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Contents:
  Dip tube mutilation; Goodbye glass.... (Chris Mikkelson)
  RE: 10 Gallon Soda kegs (Bill Tobler)
  RE:  Goodbye glass... (Bill Tobler)
  Re: Re: Reinheitsgebot ("-S")
  dark wort ("Todd M. Snyder")
  Beer Microscopy (Alexandre Enkerli)
  You say Rheinheitsgebot, I say Jehosophat ("Dave Draper")
  Goodbye glass: Hello plastic! ("Dave Draper")
  Plastic and bleach, clutterpostings (Calvin Perilloux)
  Fermenters/kegs (Jim Busch)
  Re: goodbye glass ("Michael O'Donnell")
  fermentation vessels (Marc Sedam)
  RE: BLC ("Brian Lundeen")
  concentrated wort boil solutions (Chris Colby)
  RE: MSN, CO2 tanks, Reinheitsgabot, Yule & Imbolg ("Doug Hurst")
  Plastic fermenters ("Brian Schar")
  9th annual South Shore Brewoff - competition announcement (McNally Geoffrey A NPRI)
  Re:  trying to lighten extract brews ("Steve Arnold")


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Date: Mon, 09 Feb 2004 00:58:06 -0600
From: Chris Mikkelson <chris at mikk.net>
Subject: Dip tube mutilation; Goodbye glass....


Steve arnold elects not to to trim his dip tubes
(there's an innuendo in there, I know!) because it
will keep him from blowing out all of his sanitizer
solution before filling the kegs.  After the dip
tube has taken all the sanitizer, try inverting the
keg and drawing most of the rest out through the
pressure relief valve.  This should get out almost
as much as an untrimmed dip tube.

On a related note, how do you dip-tube circumcisers
out there do the deed?  Will a tubing cutter designed
for soft copper tubing work on S.S.?  Do I need a
special Mogen clamp?  An inquiring mind (and owner
of 10 currently-intact kegs) wants to know....

********

Although I've had nothing but good experience with
glass (i.e. good beer and no stitches), I have mostly
switched to the plastic bucket / corny keg duo.  The
whole scratching thing is overrated, IMO.  If you're
really worried about it, you can do the disposable
sanitary bag in bucket trick, or just treat your
fermenting buckets gently.

Cornies make very good secondaries.  They take up
much less space than carboys, are light-proof *and*
shatterproof, and can double as serving vessels.

Chris Mikkelson
St. Paul, MN


Return to table of contents


Date: Mon, 09 Feb 2004 01:37:18 -0600
From: Bill Tobler <wctobler at sbcglobal.net>
Subject: RE: 10 Gallon Soda kegs

Steve found some 10 gallon soda kegs for 15 bucks!!  Steve, I'll take two.
Let me know how much you want + shipping.  Thanks!

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




Return to table of contents


Date: Mon, 09 Feb 2004 02:31:26 -0600
From: Bill Tobler <wctobler at sbcglobal.net>
Subject: RE:  Goodbye glass...

Bev is tired of the broken glass and cuts.  Me too Bev.  I put the glass on
the shelf last year after my second near miss in 3 years.  I've been using a
15 gallon Polar ware Pot as a fermenter.  It's actually my large mash tun
for big beers.  I use a 10 gallon Polar Ware pot for most brews.  If I need
more than 23 pounds of grain, I'll go to the big one.  It's not a sealed
fermenter, but I haven't had any problems.  It has a drain valve, so getting
samples is easy to check gravity.  The Pro's and Con's?

Pro-I make 10 gallon batches, and only have one fermenter to clean up
- ----It won't break
- ----It's easy to clean and sanitize.
- ----Checking gravity is easy with drain valve
- ----It won't break

Con-You can't watch your beer ferment
- ----You don't have an airlock to watch

The Pro's have it, two to one.

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








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Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2004 06:43:43 -0500
From: "-S" <-s at adelphia.net>
Subject: Re: Re: Reinheitsgebot

Hi Chad,

> Don't even want to touch the Christianity thing; this is HBD afterall.
You really do love to stir the shit don't you Steven.

