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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
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Contents:
  Re: Gas Measurement ("Greg 'groggy' Lehey")
  re: metabite in brewing ("Patrick Twohy")
  Determining EOF, hydrometers, clinitest, CO2graphs? ("Fredrik")
  re: plastics and temperature ("Jon Czerwinski")
  E-mail Harvesting & HBD (Sorta OT) (Bev Blackwood II)
  Upstate NY, too Burley! ("Chad Stevens")
  Off-Topic: SPAM Address Harvesting: On-Topic: Wits (Jason Poll)
  Plastic comments from Dan Schultz (Aaron Martin Linder)
  Insulated beverage (coffee) containers (Inland-Gaylord)" <BrianSmith1@templeinland.com>
  mash tun and PID control ("Mike Sharp")
  RE: Gas Measurement (Scott Alfter)


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Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2004 16:23:21 +1030
From: "Greg 'groggy' Lehey" <grog at lemis.com>
Subject: Re: Gas Measurement

On Thursday, 26 February 2004 at  8:34:59 -0600, Ronald La Borde wrote:
>> From: "Martin Brungard" <mabrungard at hotmail.com>
>>
>> What I'm hoping to cultivate with this message are some ideas about
>> how a tipping device might be fashioned or if there are other
>> approaches to flow measurement that aren't going to cost an arm and
>> a leg.
>
> One possible way to calibrate the bubble counter might be thus:
>
>   * First I would think that the airlock solution must be at the same
> volume and contain the same liquid to have any meaningful
> repeatability.

I've been counting bubbles for the last six months, and this is one of
the things that bothered me.  It took me a while to realize that the
concern was unfunded.

The amount of gas required to create a bubble is pretty well
independent of the amount of water in an airlock.  I'm talking about
the traditional airlock, the kind I use: see
http://www.lemis.com/grog/brewing/temperature-control.html (click on
the photos for a larger version) in case of doubt.

During fermentation, this kind of airlock has all the water on the
exit side.  A bubble forms and escapes; the size of this bubble is
dependent mainly on the diameter of the tube.  Then the water falls
back and a new bubble starts.

The size of the bubble is *almost* independent of the amount of water
in the airlock.  The only effect of the amount of water is to
marginally change the pressure in the fermentation vessel.  You can
hardly expect a difference of more half an inch, which corresponds to
about 1mm of mercury, much less than the typical changes in barometric
pressure.  I therefore suggest that it's negligible.

>   * So how about measuring the amount of water to completely fill a
> corny keg, then empty the keg and put on airlock at gas out port. Now
> start your bubble counter and slowly fill keg with water through the
> liquid in port until full. This should give the exact volume of air
> pushed out. This is your measurement and use this for calibration.

This sounds like a good way to prove whether I'm right or wrong :-)

>   * Someone had posted earlier about using an audio pickup to hear the
> bubbling. This may work, but another method might be to have a small
> magnet in the bubbler to pulse a reed switch, or perhaps a piece of
> foil that would lift with the bubble and break a light beam
> counter........

Interesting ideas there.  I'm still thinking.  Maybe coloured water
and an optical measurement at the bottom of the airlock?

Greg
- --
Note: I discard all HTML mail unseen.
Finger grog at lemis.com for PGP public key.
See complete headers for address and phone numbers.


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Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2004 22:19:07 -0800
From: "Patrick Twohy" <hbd at twohy.net>
Subject: re: metabite in brewing

I'm a little unclear on the metabisulfate vs. chloramine issue. People are
throwing around the term campden tablets, describing them as
potassium metabisulfate.

It's my understanding that campden tablets are SODIUM metabisulfate and
that burton salts are potassium metabisulfate.

Which is the chemical that's recommended for eliminating the chloramine
problem?
- --
Patrick Twohy
Brewing in Burlingame, CA
(1784, 274 A.R.)





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Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2004 08:06:27 +0100
From: "Fredrik" <carlsbergerensis at hotmail.com>
Subject: Determining EOF, hydrometers, clinitest, CO2graphs?

I read Dave Burley's post on clinitest and hydrometers, and I thought I'd
add another idea to help monitor proper performance.

Apart from integrating the graph to the the total CO2 emerging form the
fermentor (if you add the residual CO2 in solution), I think alot be said
also merely by looking at the qualitative shape of the curve. I think the
underlying dynamics of yeast growth and depletion of sugars gives a series
of characteristic graphs for each wort composiotion, temp and strain. I
would expect a fermentation that slows becuse of underpitching or because it
runs out of some nutritions to show a toally different characteristics in
the CO2 graph. It may probably start out fairly normal, but then have an
abnormal and too quick drop.

