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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
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Contents:
  Re: Heating Element for HLT (Kent Fletcher)
  Cidery beers ("Dave Burley")
  impressive compact home brewery (Jeff Renner)
  Steep vs Mash - ppg ("National Midnight Star Brewery")
  Clintest (HOMEBRE973)
  Mold in my Easy Masher, mold in my Berliner Weiss (Michael Grice)


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Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2004 22:11:18 -0800 (PST)
From: Kent Fletcher <fletcherhomebrew at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Heating Element for HLT

Bruce apparently put a standard element (the only kind
sold by his source) in his HLT and is now getting a
rusty looking accumulation.

Bruce, you want to use an element with lower
watt-density than a standard element.  The longer the
element at the same wattage, the lower the
watt-density.  Even better is to get one with an
Incaloy or Nickaloy sheath.  They're made for use in
areas with extrememly hard water and/or problematic
water chemistry.  They go by various names such as
"Water Wizard" and are also very low watt-density. 
Grainger carries them, but so do HD, Lowes, etc.

Also, do you know what's in your water?  You might
have an iron problem.

Kent Fletcher
Brewing in So Cal



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Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2004 09:59:46 -0500
From: "Dave Burley" <Dave_Burley at charter.net>
Subject: Cidery beers

Brewsters,

Fredrik does some experiments and speculation on the origin of cidery taste in
high sugar beers.

My first brew back in 1969 was a can of Blue Ribbon Malt Extract and several
pounds of sugar made up according to a surreptitious recipe I got in a plain
blue envelope with no return address.  My log book says "cidery taste". So my
observation even in those early days of no books and no yeast and etc. agrees
with all those later authors.

Lacking the experimental details, I have to ask Fredrik was the sugar in your
experiment dissolved in boiling water first? Sugar has various bacterial
cultures no doubt.  I always boil a sugar syrup before I use it in a
fermentation.

I do suspect your speculation of alternate pathways is a more likely
explanation than contamination, as it is such a universal observation that
excess sugar gives beer a cidery taste.

I wonder how Corona avoids that problem?

Keep on Brewin'

Dave Burley




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Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2004 10:44:58 -0500
From: Jeff Renner <jeffrenner at comcast.net>
Subject: impressive compact home brewery

Graham L Sanders <craftbrewer at bigpond.com> posted this on the Oz 
Craftbrewing Digest:
>  A german craftbrewer Axel Eifert has made what is probably what is the most
>  compact all grain brewing system you are ever likely to see. He calls it a
>  brew tower, and the whole unit is a stand alone system. It is very
>  impressive.

This is indeed remarkable.  Take a look at

http://oz.craftbrewer.org/Library/Gear/Axel/PerfectBrewTower.shtml

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: Thu, 12 Feb 2004 18:02:13 -0500
From: "National Midnight Star Brewery" <nationalmidnightstarbrewery at hotmail.com>
Subject: Steep vs Mash - ppg

Since the bandwidth is low lately, I have got a question that has been at
the back of my mind.  I have a few buddies that do steeping while I do all
grain.  If you look at most, if not all, recipes in books and magazines that
have both types of recipes, you will note that the specialty grains amount
does not change if you steep or mash.  Looking in John Palmers book
(http://www.howtobrew.com) you get different amounts of sugars from the same
amount of specialty grains if you steep or mash.  For example: Medium
crystal mashed is 29 ppg (at 85% efficiency) while it is 18 ppg if you
steep. (http://www.howtobrew.com/section2/chapter12-4-1.html).

Am I missing something?  Why don't the recipes call for more specialty
grains when you steep to account for the lower yield?  I have been thinking
it is just one more reason to use to convince my buddies that all grain is
the way to go (Mash = more flavor from the specialty grains) but I still
don't know.

Any help will be appreciated!

William Menzl
Midland, Michigan [99.8, 344.8] Apparent Rennerian
National Midnight Star Brewery


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Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2004 16:27:55 -0500
From: HOMEBRE973 at aol.com
Subject: Clintest

I used to use CLintest by Ames to measure
reducing sugars in my beer before bottling,
but it has disappeared from the stores around
here.  Since it was only about $9 per 36 tablets
it was cheap!  Anybody have any suggestions for
a replacement that isn't too expensive.  Even
a high tech alternative woould be ok if it was
cost effective. Thanks

Andy from Hillsborough


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Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2004 19:04:44 -0600
From: Michael Grice <grice at binc.net>
Subject: Mold in my Easy Masher, mold in my Berliner Weiss

Ordinarily when I clean up after brewing, I take apart my Easy Masher,
or at least leave the valve open and the kettle on its side. The last
time I brewed, I didn't take the Easy Masher apart and I left the valve
closes. Mold grew inside.

So I gave it a pretty thorough cleaning. Since I was going to make a
Berliner Weiss (and hence not going to take the wort to full boil), I
boiled the Easy Masher components to stay on the safe side.

So I pitched the lactobacillus culture after mashing on Tuesday and I've
been checking it every day to see if it's tart enough to pitch the yeast.
Today I saw what were obviously colonies of mold floating on the surface
of the wort, which tastes fine (albeit not quite as tart as I would
like--it's been more of a pain than I thought keeping it warm enough).

The wort tastes fine, by the way. I'm going to do a quick boil (15-30
minutes) and then pitch the yeast; I expect the batch to turn out
to be drinkable.

But I'm concerned about my kettle and Easy Masher. Is it likely that I've
gotten the mold from my Easy Masher, or from my kettle (which hasn't
gotten any hotter than 185 degrees Fahrenheit in a few weeks)? Would
anybody recommend doing anything else to further sanitize either? 

Or is this just a consequence of the fact that the lactobacillus wasn't
acting too quickly and I hadn't pitched the yeast yet?

Thanks,

Michael
Middleton WI


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