I suppose.  It's been a longtime puzzle to me how a middle-eastern belief
system supplanted the myriad of rich an d interesting pagan beliefs
throughout Europe. localized 'reluctance' a millennia or so ago was rampant.
Why exactly did this foreign system become attractive and the old systems
unattractive ?   Christmas-NewYears (and Halloween) seem to retain a lot of
the pagan elements still.  Wasn't meant just to stir the pot - rather an
'aha' moment for me - the paganism is still present to an significant
extent..    OK - there is a little stirring but it's not all sh*t !

 -S





- ----- Original Message ----- 
From: <zuvaruvi at cox.net>
To: "-S" <-s at adelphia.net>; "Posting Address Only - No Requests"
<homebrew at hbd.org>
Cc: "Chad Stevens" <zuvaruvi at cox.net>; "Wes Smith" <wsmith@acenet.com.au>
Sent: Sunday, February 08, 2004 6:34 PM
Subject: Re: Re: Reinheitsgebot


> http://www.beercook.com/articles/aassjuleol.htm
>
> Can't find what I was looking for but this gets you in the groove at any
rate.  Aass yuleol doesn't come close to being a historical representation
of the style; it's a bock.
>
> Don't even want to touch the Christianity thing; this is HBD afterall.
You really do love to stir the shit don't you Steven.
>
> Chad
> >
> > From: "-S" <-s at adelphia.net>
> > Date: 2004/02/08 Sun PM 04:11:18 EST
> > To: "Posting Address Only - No Requests" <homebrew at hbd.org>
> > CC: "Chad Stevens" <zuvaruvi at cox.net>,
> > "Wes Smith" <wsmith at acenet.com.au>
> > Subject: Re: Reinheitsgebot
> >
> > Chad says Dave says of Reinheitsgebot ...
> >
> > > The law has to be one of the first ordinances controlling the
> > > quality of food and drink in the whole world....
> >
> > Such a wretched misunderstanding !!  Reinheitsgebot *REDUCES* beer
quality
> > and restricts brewer creativity !
> >
> > It's downright weird that historical law is viewed thru' rose colored
> > glasses while modern law and politics with cynical eyes.   I'd suggest
that
> > human nature, intelligence and even political machinations haven't
changed
> > more than a jot since cave dwellers began telling each other how to
live.
> >
> > Reinheitsgebot certainly includes a "purity" clause that requires beer
to
> > include only water, hops and malt (no yeast please!), *but* 80% of
> > Reinheitsgebot involves the government creation of price caps for beer
in
> > Bavaria.  It's net effect could only reduce beer quality.  If you find a
> > Bavarian brewer who claims to follow Reinheitsgebot, I'd suggest you
stock
> > up.  Aside from Marzen, their beers must sell at either 1 cent or 2
cents
> > per mug (just over a liter) depending on the season !
> >
> > Beyond  pricing, I still can't see that restricting the ingredients to
> > water, hops and malt has any positive implications for quality.   OK it
> > keeps the cabbage, pumpkins and peppers out of beer, but it also
prevents
> > the use of unmalted adjunct, sugars, spices and fruits which can be used
in
> > very high quality beer.  Are the unfettered Belgian brewers making lower
> > quality beer than Bavarians ?   I don't think so, but they certainly are
> > producing far more varied and creative styles.
> >
> > As for being the oldest beer law - a 1290 Nuremberg law forbade the use
of
> > rye, oats and wheat in brewing in order to preserve these grains for
baking.
> > There is evidence of brewing in Europe ~800BC or a bit earlier and I
suspect
> > the 'lawyers' of the era must have created some pointless busybody civil
> > restrictions regarding it's creation.  The code of Hammurabi ~2100BC
> > includes the penalty of drowning the vendor of inferior beer (does
Auggie
> > Busch read this list?).  A bit earlier in Babylon certain types of beer
were
> > reserved for Siris and Ninkasi temple use so brewing restriction must
have
> > existed.
> >
> > Maybe Chad can address the logic behind Gulatingslov but I expect is was
for
> > the pagan Yule (solstice eve) celebration with perhaps religious
> > proscriptions.   I'm a little amused at Chad's contention that
Christianity
> > supplanted the northern pagan mid-winter fest.    Personally I think
that
> > Christianity has only made a small dent.  The Midwinter fest is still
full
> > of Yule elves (tho' now carrying Christian names like SantaClaus), yule
> > logs, wassail, mulled wine, caroling, the use of evergreens, misletoe,
holly
> > all with associations pagan custom; Thor, Freya but also Odin and Balder
as
> > well as druidic practice.   Thor(aka Donner)'s  flying wagon pulled by a
> > team of horned goats becomes a sleigh pulled by a reindeer (one named
> > Donner) !  Odin's penchant for leaving gifts for children is taken up by
> > S.Claus.  Balder's death from misletoe at the hands of his brother and
> > eventual rebirth, like the Christian story, echoes the astronomical
change
> > from a receding sun to an approaching one.   Even the Germanic custom of
> > eating pork at new years connects directly with Freya and the boar
> > symbology.    Norse 'yule', Anglo-Saxon 'geol' and the Germanic 'weh'
> > solstice fests share a lot in common.   My observation is that Christian
> > influence at mid-winter ranks third after pagan and commercial aspects
of
> > the holidays
> >
> > -S
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>