I hade several batches get stuck last summer because of poor cooling. The
average temp was good, but I had too high cooling gradients over the
fermentor walls. It go stuck, and in the bubble graph it was clear that it
was not normal. It drops way too fast after krausen in a way that does not
comply to the depletion of sugars. Sample pic here for anyone who is
interested: http://hem.bredband.net/frerad/beer/20035.jpg. Note that the
temperautre of the wort wasn't too cool, but my theory was that the cold
fermentor walls on one side probably knocked the yeast out. I also tried
another yeast with the same result. Though it took me 3 batches to realize
it was the cooling, the fact that it was abnormal was evident. Then I
changed my method of temp control and the problem went away and hasn't come
back.

This was supposed to be another argument in favour of the CO2 flow meter
discussion connecting to Ken's post. So even if there may be a certain
inaccuracy in the meter I think one can still find some qualitative info
from the graph.

 /Fredrik


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Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2004 06:33:54 -0500
From: "Jon Czerwinski" <joncz at mindspring.com>
Subject: re: plastics and temperature

Sean writes:
>>>
What about those brown rectangular thermal containers that caterers
use for
coffee?  I haven't found them on the web yet.  I wonder if anyone
makes one
big enough for mashing.  You'd think the US army would have big
thermoses.
<<<

A mermite mash?!?





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Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2004 07:27:42 -0600
From: Bev Blackwood II <bdb2 at bdb2.com>
Subject: E-mail Harvesting & HBD (Sorta OT)

I don't know about the rest of you, but I see spam as a normal 
consequence of using e-mail.  Thus I am not so quick to judge the 
origin of my spam, I simply let my e-mail program do its filtering 
thing and bounce the few that make it past the filter.  I think the HBD 
folks do an excellent  job of trying to 1) prevent spam making it to 
the list and 2) not get our e-mails appropriated. We all need to 
remember that someone, somewhere is always working against HBD's 
efforts on our behalf and as a consequence be understanding on the few 
occasions when the bad guys succeed.

 -BDB2

Bev D. Blackwood II
http://www.bdb2.com



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Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2004 07:19:56 -0800
From: "Chad Stevens" <zuvaruvi at cox.net>
Subject: Upstate NY, too Burley!

I'm going to be in Plattsburgh, NY for the entire month of April.  1.5 hours
from Unibrou and across the lake from Gregg Noonan's Vermont Pub and Brewery
(Gregg you WILL have smoked porter on tap won't you?)!

Anyway, anyone need a judge or help with bottle check-in or having a club
meeting within 3 or 4 hours of there during April?  Who's handling first
round nationals for the Northeast?

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

"This is exactly why I use Clinitest to determine that the reducing sugars
are...."

Dave, you just had to let the dead horse out of the bag didn't you.
Everyone has been tap dancing around the periphery, sticking their finger in
every now and then to see if it's still warm, but you just had to go and
sound the trumpets.  -S is striding purposefully from his lazyboy to his PC
keypad at this very moment.

Please, not another spat of clini-wars.  I'd rather go back to the gyno-
thread.

Regards,

Chad Stevens
QUAFF
San Diego



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Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2004 10:25:34 -0500
From: Jason Poll <jtpoll at mtu.edu>
Subject: Off-Topic: SPAM Address Harvesting: On-Topic: Wits

In HBD #4486 RickDude02 theorizes as how Patrick's email address may have
been harvested by spammers. In the same digest Mark Kempisty comes close to
what I think the answer is: SPAM-bots/scripts specifically designed to
harvest HBD-like-formatted addresses: <name 'at' domain>

Being a software developer myself I can tell you it's exceptionally easy
for a morally inept person to write such a pattern-matching program. Even
doing as Patrick suggests -- using a random character(s) instead of the
word 'at' can still be easily circumvented. I'd say the best solution is to
just get a junk yahoo/hotmail/etc email address. One that you don't mind
getting flooded with spam.

To keep this on-topic though, let me ask something I could probably get the
answers to by searching the archives...if I only wasn't so busy at work. ;)

I'm planning to brew a Wit, and wondered what peoples opinions were of
preparing the coriander? I've heard crushing it lightly with a rolling pin,
or giving it a whirl in the coffee grinder. I'm most concerned with how
each crush-method will affect the end result. It intuitively seems that a
lightly crushed coriander would require you to add more for the same flavor
as a smaller amount of coffee-grinder-ed coriander.

What about yeast?  I have BrewTek's CL900-Belgian Wheat on hand, is there
any other yeast I should consider?  I recently cultured up some yeast from
a bottle of Ommegang's Hennepin -- would that be terribly out-of-style?
I've recently pitching different yeasts in different carboys of the same
wort, so I'm open to suggestions.

What about the unmalted wheat?  Do I need to do a cereal mash first?
What's involved? (web links?)

Any thoughts?  On or off-list comments are greatly appreciated.  Thanks!

             --Jason in Boston, MI.






