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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
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Contents:
  Gypsum vs Calcium Chloride (to drop pH)? (darrell.leavitt)
  RE:  honey in brewing (Bill Tobler)
  Re: honey in brewing (R.A.)" <rbarrett@ford.com>
  Phil's Bad Kegging Day (Jim Bermingham)
  Re: Sanitizing Questions (Jeff Renner)
  Slurpee Brew (Richard Feight)
  Re: Aerated sparge water (Jeff Renner)
  honey in brew (Paddock Wood)
  Re: fusels & esters ("Chad Stevens")
  Re: Sanitizing Questions (Mark Kempisty)
  Popping Malt (Alexandre Enkerli)
  Re: 10 gallon corny kegs (Scott Alfter)
  Yeast Starters (davidpeters)
  Thomas Hardy Ale ("David Craft")
  CACA vs CAP ("Ed Dorn")
  Plastic fermenters ("Parker Dutro")
  Re: Sanitizing Questions ("Greg 'groggy' Lehey")


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Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 06:39:50 -0500
From: darrell.leavitt at plattsburgh.edu
Subject: Gypsum vs Calcium Chloride (to drop pH)?

I have been using either Gypsum, or Calcium Chloride in the mash-tun
when in need of dropping the pH, ie when making a lighter in color ale or 
pils.  My question is: What are the variables that should determine which 
to use?  Or, are they for all practical purposes equally effective in this?

 ..Darrell



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Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 07:28:21 -0600
From: Bill Tobler <wctobler at sbcglobal.net>
Subject: RE:  honey in brewing

Dan asked yesterday about when to add Honey to the boil.

Dan, 
   The National Honey Board has some good info on Honey and Brewing.  Here
is a link to that page.

http://www.nhb.org/download/index.html#foodserv

I also attached a couple of PDF files I downloaded from the site.  I make a
Honey wheat beer that I really like.  It's called B-52, a recipe by SkotRat.
It's a darn good beer.  I add the honey after flameout.  But, the answer to
all your questions is "All of the Above", if you pasteurize the honey first.
If you add the honey during the boil, you will kill all the beasties, but
also lose all the honey flavor.  If you don't pasteurize the honey and add
it to the fermenter, you are likely to have an infected batch.  Just my 2
cents.

Bill Tobler
Lake Jackson, TX
(1129.7, 219.9) Apparent Rennerian




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Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 09:23:45 -0500
From: "Barrett, Bob (R.A.)" <rbarrett at ford.com>
Subject: Re: honey in brewing

Dan from somewhere asks:

>I have an extract recipe for a "honey wheat " that says to add honey to 
>the boil.
>The guy at my local HB store told me that adding honey to the boil would 
>not add any honey flavors to the final beer as the sugars would all 
>ferment though it would increase alchol content. I was just wondering if 
>this seems correct? Could I add the honey after the boil directly to the 
>fermenter?add it to the secondary? use it for priming? or all or none of 
>the above?

Honey.com has a great write up on how to use honey in homebrewing.
The link is below.  In short they say the best way to get the
honey flavor in your beer is to pasteurize it and dilute it to the gravity
of the wort.  Then add it to the fermentor at high krausen.

http://www.honey.com/recipes/beer/index.html#Historical 

We Make the Beer We Drink!!!
Bob Barrett
Ann Arbor, MI
(2.8, 103.6) Rennerian


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Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 08:35:10 -0600
From: Jim Bermingham <JBHAM6843 at netscape.net>
Subject: Phil's Bad Kegging Day

I have read Phil's "A Bad Day Kegging " post several times now and have 
yet to see anything wrong with it.  Well maybe the falling part.  Jill 
was absolutely correct!  You need to get right back on the horse and 
learn to fall properly.  Falling properly is the key to being a good 
horseman.  I have been riding those miserable beast for more than 55 
years now.  Completely a necessity, never for pleasure.  After a while 
you learn to fall without severely harming yourself.  You will fall if 
you ride them enough.  They know from birth how to get you off their 
backs.  I've been scraped off many more times than bucked off.  Scraping 
seems to be their favorite method.  Going under trees that they 
themselves have to duck down to get under, scraping you off on the sides 
of trees, barns, pickups, fences or what ever they can find handy at the 
time they decide to rid themselves of you.  So Phil get back on and 
practice, practice, practice.  As for drinking beer after a  miserable 
ride on a horse, I always do that, as long as I can find a nice soft 
seat to put my sore old butt in.