Return to table of contents


Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2004 08:58:45 -0500
From: "Todd M. Snyder" <tmsnyder at buffalo.edu>
Subject: dark wort

Hi Andy,

If want to continue to do partial boils, you need to conduct the
concentrated boil for less time in order to produce lighter colored beer.
Pretty straight forward, right?  But how to do it..... Here's a couple
ideas:

(1) If you want to create your own recipes including hop additions, you
could use just a small portion of the DME at the start of the boil, conduct
the normal 60-90 minute boil with hop additions.  Then when you turn off the
heat, add the remaining bulk of your DME.  This way you're not boiling the
concentrated wort all that time.  There's no need to boil a DME based wort
for the full 60 minutes.

(2) If you don't care about adding your own specific hops, you could use
canned beer kits which are prehopped and then follow the directions on the
can.  They say to just add the can to hot water, top up with cold water and
add yeast.  It's a no-boil method and actually does make good beer,
especially if you use a good yeast and substitute DME for the table sugar in
the directions.  Actually, boiling these cans causes flavor/aroma hops in
the can to be converted to bittering, and the final beer will be too bitter.
No-boil works well with them.

Good brewing!
Todd Snyder
Buffalo, NY



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Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2004 10:03:23 -0400
From: Alexandre Enkerli <aenkerli at indiana.edu>
Subject: Beer Microscopy

This was posted on Slashdot:
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/02/09/0157209

Those are pictures of (mostly swill) beer under the microscope:
http://www.molecularexpressions.com/micro/gallery/beer/beer.html

Ale-X in Moncton, New Brunswick (Canada)



Return to table of contents


Date: Mon, 09 Feb 2004 07:18:11 -0700
From: "Dave Draper" <david at draper.name>
Subject: You say Rheinheitsgebot, I say Jehosophat

Dear Friends,

 -Steve says Chad says Dave says of Reinheitsgebot ...
> 
> > The law has to be one of the first ordinances controlling the
> > quality of food and drink in the whole world....
> 

Which leads -Steve to lament:

> Such a wretched misunderstanding !!  Reinheitsgebot *REDUCES* beer quality
> and restricts brewer creativity !

Ah, but "controlling" quality does not mean "improving" quality, does it?  
:-)

Couldn't resist,

Dave in ABQ
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
David S. Draper, Institute of Meteoritics, Univ New Mexico
David at Draper dot Name
Beer page: http://www.unm.edu/~draper/beer.html
The one with the biggest starter wins. ---Dan McConnell






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Date: Mon, 09 Feb 2004 07:39:02 -0700
From: "Dave Draper" <david at draper.name>
Subject: Goodbye glass: Hello plastic!

