant them anyway.

I rectify this with oxygen additions when I pitch into the starter.   I
would do this EVEN if I decanted them (which I suspect adds very little
oxygen), so the decanting is still undesirable extra work.

So I am still searching for a solution to reduce the amount of trub in my
canned starters.



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Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2004 14:10:48 -0800 (PST)
From: "Raj B. Apte" <raj_apte at yahoo.com>
Subject: On bulk aging v bottle aging

Hi All,

For aged beers like barleywines and imperial stouts as
well as soured Flemish beers, is there a general
preference for aging in bulk rather than in bottles
once the residual extract has stabilized?

I ask this question because all my winemaking books
say to keep wine in carboys even after a few rackings,
for as long as a few years, until bottling. The wine
literature is clear that wine ages differently
(better) in magnums than fifths. I have also read that
this is true for cider. In both cases larger volumes
are generally preferred to smaller for aging.

So, should I bottle my Xmas 04 barleywine now and let
it age, or leave it in a carboy until Thanksgiving?
The Xmas 03 was in secondary for 10 months and came
out wonderfully. Maybe its time for a controlled
experiment ....

raj



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Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2004 06:45:26 -0500
From: "David Craft" <chsyhkr at bellsouth.net>
Subject: Anchor Old Foghorn Clone

Greetings,

Has anyone tried the Anchor Old Foghorn clone recipe in the July Zymurgy?

The recipe seems about what I would try and very similar to a ramped up
Steam recipe in the grain bill.

The SG is shown as 1.101 and ending 1.043.  That is under 60% attenuation
and seems low. I had a bottle of this last night and it was not as sweet as
the EG would indicate.  Do strong beers not ferment out to full
attenuation.  I have made a few strong beers and they seemed to finish out
in the normal range if aerated and pitched well.

Any thoughts,

 David B. Craft
Battleground Brewers Guild
Crow Hill Brewery and Meadery
Greensboro, NC



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