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Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2004 10:46:04 -0500 (EST)
From: Aaron Martin Linder <lindera at umich.edu>
Subject: Plastic comments from Dan Schultz



- ---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2004 21:55:02 -0800
From: D SCHULTZ <pnwbrewer at msn.com>
To: lindera at umich.edu
Subject: Rubbermade Coolers

Aaron, I'll give you some information on coolers that I can't back up with
data. I base my information on 5 years of brewing with a Rubbermaid cooler
(which I don't use anymore) and 20 years in the plastics industry working
for a company that sold plastics, many of which went through testing for
surgical and or food contact testing. You're safe using the Rubbermaid and
Igloo coolers. HDPE is such a widely used polymer that all of it that is
made for use by companies as big as Rubbermaid, is designed for medical
and food contact applications. Some of it may not have the official stamp
but the plastic manufacturers don't change the recipe, they just don't do
the paperwork. In these days of high volume production, I'll bet they sell
nothing but food and medical grade materials. It would be too expensive,
especially on a polymer that sells for less than $0.40 per pound, to have
two or three separate materials to fulfill both needs.

You'll note that the coolers are white. Rubbermaid either uses TiO2 or
ZnS2 as a pigment. Both are food safe. Temperature won't be a problem as
log as you stay under boiling temps. At those temps, the walls of your
cooler will warp from softening.

I would have posted this to the HBD but I still can't seem to get MSN
based emails through. Thus, I responded personally. You're welcome to post
this if you like.

Cheers,

 -Dan Schultz
pnwbrewer  msn.com


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Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2004 09:50:39 -0600
From: "Smith, Brian (Inland-Gaylord)" <BrianSmith1 at templeinland.com>
Subject: Insulated beverage (coffee) containers

Sean and everybody else,

When Sean mentioned those oversized catering coffee carafes (sp), I
remembered a catalogue for restaurant stuff I had.  Sure enough, there on
page 48 of the Superior Products catalogue (www.supreprod.com) were those
things.  They come in 2.5, 5 and 10 gal sizes.  Check them out.

Brian Smith
Big Ring Brewery and winery
Bogalusa, La

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Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2004 08:11:46 -0800
From: "Mike Sharp" <rdcpro at hotmail.com>
Subject: mash tun and PID control

Sean suggests:

"What about those brown rectangular thermal containers that caterers use for
coffee?  I haven't found them on the web yet.  I wonder if anyone makes one
big enough for mashing.  You'd think the US army would have big thermoses."


I have looked at them but unfortunately, the 10 gallon is a LOT of money
(nearly $200), and the 5 gallon has too narrow of an aspect ratio IMO,
especially down near the bottom.  The wall is thicker at the bottom than the
top.  They do make a soup container that would be much more suitable, but I
was unable to find a large one at any kind of reasonable price.  I see them
periodically on eBay, and elsewhere.  Cambro makes them.  You could go with
stainless steel for the money these cost.

Pat points out an excellent article on PID control.

I have a theory that I've been meaning to try out for a long time, that
would allow two standard inexpensive PIDs to operate in Cascade control.
The SSRs are placed in series, so that one will be the SSR that is actually
controlling, and the other won't.  As the system is below setpoint, the loop
directly after the heater is the contolling one, and it allows the heater to
raise the temp of the mash return as high as safely possible.   The other
loop, at the exit of the mash tun, is still below setpoint, so it's "on"
full time.  As it comes up into it's proportional band, eventually it will
take over control of the heater, and the hot return temp will begin to fall
until the mash is at setpoint and the heater is essentially off (except for
heat losses).

It remains to be seen if it such a system can be tuned...but I think so.

Regards,
Mike Sharp




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Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2004 09:53:32 -0800
From: Scott Alfter <scott at alfter.us>
Subject: RE: Gas Measurement

On Thu, 26 Feb 2004 at 08:34:59 -0600,
"Ronald La Borde" <pivoron at cox.net> wrote:
>   * Someone had posted earlier about using an audio pickup to hear the
> bubbling. This may work, but another method might be to have a small
> magnet in the bubbler to pulse a reed switch, or perhaps a piece of
> foil that would lift with the bubble and break a light beam
> counter........

One method I've considered (but not tried) would be to dye the liquid in the
airlock, shine a light through it, and detect the changes in light received
on the other side when the liquid interrupts the light.  I'm thinking that
you could dye the liquid red and stick a green LED and phototransistor on
opposite sides of the airlock.  Some simple signal-conditioning electronics
between the phototransistor and a computer could count the time between
bubbles.  The only catch I can see is that you would most likely want to use
a glass airlock (unless the plastics commonly used to make airlocks are
resistant to food dye), and I don't know if anybody still sells them.  (I
have one that Dad picked up somewhere years ago, but it needs some cleaning
before it's put back into use.)

  _/_   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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