Dear Friends,

Bev Blackwood has decided to ditch glass fermentors for safety reasons 
and is asking for alternatives.  Bev, don't dismiss plastic out of hand as 
"all too easily scratched".  Every time I read someone say this, it reminds 
me of that old joke: "Doc, it hurts when I do this." "Well then, don't DO 
that!"  Herewith my semiannual pro-plastic rant (I'm not picking on 
anyone here, this is a longstanding hobbyhorse with me!):

It is painfully simple to prevent plastic fermentors from becoming 
scratched for a very long time.  As with any other brewing equipment, if 
you clean it immediately after use when everything is still "wet", any goop 
adhering to the walls of the fermentor (I'm thinking of the yeast "bathtub 
ring" mostly) comes right off with just your hand.  Or, just use a regular, 
soft kitchen sponge (NOT a "scrubby").  No harm, no foul.  For those 
times when a very high yeast mat on top lets part of the ring dry out 
before you transfer to secondary, just fill the thing with hot water and let 
it soak an hour or so, and then it'll also come right off.  Sure, if you let it 
dry on so it hangs on like grim death, the scrubbing you'll have to do to 
remove it will scratch the plastic. So don't DO that.

Plastic is lightweight, cheap, easy to clean, easy to transport and carry, 
and you have spigots + gravity for all transfers.  Personally I find the risk 
of harming the beer much greater from multiple mouth-started siphoning 
steps than from the (dare I use this term) momily of scratching plastic 
fermentors.  Just about everywhere I've lived, the vast majority of floor 
surfaces in the parts of my living space where I go when brewing 
are/were tile, concrete, or some other very hard surface.  One false move 
and it's a major cleanup disaster at best, and a serious injury at worst.  
And nobody has ever demonstrated that beer fermented in plastic is in any 
way inferior (all else being equal!!) to beer fermented in glass.  Glyn 
Crossno responded to my challenge years ago (was it really 1998 Glyn??? 
Wow!) with at least one identical batch split between the two types of 
fermentors, and as I understand it, nobody could tell the difference 
(including myself: Glyn sent me some and I did a blind tasting).

And yes, plastic fermentors most certainly *will* eventually scratch, after 
a couple years or maybe more.  OK: go buy a new one.  Seems like a 
trivial investment to me.  In an ideal world of unlimited funding, of course 
stainless is the best.  Need I complete that thought?

Stepping down off my (plastic) soapbox,

Dave in ABQ
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
David S. Draper, Institute of Meteoritics, Univ New Mexico
David at Draper dot Name
Beer page: http://www.unm.edu/~draper/beer.html
Yeast are forgiving unless you really insult them.
    ---Dan McConnell






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Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2004 07:04:18 -0800 (PST)
From: Calvin Perilloux <calvinperilloux at yahoo.com>
Subject: Plastic and bleach, clutterpostings

Jeremy Hansen reports on his woes of phenols, suspected from 
using bleach as a sanitiser, with some follow-up:

>> made two other changes as well: different bucket,
>> and I changed my chiller into an immersion chiller.

Big changes!  However regardless of what caused/fixed the
problem, are we sure these are phenols and not CHLOROphenols,
thus much more potent and nasty subset of "plain" phenols?  
That would be my guess.  If you weren't rinsing the bleach 
solution out of there, you could well have enough chlorine 
left to bind to the phenols that already exist in your beer.

Note that I've tasted similar to this with iodophor as well, 
in high concentrations in the fermenter (doesn't seem to have 
quite as much effect in the serving kegs) -- iodophenols,
presumably, which also have a noted "medicinal, phenol,
chemical" odour.

>> My pitching temperature may have been somewhat high, 
>> perhaps 85 degrees,

Oh my!  That's a wee bit high, really.

And on another topic, Chad of unknown last name or location
replies to the famed -S and to Wes of Wollombi (or wherever)
about their retorts to his Reinheitsgebot posting.
Chad, MUST you include every single line of Steve's post?
It's only two messages above yours, and even if it were in
an earlier digest, we only need to read the relevant points.
Keeping the extraneous details out of our postings is one thing 
that makes HBD one of the most readable digests on the Web.  
I hereby call for the U:berflu:ssigebandbreitebenutzungsverbot 
of 2004...  ;-)

Calvin Perilloux
Middletown, Maryland, USA







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Date: Mon, Feb 9 2004 10:05:41 GMT-0500
From: Jim Busch <jim at victorybeer.com>
Subject: Fermenters/kegs

Bev asks for suggestions to replace his glass
corny fermenters.  My vote goes to SS stock pots
or a similar arrangement via SS Sankey kegs. Basically
you will be using an open fermenter and I would suggest
you just use the stock pot lid as a dust cover. Ive also
seen folks using a SS wok lid on a keg.  Very easy to
use and you just need a racking arm/cane to move the beer.
I used my SS lauter tun for years before investing in a
uni.

