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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
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Contents:
  Re: gas cooker regulator (Kent Fletcher)
  RE: gas cooker regulator ("Ronald La Borde")
  Re:  gas cooker regulator ("Michael O'Donnell")
  more on hop tea ("Jim Saracco")
  All Grain ("Jim Barnhart")
  thomas hardy's ale (Luca Frangella)


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Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2004 19:48:35 -0800 (PST)
From: Kent Fletcher <fletcherhomebrew at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: gas cooker regulator

Aaron's propane cooker is a little anemic lately.

(snip)
> can I completely bypass that regulator(or is that 
> living TOO dangerously)? Any suggestions?

It would be living dangerously, for the brief span you
would have left.  You better brwe another couple of
batches with your existing set-up first, that way
there'll be enough beer for your wake!  Seriously
DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT REMOVING THE REGULATOR!

I doubt that your regulator is the culprit for your
weak flame.  The first think to check out is the
burner itself.  Remove the nut from the bolt,
underneath the burnre (it's metric) and then remove
the center swirl plate from the top.  Clean out the
burner casting and the bottom side of the swirl plate.
 You might need to hit them with oven cleaner and let
it soak for a while.  Then reassemble the burner and
give it a try, betcha it burns like new.  I've done
this a couple of times with mine, always a huge
improvement.

Kent Fletcher
Brewing in So Cal



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Date: Wed, 10 Mar 2004 08:23:51 -0600
From: "Ronald La Borde" <pivoron at cox.net>
Subject: RE: gas cooker regulator

>From: Aaron Gates <aaronlgates at yahoo.com>
>
>..... is it time for a new regulator....
>is there a cheaper fix.... can I completely bypass
>that regulator(or is that living TOO dangerously)? Any
>suggestions?

It could be a clogged or rusty orifice at the gas jet.  Try to see it
with a magnifier, and clean it.
I have no idea what the regulator pressure is, but you could connect a
gauge to the output and get a reading, possibly someone can tell you
what the correct pressure should be.  I think the regulators are
fairly cheap, so it's no big deal to get a new one. Two types exist,
low pressure, and high pressure. You need to know what one you have.
The color determines the type - I think.

Ron
=====
Ronald J. La Borde -- Metairie, LA
New Orleans is the suburb of Metairie, LA
www.hbd.org/rlaborde





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Date: Wed, 10 Mar 2004 07:47:49 -0800
From: "Michael O'Donnell" <mooseo at stanford.edu>
Subject: Re:  gas cooker regulator

Aaron is having gas-flow problems.  Don't get rid of the regulator!  I 
don't remember what the pressure in a propane tank is at, but probably an 
order of magnitude higher than what the regulator is putting out... you 
will end up with a mighty jet of flame, but I wouldn't want to be the one 
to light it.

When you press down on the plate, you are opening the valve in the 
regulator higher and putting out gas at higher pressure... that this 
improves your flame doesn't really tell you that your reg is the 
problem.  If your gas jet is clogged, you will see the same effect.  That 
would be the first think I would check... take off the gas-in fitting on 
your king cooker... on the flame side, there will be a very small 
hole.  Run a thin piece of wire through this to make sure that it is clear.

cheers,
mike
Monterey, CA

At 07:25 PM 3/9/2004, you wrote:
>Aaron Gates <aaronlgates at yahoo.com>
>Subject: gas cooker regulator



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Date: Wed, 10 Mar 2004 10:41:26 -0900
From: "Jim Saracco" <jfsaracc at gustavus.ak.us>
Subject: more on hop tea

Hello all,

I am interested in hearing any other stories about using separate hop
boils (in water) to up the ibus or steeping hops in water at lower temps
(or boiled briefly) in attempts to increase hop flavor or aroma.