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Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 10:40:00 -0500
From: Jeff Renner <jeffrenner at comcast.net>
Subject: Re: Sanitizing Questions

"Greg 'groggy' Lehey" <grog at lemis.com> writes:

>My concern was that keeping water
>at 140 <insert non-allowed symbol for degrees> F is probably an ideal
>temperature for some bugs, so it might actually be worse than cold
>water.  I use it anyway, and so far I haven't had problems.  I'd be
>interested to hear other people's views on this.

If you aren't having troubles, that's a good indication that it isn't 
a problem.  However, considering that you are using water from a tank 
that has an assortment of gunk (snails, water fleas, and who knows 
what other microscopic stuff) in it, according to the site you posted 
recently, http://www.lemis.com/grog/water.html, I think you might 
have more potential problem than those with mains water or a good 
well.

You could do a simple culture of your water on a petri dish.  Others 
could suggest what medium to use.

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: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 07:56:56 -0800 (PST)
From: Richard Feight <richardfeight at yahoo.com>
Subject: Slurpee Brew

Don't get me wrong I love beer and as a kid I liked
slurpees but when i assembled my kegerator that santa
brought me for christmas and it slushed by nightfall I
was a little concerned. And thirsty. My extra fridge
is located in our detached garage which is uninsulated
and has maintained temperatures around 25 degrees.
This past weekend when I came home from a trip,
despite the fact that i'd shut the fridge off my corni
was frozen! 
 
Any suggestions besides take it inside and let it
thaw. I was thinking about putting a blanket around
the keg and insulation around the tubing. I'm new to
kegging. And still thirsty.
 
Rich
Frozen in Lansing, Michigan.





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Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 11:12:27 -0500
From: Jeff Renner <jeffrenner at comcast.net>
Subject: Re: Aerated sparge water

I see that this didn't get answered last week:

In Homebrew Digest #4457 (January 21, 2004), "David Houseman" 
<david.houseman at verizon.net> wrote:

>I have, and used to use, a rotating
>sparge arm to deliver sparge water over my mash tun.  I haven't been using
>this recently and wondered if by any remote chance this has improved my
>beers?  We seem to go to a lot of trouble to avoid hot side aeration,
>including the wort in the mash tun, but then sprinkle water in droplets into
>the tun:  Could this process cause the sparge water to pick up additional
>oxygen and create more HAS than gently running the spurge water into the top
>of the mash ton without splashing or sprinkling?

Good to hear that your beer is improving, not that I've had any.  But 
I don't think this is likely to be the reason.  It seems to me to be 
unlikely that any significant O2 is being dissolved into the hot 
sparge water, since the solubility of gases in water decreases as the 
temperature increases.  (Think what happens when you heat ginger ale 
as a cold remedy).

As you no doubt know, even the idea of HSA is somewhat controversial. 
Those of us who attended the MCAB-2 in St. Louis were treated to an 
intimate tour of the Anheuser-Busch 15 bbl pilot brewery, which is a 
scale replica of their big breweries (and is normally not open to the 
public).  Included is a column, maybe less than a foot in diameter 
and maybe 15' high (it's been a while), which is used to strip 
undesirable volatiles from the hot wort.  The how wort streams down 
the inside of this column in a spiralling thin film while hot air is 
blown up against it.  We were appalled by the potential for HSA.

Steve Michalak, who is something like director of research brewing at 
A/B and who conducted our tour, said this isn't a problem because of 
the low solubility of gases in wort.  Perhaps there is too little 
contact time, but it seems to me that such intimate contact of the 
wort (and the oxidizable components) with air would allow some 
oxidation.

Regardless, I do everything I can to reduce HSA, and I don't use a 
whirly-gig sparger, but this seems to be of little concern.  And, of 
course, it is SOP for big breweries, along with splashing grants and 
other seemingly problematic practices.

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: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 10:38:38 -0600
From: Paddock Wood <experts at paddockwood.com>
Subject: honey in brew

>Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2004 10:11:11 -0500
>From: Dan <dan at zlater.net>
>Subject: honey in brewing

>I have an extract recipe for a "honey wheat " that says to add honey to the
boil.
>The guy at my local HB store told me that adding honey to the boil would
>not add any honey flavors to the final beer as the sugars would all
>ferment though it would increase alchol content. I was just wondering if
>this seems correct? Could I add the honey after the boil directly to the
>fermenter?add it to the secondary? use it for priming? or all or none of
>the above?
>Dan

Dan, I find that you 'll get more honey flavour by using Honey Malt in your
mash than with just honey in the boil. There may be some nuances that are
held from the honey, but not much.