I must be in the minority in cutting my corny keg dip
tubes!  I usually cut about a half an inch off and they
seem to work fine to me.  Then again I dont fret much
about spilling a few pints of beer!

Prost!

Jim Busch



Return to table of contents


Date: Mon, 09 Feb 2004 08:02:36 -0800
From: "Michael O'Donnell" <mooseo at stanford.edu>
Subject: Re: goodbye glass

Bev is looking to use something other than glass for fermenting.

I recently switched to using corny kegs for fermenters and have been pretty 
happy with it.  I do miss watching stuff swirling around, but the loss has 
been offset by the convenience of moving them around, cleaning them (my arm 
fits all the way to the bottom), and that I can fit 2 of them side by side 
in my temp-control chamber.

The one problem I'll point out: I chose 2 beat-up kegs to use as fermenters 
and cut the bottom of the dip tubes off 1" (I don't know if anyone is 
advising against this for fermenters?)... the problem is that one of them 
was beat up enough that the lid doesn't seal properly, which means that I 
usually don't have enough pressure to give me any bubbling out of the 
airlock.  Some people on here suggested pounding out the dents in the lid 
with a wooden mallet, which i have tried without success... others have 
suggested using thicker o-rings from Williams Brewing, which I always 
forget to order until too late.

Beyond that, kegs have been great.

cheers,
mike
Monterey, CA



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Date: Mon, 09 Feb 2004 11:29:16 -0500
From: Marc Sedam <marc_sedam at unc.edu>
Subject: fermentation vessels

Bev is getting rid of glass forever...oh the poor starving US 
glassblowers...

Anyhoo, I've had a great deal of enjoyment out of the MiniBrew fermenter 
I received last year.  It's 15 gallons and has a side racking port and 
bottom dump valve.  Pictures are here (paste the two lines) 
http://www.mivamall.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?
Screen=PROD&Store_Code=store03&Product_Code=f12b

I regularly brew 10 gallon batches of beer and this is perfect.  Works 
great for 5 gallon batches too.  My favorite part, much like the SS 
conicals, is that it's very easy to clean by hand.  I've used nothing 
but surfactants (OxiClean and PBW) on it and post-fermentation deposits 
are easy to remove with a sponge.  Like buckets, scrubbies or scouring 
pads are a no-no.  Often I ferment in the conical and rack to a bucket 
(or carboy) after fermentation is nearly complete.  It's all the 
benefits of the SS conical but none of the costs.

As a matter of disclosure, I did help John put together a "design" for 
the quick disconnect sets you see on the site.  He let me play with some 
fittings and tubing, and what you see is what I use in my brewery at 
home.  He worked hard to find a combination of hoses and QDs that could 
be combined in multiple ways for minimal cost (given that QDs and 
braided hose are both kinda pricey for the average HBer), which I think 
he's done.  Just want y'all to know where I'm coming from.  Not like I'm 
getting a royalty, nor would I have accepted one! :-)

Now if someone could design a CIP sprayball that HBers could use in 
conicals with a regular pump (MoreBeer has one, but it needs a 25gpm 
pump to run), we'd be in business.  

Cheers!
Marc

- -- 

Marc Sedam
Chapel Hill, NC




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Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2004 10:50:08 -0600
From: "Brian Lundeen" <BLundeen at rrc.mb.ca>
Subject: RE: BLC


> Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2004 18:54:07 -0500
> From: Robert J Haines <bjhaines at juno.com>
> Subject: B-L-C ... how nasty is this stuff?
> 
I'd really appreciate
> it if someone who has the background could give some
> practical advice on how cautious I need to be when
> working with it  (in concentrated form, and in the normal 
> working solution of 2/5 oz B-L-C per quart of water).
> 

Well, Bob, I don't have The Background(tm) but that's never stopped me
from providing useless anecdotal advice on pretty much any topic.

