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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
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Contents:
  Travel from NHC in Las Vegas to Siebel Course in Durango ("Keith Lemcke")
  yeast starter question ("Steve B")
  Re: Barley in beer (Jeff Renner)
  Dinner Parties and Gender (Alexandre Enkerli)
  One Step Question ("Eric R. Theiner")
  Re:  calories in alcohol (Jeff Renner)
  beertools article ("Dave Burley")
  Re: low carb beers in BYO (Chris Colby)
  Re:  calories in alcohol (bob.devine)
  American Hop Museum--Toppenish WA ("Janie Curry")
  Lambic Questions ("Brad Allen")


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Date: Mon, 26 Apr 2004 20:25:55 -0700
From: "Keith Lemcke" <klemcke at siebelinstitute.com>
Subject: Travel from NHC in Las Vegas to Siebel Course in Durango

Some of the participants in our upcoming Siebel Institute Advanced
Homebrewing Course in Durango, Colorado are coming directly from the
National Homebrewers Conference in Las Vegas. Durango lies about 600 miles
from Las Vegas, making for a spectacular one-day drive through some of the
most scenic terrain in America's Southwest. The I-40 highway will take you
through the state of Arizona, affording amazing views of deserts and canyons
along the way. You then travel through the northwest corner of New Mexico,
gradually climbing into the hills and mesas of southwest Colorado to arrive
at the campus of Fort Lewis College in Durango. It will make for an
unforgettable start to a fun-filled week of education and entertainment.

If you would like a copy of the directions and route map for the trip from
Las Vegas to Durango, just send an e-mail to me at
klemcke at siebelinstitute.com. For info on the Advanced Homebrewing Course,
check out the Courses section on our web site at www.siebelinstitute.com.

Keith Lemcke
Siebel Institute of Technology



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Date: Tue, 27 Apr 2004 09:02:53 -0400
From: "Steve B" <habenero92 at hotmail.com>
Subject: yeast starter question

Just a silly thought occurred to me last night.  When creating a starter for 
a Hefeweizen or any other wheat-type beer yeast, would it be better to use a 
wheat/malt DME as opposed to an all malt DME?
S



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Date: Tue, 27 Apr 2004 10:08:03 -0400
From: Jeff Renner <jeffrenner at comcast.net>
Subject: Re: Barley in beer

Steve Alexander <-s at adelphia.net> wrote:

>My experience when malting 6-row feed barley, (including measures
>to reduce phenolics) is that it gives a clear and somewhat offensive
>phenolic flavors when used  in large quantity.  I expect the flavor would be
>noticeable and yet acceptable at 10-20% of grist.

This was not my experience at all.  I had good results, which I think 
I posted hear at the time.

In fall, 1995, I malted some 6-row seed barley I bought from Farmer 
Zastrow (who grew and cleaned it) in central Wisconsin, where my 
sister lives.  It was a fun project tracking down a farmer who saved 
his own seed barley.  My brother-in-law was an elementary principal, 
and his janitor knew the farmer.  I think he wanted $4.00 for a one 
bushel sack.  I insisted on paying him $7.  That's how tourists drive 
up the prices for the locals.

I malted 12 lbs in a zapap by soaking it for three days until it 
chitted, changing the water 3x/day, 60F ambient.  Then I rested it 
(floor malted in my garage) for four days, wetting 5x/day and turning 
occasionally.  It sprouted very un-uniformly, and on average, I 
probably over-modified it.

I dried it in the clothes dryer in two muslin sacks on the permanent 
press setting for 8 hours.  They made an incessant thumping racket, 
and it made a mess inside the dryer with broken kulms that escaped 
the sacks.  I imagine it could have been a fire hazard.  I cleaned it 
out regularly during the process but wife was still unhappy.  (I 
haven't repeated this).

Then I sifted out the dried, shriveled kulms and kilned it in my 
pizza oven (every home should have one) for one hour at 160F, then 
finished at 200F for one hour, Dortmunder specs per an article in 
Zymurgy.  It smelled wonderfully malty - better than any store bought.