Steve Cavan  -- in vino veritas,  at in cerevisiae voluptas


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Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 09:05:15 -0800
From: "Chad Stevens" <zuvaruvi at cox.net>
Subject: Re: fusels & esters

Randy Ricchi asked me an excellent question offline:

My prior HBD post:

>If you are fond of strong isoamyl acetate banana, don't >be shy about
pitching a large volume
>of your favorite German Wheat Beer yeast and >keeping the fermentation on
the
>warm side.

His question:

>Did you possibly mean pitch a small volume of yeast >and ferment warm? This
would result in a greater >amount of yeast growth. This has been my practice
>with weizens for years.

You just touched on the sublimated point of the whole post.  This is
contrary to current views and counter to what Steve Alexander posted a day
or two ago.  I just wanted to see if anyone would bite!

Just so happens I just did a hefe with WLP Hefe IV.  I stepped up cell count
and pitched half the starter into five gallons of wort and the other half
into one gallon of wort from the same batch.  They fermented side by side.
Despite the larger portion having greater thermal mass and presumably a
degree or two greater warmth, the small batch presented slightly more
prounounced banana.

This is where I got the idea:

Tech. Q. Master Brew. Assoc. Am., July/Aug./Sept. 1975, 12(3), 169-175
English
Factors affecting the formation of fusel alcohols during fermentation.
Van Gheluwe, G., Chen, E. and Valyi, Z.

Abstract
Alcoholism has been traditionally connected with only the amount of ethanol
present in the beverages. In recent years, there have been attempts to look
more closely at the congener content of the beverages since these congeners
are sometimes more physiologically active than ethanol itself. Fusel alcohol
formation is a normal activity of all yeast fermentations and its
concentrations in alcoholic beverages showed a wide range between 2200 and 0
ppm. Fusel alcohols are mainly formed during the first 60% of ale
fermentation resulting in hyperbolic curves for their formation. For lager
fermentations, the curves showed a sigmoidal shape. Ale fermentations
produce larger quantities of fusel alcohols than lager fermentations. The
temperature of fermentation is important with higher temperatures producing
higher quantities of fusel alcohols. The shape of the fermenter has an
important influence on the formation of fusel alcohols. Deep fermentations
are effective in reducing the amount of fusel alcohols. Large capacity
fermenters are also effective in producing lower fusel alcohol levels. High
levels of amino acids and high sugar adjunct levels are effective in
producing higher levels of fusel alcohols. **Higher than normal yeast rates
produce more fusel alcohols; isoamyl alcohol in particular is increased by
80% for a four-fold increase in pitching rate.**

- -----------------

So I think, with regard to ester production, there are at least two
different mechanisms at work.  It seems there are two ways to obtain big
ester, pitch small and warm and pitch big and warm.  Somewhere in the middle
is an optimal "normal" pitch rate at which the least number and quantity of
esters are produced.

But here's the REALLY interesting part.  The five gallon batch presented
very little banana and a subdued clove character.  The one gallon batch
presented very little clove but a more pronounced banana character as a
result of the higher pitching rate. This is consistent with the papers
assertion that isoamyl alchohol increases with "greater than normal"
pitching rates (banana is isoamyl acetate).  I feel as though for the first
time I might be on to the key for producing not just the volume of ester
produced (temperature) but the flavor character (pitching rate above or
below "normal").

Maybe Steve has some insight into the possible mechanisms.  Steven?

Chad Stevens
QUAFF
San Diego

- ------------------------------------------

Now taking entries for America's Finest City Homebrew Competition.  Two
Grand Master Judges, over a dozen National Judges, over 400 beers
(hopefully, if enough of you enter), one fine city: San Diego.

www.quaff.org/afc2004/AFCHBC.html



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Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 12:10:51 -0500
From: Mark Kempisty <mskhbd at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Sanitizing Questions

There has been a lot of discussion on using hot (140F) tap water for 
rising and how safe it is. IIRC Papazion says you can consider it safe 
and the only reason I can come up with is pasteurization.  Sitting in 
your home's hot water tank for hours on end should have the same 
effect.  However, I think 140F is higher than the recommended hot water 
heater temperature due to scolding concerns.

Brew on
Mark
Richboro, PA



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Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 14:06:09 -0400
From: Alexandre Enkerli <aenkerli at indiana.edu>
Subject: Popping Malt

Been roasting green coffee beans in a hot air popcorn popper for a 
while and wanted to try roasting malt the same way. Just tried it a few 
batches moments ago and wanted to post preliminary impressions. I use 
an unmodified Proctor Silex Popcorn Pumper so I don't have any control 
on temperature or air flow. The original grain is Canada Malting 
Two-Row. I then tried a stove-top batch using a wok-shaped teflon pan 
that I used to "Jiffy pop" some malt.