I wear neither gloves nor eye protection while handling the stuff, but
then, I'm not prone to spastic fits that would cause me to hurl the
container toward my face (which is not to say that you do). I treat the
concentrate with respect, I try not to touch the stuff, but if I err on
the side of clumsy, it's no big deal to get a little on my hands (at
least it didn't bother me). I just go wash it off. The eyes and mouth I
can see wanting to keep it away from.

In its dilute form, it seems to cause me no problems. It just feels
slippery more than anything.

Cheers
Brian, in Winnipeg


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Date: Mon, 09 Feb 2004 13:31:31 -0600
From: Chris Colby <colbybrewery at austin.rr.com>
Subject: concentrated wort boil solutions

Andrew Tate asks:

> I brew with extract and do partial volume boils on my
> electric stove, somewhere around 3 out of 5 gallons.
> This results in a very dark wort.  Recently I've taken
> to placing a bent coat hanger between the kettle and
> the heating element, and this seems to help a small
> amount.  The beers I make don't taste scorched, in
> fact they seem fine other than color.  Even using
> Extra Light DME I can't get my beer much lighter than
> a dark amber.  
> 
> As much as I'd like to move outside and do all grain
> full volume gas boils, it isn't a possibility for me
> right now.  Does anyone have any suggestions on how to
> reduce the darkening?  And, could this darkening
> result in a higher FG?

Andrew,
There are a couple solutions to this problem:

One is to add your LME late in the boil or at knockout. Most LMEs have
already been boiled at the extract factory and there is no reason to boil
them again. You can boil 2.5-3 gallons of weak wort made with about a pound
of LME for 60 minutes and add your hops, Irish moss and what not as you
normally would. Then, towards or at the end of the boil, turn off the heat
and stir in your remaining LME. As long as the wort stays above 160 degrees
F for 15 minutes, it should be adequately sanitized. (The October 2002 issue
of BYO has an article in this by Steve Bader and lots of extract brewers are
doing this now.)

A second option is to boil your wort at working strength in shifts. For
example, make 2.5 gallons of wort one day, then make 2.5 gallons the next.
This way, you are boiling your wort at the same density as you would if you
were doing a full-wort boil. (I wrote about this method -- which I call the
Texas Two-Step -- in the October 2003 issue of BYO.) An added benefit of the
two-step method is that the first half of your wort acts as a yeast starter
for the full 5-gallons of wort. This is handy if you are one of those
brewers who does not make a yeast starter (although I heartily recommend
making starters for all beers).

Finally, DME is often lighter in color than LME.


Chris Colby
Bastrop, TX



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Date: Mon, 09 Feb 2004 13:42:52 -0600
From: "Doug Hurst" <dougbeer2000 at hotmail.com>
Subject: RE: MSN, CO2 tanks, Reinheitsgabot, Yule & Imbolg


Steve Johnson pointed us to MSN's wretched description of beer.  My initial 
reaction was: what would you expect?  I started to type a feedback response 
to MSN but then thought why bother?  Who there is really going to care?  
They're most likely more interested in continuous creation of content 
regardless of accruacy.  I suppose the take home message is that we, as 
brewers, need to spend concerted effort educating the public about the finer 
aspects of beer.

Roger Deschner claims that Illinois requires aluminum tanks to be tested 
every five years, while steel tanks only need it every ten years.  I have 5 
and 20 lb aluminum tanks and a 10lb steel tank and have been told they all 
need to be tested every five years.  Perhaps my CO2 supplier (nfc gas) is 
trying to make some extra money.   I'm personally a fan of the Aluminum tank 
because it weighs so much less.

I used to think that Reinheitsgebot was a great thing, ensuring quality 
beer.  More recently, however, I've come to the same conclusion as Steve A.  
While this may have helped build a unifing product (and perhaps nation) 
across Germany, it didn't do much for creativity.  I consider the Belgians 
with their variety and no purity law to be on the cutting edge of brewing.  
According to Reinheitsgebot, you can't even use Irish Moss in your beer.  I 
attribute my initial Reinheitsgebot allegiance to the idea that insipid rice 
filled "pilsners" would be outlawed.

