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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
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Contents:
  Re: Reinheitsgebot ("Greg 'groggy' Lehey")
  Cidery... late ("Fredrik")
  Homebrewer's valentine ("glen_leslie@pobox.com")
  Re: Stoudt's Export Gold (Jeff Renner)
  CAP and Cream Ale recipes (Jeff Renner)
  Re: Another Washing Motor Question (Nate Kendrick)
  poppet post removal ("Rich Medina")
  Carbonation problem ("Brian Lundeen")
  Heating Element for HLT (bruce.dir)


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Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2004 16:55:29 +1030
From: "Greg 'groggy' Lehey" <grog at lemis.com>
Subject: Re: Reinheitsgebot

On Sunday,  8 February 2004 at 16:11:18 -0500, -S wrote:
> 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 !
>
> [lots of good stuff omitted]
>
> Reinheitsgebot certainly includes a "purity" clause that requires
> beer to include only water, hops and malt (no yeast please!),

In fact, if you check, you'll find that the ingredients are hops,
barley and water.  That's important.  It also makes it puzzling that
nowadays Guinness is considered not to be in conformance with the
Reinheitsgebot because one of the ingredients is roasted barley.

> 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.

Interesting.  Can you point to it on the web?

Coming back to my previous statement: I've heard that the main reason
for the restrictions on ingredients in the Reinheitsgebot was to
preserve wheat for baking.  Nuernberg isn't far from Muenchen; maybe
the Reinheitsgebot is based on this older law.

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


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Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2004 07:52:24 +0100
From: "Fredrik" <carlsbergerensis at hotmail.com>
Subject: Cidery... late

I didn't notice until the recent (or not so recent) discussion about cidery
notes in beer.

FWIW, here are my input on this...

I did a sugar brew experiment quite recently that got me speculating. I
figure there is nothing strange with the experiments so I'll leave the
details out, I've read some of the previous suggestions what the cidery
flavours come from, lack of masking, invertase enzyme, nutrition imbalance
etc. So I made a sugar brew with about 80% of the fermentables beeing
sucrose, added wyeast nutrition and crystal, and unmalted barley, so I would
compensate for some of the diluting effects of sucrose. Yet the beer ended
up very cidery.

But as a guy with very little experience my working hypothesis is that it
may be low levels of acetic acid causing thes notes.

sugar brew 80% sugar got med pH 3.3
Btw, this brew had seemingly higher intermediate levels of acetaldehye
during fermentation (smelling it).

honey beer 50% sugar got me pH 3.5

To check the ideas.

 - I prepared a pH 3.4 of pure acetic acid in tap water, and it was
definitely in the ballpark regarding flavour.
(this is 540 ppm)

 - Cidery may be very different from sour, but  I suspect that maybe it is a
matter of dilution. Acetic acid neard the flavour treshold maybe is just
"cidery".

 - From searches I found that the acetic acid treshold is 33-175 ppm
depending on masking power of the beer.

By assumption mechanism would be the oxidation of acetaldehyde of course,
like with nutrition limitation, but I read some articles on the net, though
some not fore S.Cerevisae, that increasing glucose levels (beyond the
crabtree effect) *may* cause elevated acetic acid levels due to supression
of some respiration pathway ensymz. Especially the conversion of acetate to
acetyl-CoA was mentioned (acetyl-CoA synthetase). This applied to some other
yeast and glucose > 2% gave this effect.

In summary my working hypothesis is that it is the enforced supression of
some respiration pathways due to increased glucose levels in the wort that
may cause acetic levels to the point of beeing cidery? And there may be a
glucose treshold that decides where the cidery notes set in. These things
reamain to be verified in coming brews. Apart from this oversimplification
other things probably matters too., like wort buffering and temperature. Btw
both brews above are pretty low temp. The honey beer was nottinghman at 13C
ambient.

Yes, I have thought of a possible acetic infection, but some factors tell me
this is probably no the case.
The cidery doesn'y increase, there is no film.

These are all ideas from the laste weeks, ao any comments are welcome, to
support or discard the idea.

/Fredrik


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Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2004 06:38:54 -0800 (PST)
From: "glen_leslie at pobox.com" <glenleslie@yahoo.com>
Subject: Homebrewer's valentine

http://us.yimg.com/a/1-/flash/yahoo/shopping/040126_mon_vday_multicat.swf

=====
Glen Leslie

NOTE:  Please reply or correspond to glen_leslie at pobox.com



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Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2004 10:15:29 -0500
From: Jeff Renner <jeffrenner at comcast.net>
Subject: Re: Stoudt's Export Gold

Paul Kerchefske <wadworth6 at yahoo.com> writes:

>It's time to make a lager.I was looking through some
>back issues of Zymurgy ( July-Aug 1999) and was
>looking at the article on Stoudt's Brewery. There is a
>recipe in it for their Export Gold that looked pretty
>good only one thing,it calls for 2.5 oz of cluster and
>1.5 oz Hallertau for 90 min. I don't know about anyone
>else but that might be a little over hopped.

Good eye.  Sounds like it to me, too.

Export Gold isn't one of the beers listed at 
http://www.stoudtsbeer.com/, but export lagers are typically hopped 
mid 20s to about 30 IBUs.

Cluster is the hop that I use for Classic American Pilsner.  It runs 
5.5-8.5% alpha acid  Let's call it 7% (which is lower than I 
generally see it).  Assuming that you were using it only for 
bittering (ignoring the Hallertauer, which might have been intended 
for later addition), I reckon that to give 75 IBU for whole hops (27% 
utilization) and 92 IBU for pellets (32% utilization).