Hot air popping seems to have worked rather well to get malt which 
tastes pretty much like chocolate malt but is much lighter in color. 
Didn't try roasting darker and it was difficult to get lighter-tasting 
malt as the roasting happened very quickly. From turning the machine on 
to the grain starting to pop took less than a minute (as opposed to 3 
minutes with coffee beans).
Unlike coffee beans, the roast was quite uneven for any batch. In fact, 
only part of the husks became darker.
The evolution in smell was pretty awkward. There was a point at which 
it smelled somewhat similar to cheese and this smell seems to linger in 
the house. Smoke wasn't an issue though. There was some chaff coming 
out of the popper before the grain cracked.
Altogether, hot air roasting malt seems to work fairly well and is 
extremely quick.

By comparison, the "jiffy popped" malt took a bit more time, was easier 
to control for lighter shades and didn't smell cheesy (or my nose had 
grown accustomed to the smell). It was also more even colored than the 
hot air one. On the other hand, darker roast on the stove seems to 
taste more astringent than the hot air "light chocolate malt."

Will probably incorporate some hot air and stovetop "popped" malt in a 
Porter soon and might try oven roasting to get different results.

Cheers!

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



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Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 10:15:51 -0800
From: Scott Alfter <scott at alfter.us>
Subject: Re: 10 gallon corny kegs

On Sat, 24 Jan 2004 at 20:15:34 -0800,
"Andy and Tina Bailey" <atmlobailey at cox.net> wrote:
> I am looking for a source of 10 gallon corny kegs...so:
> 
> 1) if anyone has any for sale, let me know
> 
> 2) What industry uses them? (so I know where to look) For instance, does
> (did) the soft drink industry use them (so I could hit up my local pepsi
> bottler), or are they used in the medical profession, or elsewhere?

You might look for an older McDonald's and see if they still have theirs. 
They'll probably have only one or two if they have any at all.  They were
filled in-store with orange drink concentrate from one-gallon jugs, so the
lid should be equipped with a release valve.  (5-gallon kegs weren't so
equipped, but that didn't stop me from venting them through the gas-in
fitting so that three or four kegs that were disconnected too early could be
combined.)

They replaced that setup years ago with Hi-C concentrate shipped as a bag
in a box, just as the 5-gallon corny kegs for other beverages got replaced. 
The people at a newer store will look at you like you're from Mars if you
ask them if they have any kegs.

  _/_   Scott Alfter ($firstname at $lastname.us)
 / v \  http://alfter.us/
(IIGS(  Southern Nevada Ale Fermenters Union - http://snafu.alfter.us/
 \_^_/  Beer and Loafing in Las Vegas - http://www.beerandloafing.org/



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Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 18:37:45 +0000
From: davidpeters at comcast.net
Subject: Yeast Starters


I was fortunate to be able to spend time in Vail recently doing what one 
does.  

On the beer related end of the spectum, I was able to enjoy some fine 
German Beer in Kaltneberg Castle.  The brewpub is licensed from Germany 
through Prince Luipold of Bavaria.  His ancestor was King Wilhelm who was 
responsible for the Rheinheitsgebot.  Along with a great tour by the head 
brewer he passed along the above and much more.

The item of note to the group was their yeast propogator.  They went 
straight from a 4 liter starter to 400 liters of wort in order to 
propogate their yeast.  A fresh batch is received every 3 months and then 
it is stepped up a single time.  The wort was continually oxygenated in 
order to facilitate the yeast multiplication.  Full OG level wort was 
utilized.  As the brewer put it, they did not want to dilute their beers 
when the yeast was added.  This all happened in four to 5 days and this 
was for the beer to be made as well as stepped up again for the next batch.

All in all a great tour, great beer and a beautiful facility both for 
brewing and partaking.  The grand hall is a recreation of the original 
castles music room.  Well worth the trip to Lionshead for a little Apres 
if you are in the area.

David Peters
Northville, MI


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Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 16:37:21 -0500
From: "David Craft" <chsyhkr at bellsouth.net>
Subject: Thomas Hardy Ale

Any one out there have a store that carries this and will ship?

I understand it is back after a several year absence.  We cannot get it in
NC, or anything over 6% for that matter............