Lastly, some clarification.  Steve A calls Yule a Mid-winter celebration.  
Technically Yule, being the Winter Solstice, is actually the beginning of 
winter.  Mid-winter aka Imbolg or Candlemas is early February, generally the 
2nd (groundhog day).


Doug Hurst
Chicago, IL
[197.5, 264.8] Apparent Rennerian



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Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2004 11:53:05 -0800
From: "Brian Schar" <schar at cardica.com>
Subject: Plastic fermenters

Apropos to a couple of plastic fermenter posts lately, 
I have fermented exclusively in plastic for 10+ years.   
I have several reasons for this:

1) Safety.  I am a big klutz.  I can and will hurt 
myself badly on a glass carboy, given the opportunity.  
I have known two brewers personally who screwed up 
their hands pretty badly on shattering glass carboys.  
Knowing how much I hate blood, especially my own, 
and knowing how my wife hates it when I cry like a 
wee schoolgirl upon having my bodily integrity 
compromised, I stick with plastic.  It can't shatter 
and send me to the hospital.

2) Cheapness.  I am cheap.  Plastic carboys aren't 
expensive.  This is one of their saving graces.  
Think you have contamination in one of them?  Toss 
it in your recycle bin (or even use it as a recycle 
bin) and buy yourself a new one.  I usually swap 
out every year or two whether I feel like I need 
to or not.

3) Good results.  I have never bought into the 
"scratches/bacteria" homebrew lore that has 
grown up around plastic fermenters.  I will 
not belabor the point, when a search of the 
HBD archives will turn up more than anyone 
wants to read about the different points of view 
on this subject.  In fact, I tend to believe (purely 
a personal belief with no cites to back it up!) 
that there will be _less_ contamination in plastic 
fermenters vs. glass carboys as a result of the 
ability to get in there and clean them better.  
You can get your hand and your cleaning tool 
onto all surfaces of a plastic fermenter through 
its 12 inch diameter opening.  You're going to 
be relying on much more indirect tools and 
methods to get to all parts of a glass carboy 
through that little teeny hole in the top.

In my view, relax, ferment in plastic, and get 
a new fermenter if you start to worry.

Brian Schar
Menlo Park, CA



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Date: Mon, 09 Feb 2004 15:48:13 -0500
From: McNally Geoffrey A NPRI <McNallyGA at Npt.NUWC.Navy.Mil>
Subject: 9th annual South Shore Brewoff - competition announcement

  The South Shore Brew Club is pleased to announce the 9th annual
South Shore Brewoff.

  The competition will be held on Saturday, May 1st, 2004 at the
Rock Bottom Restaurant and Brewery in Braintree, MA.  Entry deadline
is Friday, April 16th, 2004.

  We have registered with the Beer Judge Certification Program (BJCP)
and will be accepting entries in all 26 BJCP categories (including
mead and cider).

  Competition entry packages containing entry forms, bottle labels,
judge/steward registration form, and other related information will
be available soon from our club website:

http://members.aol.com/brewclub/

  If you have any questions contact Geoffrey McNally, the competition
organizer, at mcnallyga at npt.nuwc.navy.mil or 401-624-3953.


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Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2004 17:02:38 -0600
From: "Steve Arnold" <vmi92 at cox-internet.com>
Subject: Re:  trying to lighten extract brews

Before I switched to all-grain, I asked myself the same question.  In fact, I
tried a little experiment when making a trippel to lighten the color of my
beer.  Here's how it went:

First, I bought the palest liquid malt extract possible.  Knowing that I had
to boil the hops for the time period specified by the recipe, I boiled the
hops in PLAIN WATER, and added the malt extract in the last 15 minutes in
order to minimize any darkening that might result from the boil.

The results:  (drumroll, please)
Bad news:  No perceivable difference in color.  :(
Good news:  Hop utilization was not affected, and the beer came out very nice,
placing 3rd in two separate competitions.

Conclusion:
If I want to be able to brew lighter colored beer, I have to switch to
all-grain, which I did, and have never looked back.

These were my results.  I am interested to hear if anyone else has tackled the
problem with different results.
 -Steve Arnold
Fort Smith, Arkansas




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