I have been brewing for about three years or so, mostly all-grain, but
supplementing with extract brews here and there.  About a year ago I had
read in byo about not needing to boil malt extract (although this may
only apply to lme??), except briefly, for pasteurization purposes.  So
one day, I did a quick all-extract brew on the stove top (when I should
have been working) to try it out.  As I wasn't using any specialty
grains (it was a helles lager), I just boiled the hops in straight
water, and mixed dme in a separate pot near the end of the hop boil and
heated to boil for a few minutes.  I cooled both, pitched yeast, and
that was that.  Upon tasting the finished brew, I was very impressed
with the overall hoppiness of the brew (perhaps a bit out of style, but
who cares?  I'm a homebrewer!).  I recall being particularly impressed
with the hop aroma and flavor.  Since then, it seems I've heard bits
here and there about mash-hopping and first-wort hopping, with the
suggestion that these techniques may improve hop flavor and aroma by
somehow binding hop oils in such a way that they do not boil off.  I was
intrigued by the suggestion that mash-hopping may achieve this, in part,
as a result of its lower ph.  So, it got me back to thinking about that
extract brew - certainly the ph of my brewing water would be higher than
anything that I mashed or steeped grains in.  So I figured I'd
investigate this a bit more...

I recently brewed a 5 gal. batch of pale ale with all the normal hop
additions during the boil.  After the primary fermentation, I
transferred to two 2.5 gal carboys; in one I added a bit of "hop tea"
made from adding some hops (probably about an ounce?? - somehow I can't
seem to find where I recorded this info...maybe too many homebrews??) to
a couple of cups of cool water, which I then brought to a boil, and then
killed the heat.  Once the beer conditioned in bottles for awhile, my
wife and I attempted to evaluate any effects this hop tea may have had.
We each tested one another by pouring a small sample of each into
glasses and asking which we thought had more hop bitterness, flavor, or
aroma.  (Of course, it could be argued that our palates would be
compromised by whichever we tried first, but afterward we discovered
that each had started with a different brew  - her with the experimental
batch, me with the control - so any effects probably cancelled out.)
Neither of us could tell any difference in bitterness (which was
expected).  Both of us perceived greater body in the experimental brew
(my wife noted it was "smoother"; I suggested it had more "mouthfeel").
Although there were not large differences in hop flavor or aroma, I
ranked the experimental brew as having more flavor, and my wife ranked
it as having more aroma.  (I couldn't tell a difference in aroma; my
wife couldn't tell a difference in flavor.)  The experimental brew also
clearly had better head retention.

So, all of this provides me a little more encouragement for
experimenting further with hop teas.  I'd be very interested in hearing
what any of y'all out there may think of any of this.

Cheers,

Jim





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Date: Wed, 10 Mar 2004 14:45:20 -0800
From: "Jim Barnhart" <jimmydo2 at earthlink.net>
Subject: All Grain

Greets all:

I just put my First all-grain batch into fermentors, I realized during this
batch, that I have a Few things to Learn about all grain brewing.

I used a 'Brew-Tree'

The Recipe is one that I created by converting and scaling an extract recipe

I Was trying to make a 10 gallon batch.

I used Beersmith to try to Create the recipe.
This recipe used 30 pounds of Grain

I understand that with single step there are two phases...

Soaking the Grains and then Sparging

My Recipe called for soaking the grains in 10 gallons of water
And then sparging with half a gallon

I read somewhere, that you want to sparge the grains the entire time you are
transferring from your Mash Tun to your Boil Kettle...

This required considerably more than half a gallon of sparge water

But then I ended up with 15 gallons in my Brew pot

Should I have turned off the sparge water after half a gallon, and then just
let the water seep out of the grains?

Jim Barnhart





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Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2004 01:10:34 +0100
From: Luca Frangella <lucafg at libero.it>
Subject: thomas hardy's ale

what's happened to thomas hardy's ale??

where can i find some bottles???
i'm from italy, but i have uncles in new york..

can i find this finest ale in new york??
or is out of production??

thanks!!!



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