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



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Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 17:18:39 -0500
From: "Ed Dorn" <edorn at cox.net>
Subject: CACA vs CAP

Several months ago I posted a question to the collective; I wanted to know
if it was possible to distinguish a lager from an ale from the standpoint of
the CONSUMER.  In other words, if I'm drinking a beer, can I tell which it
is from taste/appearance/aroma/other characteristics?  As an example, I
asked if I'd be able to differentiate between a CACA and a CAP.  No one
addressed the specific example, and most replies to the general question
gave fairly predictable responses.  The ale would be fruiter with more
esters, the lager crisper, etc.  I decided to conduct my own experiment, and
the results are in.  SWMBO and I cannot tell the difference.

I brewed a 10-gallon batch on November 1, using Jeff Renner's recipe with
the Peter Garofalo modification.  Peter suggests using flaked maize instead
of doing the cereal mash.  (SWMBO and I had decided from prior brews that
the flaked maize was an excellent substitute.  Thanks, Peter!)  Five gallons
were fermented with Wyeast 1056 and five with Whitelabs 833 German Bock.

The ale came on line in early December and we've been enjoying it.  The
pilsner came on line (both brews are in kegs) a couple of weeks ago.
Knowing which beer I was drinking, I was confident that they tasted
different.  This past weekend we conducted the triangle test.  For those who
are unfamiliar with the triangle test, you pour two samples of one beer and
only one of the other.  They're in opaque containers so that clarity, color,
etc cannot be seen.  The idea is to figure out which beer is different from
the other two.  Neither my wife nor I could do it.  We each picked different
samples, neither of which was correct!

I was very surprised at my(our) inability to distinguish the beers.  I don't
know what to make of the experiment's outcome, other than to wonder all over
again if brewing lagers makes as much difference as us brewers seem to think
it does.

I'd love any feedback that you have.

Ed Dorn, Va Beach, VA




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Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 15:44:18 -0800
From: "Parker Dutro" <pacman at edwardwadsworth.com>
Subject: Plastic fermenters 

I am an all grain brewer that brews in 5 gallon batches.  I would like
to start brewing in larger quantities but 10 is too much so I am hoping
to convert to 7.  My mash tun and kettle are perfectly suited for 7
gallons but I need to buy new fermenters... on an apprentice's budget.
My local Steinbarts has a nice 7.9 gallon plastic fermenter with a drain
spigot for transfer and blow off hole but they want 25 bucks for it.  I
could do without the spigot or even add one myself for 4 bucks if I
could find a good 7.5 gallon food grade primary for under 15 bucks.  Any
idea where to shop online?  I guess with shipping cost I might be better
to just suck it up and go for the expensive one, but I know that the
collective knowledge at the HBD will have the solution.  The next step
is to buy a 7 gallon carboy and I found one for 17.25 online out of some
wine making shop out of Pennsylvania which, with shipping will be about
25 bucks which is a bit better than I have seen at any of the local
shops.  Actually, none of them have 7 gallon carboys on hand,
understandably, and they would need to order it just the same.  I figure
I may as well skip the middle man if it won't help out my Local HBS by
alleviating them of some inventory.  But I digress.  Thanks for any help
in the matter.

In Portland, Oregon 
Parker




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Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2004 11:11:46 +1030
From: "Greg 'groggy' Lehey" <grog at lemis.com>
Subject: Re: Sanitizing Questions

On Monday, 26 January 2004 at 10:40:00 -0500, Jeff Renner wrote:
> "Greg 'groggy' Lehey" <grog at lemis.com> writes:
>
>> My concern was that keeping water
>> at 140 <insert non-allowed symbol for degrees> F is probably an ideal
>> temperature for some bugs, so it might actually be worse than cold
>> water.  I use it anyway, and so far I haven't had problems.  I'd be
>> interested to hear other people's views on this.
>
> If you aren't having troubles, that's a good indication that it isn't
> a problem.

It's a good first approximation.  It doesn't mean that I won't have
any problems in the future, though.

> However, considering that you are using water from a tank that has
> an assortment of gunk (snails, water fleas, and who knows what other
> microscopic stuff) in it, according to the site you posted recently,
> http://www.lemis.com/grog/water.html, I think you might have more
> potential problem than those with mains water or a good well.

Ah, no.  I don't use that water for brewing.  That's bore water with
2200 ppm of dissolved salts; boiling wouldn't help much there.  The
water I use for brewing is pretty clean.  Due to the danger of
contamination, though, I do boil it all before use.

> You could do a simple culture of your water on a petri dish.  Others
> could suggest what medium to use.

I could do, if I have enough inclination, and I might even do so, but
it won't be soon.

Greg
- --
Finger grog at lemis.com for PGP public key.
See complete headers for address and phone numbers.


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---