Even one ounce of whole Cluster would give you 30 IBU, leaving no 
room for the bitterness that late additions of Hallertauer would give.

As much as I like Cluster for American lagers, and recognizing that 
90 minutes of boil will reduce any hop character to a minimum, I 
would go for Perle or Northern Brewer for bittering and Hallertauer 
for late additions unless you are looking for more of an American 
interpretation.  Come to think of it, I don't think there's any 
reason to boil more than an hour or a bit more, either.

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: Wed, 11 Feb 2004 11:21:28 -0500
From: Jeff Renner <jeffrenner at comcast.net>
Subject: CAP and Cream Ale recipes

Brewers

I have had several requests for an update on my procedure for brewing 
Classic American Pilsner (CAP) and cream ale.

I posted this in September 2001 at

http://hbd.org/hbd/archive/3737.html#3737-4
http://hbd.org/hbd/archive/3737.html#3737-5

and I have really changed little in my procedure since then.

I did get a 30 qt. pressure cooker, so I have been pressure cooking 
the cereal mash.  I mash it in a 8 qt/ stainless steel pot in the 
over at 150F or so for 20-30 minutes, then put this pot in the 
pressure cooker and cook at 15 psi for, oh, I don't know, 15 minutes? 
Then I let it cool until it's at atmospheric pressure, then add this 
to the main mash which has been resting at 145-146F for 30-45 
minutes.  This takes the whole mash part way to my target of 158F, so 
I boost it with heat.  Boiling water would work too.  Then I rest it 
for 30-45 minutes, then mashout at 170F.

This is really not much different from a regular cereal boil.  It 
does make some yummy complex malty aromas, though, and presumably 
this carries over into the flavor.

My favorite yeast is Ayinger, sold as WhiteLabs WPL833 German Bock.

I'll be brewing this Monday, 2/16 (President's Day), if anyone wants 
to come by.  Spencer is already coming.

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: Wed, 11 Feb 2004 08:44:23 -0800 (PST)
From: Nate Kendrick <n8sbrewing at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Another Washing Motor Question

Hi all,

Long time lurker rare poster.
Here's a great set of caculators I used for motorizing
my maltmill.
http://www.baumhydraulics.com/calculators.htm

Just kegged a QuasiKolsch, and a Cascading IPA in the
fermenter.

N8sBrewing at yahoo dot com
Tustin California



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Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2004 12:21:50 -0500
From: "Rich Medina" <gothambrewer at att.net>
Subject: poppet post removal

Yesterday Steve asks about poppet post removal on a couple of pin-lock
corneys.  The few times I couldn't remove them myself or with the help
of SWMBO (she held the keg down whilst I applied torque), I brought
the kegs over to my auto mechanic - you could also go to someone who
has a pneumatic impact wrench.  Don't forget to bring them your
modified socket and it may help to bring an 3/8" x 1/2" adapter in
case your socket is of a 3/8" drive variety.  I believe their drives
are 1/2".  After the initial funny look at me with keg in tow and the
subsequent smile on their face on the promise of free homebrew, the
posts came right off.

Of course, I was resigned to lose the keg should the mechanic strip a
thread or have something else fail in the process, so proceed at your
own risk.  In hindsight, I suppose you could fashion yourself a longer
lever by slipping a long pipe over the wrench but that would have left
us with one mechanic who may have never had a homebrew in his life.



Rich Medina
Gothambrewery
Jamaica Estates, NY


You can observe alot just by watching
 - Yogi Berra


> Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 11:55:00 -0500
> From: "Blanchard, Steven B" <stblanch at iupui.edu>
> Subject: Trouble removing dip tube from pin-lock corny
>
> ...I have
> 2 pin-lock kegs and a modified/slotted spark plug socket to remove
the
> pin-lock fittings but I can't budge either of the fittings on one of
the
> cornies.  I have been reluctant to really lean on it for fear of
breaking
> something.  I have no problems with the taste of the brew dispensed
> from this keg but would still like to get the fittings off for
cleaning.
> Any suggestions from the collective??  TIA
>
> Steve



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Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2004 13:09:45 -0600
From: "Brian Lundeen" <BLundeen at rrc.mb.ca>
Subject: Carbonation problem

Well, I've stumped the panel elsewhere, so I've come to the Mount
Olympus of brewing knowledge with my humble quest for knowledge.

One of my kegs won't carbonate. What is especially baffling is that it
carbonated before.

The keg in question has a leaky gas poppet, that is known, but this is
not a problem with the gas hooked up. When my keg fridge died and had to
go out for repair, the kegs got pulled out, and of course, this one keg
lost its pressure and the beer went flat.

The keg has now been back under pressure in the fridge for about a month
now, the pressure inside has been tested and its what it should be, but
the gas is just not going into the beer.

One thing I should point out in case it is of significance is the volume
in the keg. This started out as a partial fill anyway (I just didn't
want to make a full 5 gallon batch of 9% alcohol spiced ale), and I
suspect the volume in there now is quite low. Can that be a factor
affecting the ability to take up gas? I would have thought more gas,
less liquid, it should carbonate even faster, but that is just not
happening.

Please solve this mystery.

Thanks
Brian, in Winnipeg


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Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2004 15:11:32 -0600
From: bruce.dir at TAP.com
Subject: Heating Element for HLT

I have a 5500 watt element in my electric HLT, which is awesome for getting
to temperature quickly.  I had read somewhere that I needed to look for a
certain type of element material but did not do so when ordering mine from
McMaster-Carr.  As a result, I am getting a great deal of rust ? or orange
discharge from the element that pools in the bottom of my HLT.

What type element should I be using to eliminate this?  Where can I find
this type of element?

Thanks

Bruce Dir




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