Some months later I brewed 8 gallons of CAP with 9.5 lbs of this malt 
plus 1 lb. Durst pils and 3 lbs corn (I wished I had got some corn 
from Farmer Zastrow but this was just flaked corn).

I did a 30 minute rest at 132F, thinking that my protein levels could 
stand it, then boosted it with boiling water to ~144, then 158 with 
heat and recirculation.

Despite using a half pound more than my usual malt bill, I came up 
short on SG and added 1.4 lbs light dry malt extract, and still ended 
up at 1.048 rather than my usual 1.051.

Unfortunately, this was also the batch I tried first-wort hopping 
with Cluster hops, and I got a strong black currant flavor from that 
that was unpleasant.  However, my tasting notes say, "Otherwise, very 
nice - quite malty," and I recall that it was maltier than my usual. 
I didn't record anything about clarity, body or head retention, so I 
think this must have been normal for my CAPs, which is to say, good.

This was a fun experiment, but all in all, not worth the trouble.

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: Tue, 27 Apr 2004 11:18:40 -0300
From: Alexandre Enkerli <aenkerli at indiana.edu>
Subject: Dinner Parties and Gender

Thanks to those who replied to my query about bringing beer at dinner 
parties. I also received private replies including another endorsement 
for Garrett Oliver's  /The Brewmasters Table/ and a comment from 
someone who helped convert a friend to homebrewing through bringing 
homebrew (mostly APAs and Dubbels).
Overall, strong beers seem to be preferred, perhaps to compare more 
closely to wine. One of my favourite beers is Unibroue, brewed close to 
Montreal (but recently bought by Ontario's Sleeman Brewing and Malting) 
which might be the perfect dinner party beer: most of their beers are 
strong Belgian-style ales on lees and they sell in 750ml bottles with 
champagne-style popping corks. They do seem to make a good wine 
replacement.

At the same time I send my query about dinner parties, I was discussing 
gender differentiation in beer tastes. Most people seem to agree that 
men and women have large ranges of tastes but these ranges aren't 
necessarily coextensive. An interesting thing is that several people 
seem to agree that a number of women enjoy wits and/or Belgian ales 
more than more bitter beers. As some of the replies on wine 
replacements at dinner parties brings up somewhat similar 
categorizations, there might be a parallel between the major alcohol 
divide (wine and beer) and the major gender divide. It might not be 
such a strong parallel, but it's fun to look at.
Wasn't there some data on North America women drinking wine more than 
beer? The perceived sophistication of both wine and Belgian beers might 
also help explain these phenomena.

Ale-X in Moncton, NB, very soon to be back in Montreal, Qc



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Date: Tue, 27 Apr 2004 11:06:22 -0400
From: "Eric R. Theiner" <rickdude02 at earthlink.net>
Subject: One Step Question

Was there a collective groan when Nathan asked about One Step?
Here I come for some more free advertising.<g>

Seriously, Nathan, I wouldn't use One Step on your oxygen activated
caps.  When I do use them (which is rare-- kegging is so much easier),
I don't sanitize because I have heard (this is hearsay only) that there
are potentially deactivating reactions with just about any sanitizer that
you use.  Can anyone with real knowledge of that weigh in?

Secondly, since I was accused of rhetoric by Dave (and I say that
lightly-- I don't think Dave meant to impugn my character, and he DID
say that he liked my other product, Straight-A), I simply want to
clarify my position:

1) One Step is not registered as a sanitizer for hard surfaces.  This is
not due to lack of confidence in the product, but because the EPA has
caused the registration process to be prohibitively expensive for small
businesses.  Even a big operation like Five Star cannot afford to
register their own sanitizers (they sub-register Star San and the like,
which is free if you buy the registrant's raw materials).

2) The active ingredient in One Step IS registered as a sanitizer, although
for aqueous environments rather than hard surfaces (two areas of use
require to distinct registrations).  The manufacturer does not see enough
market potential in my area to register for hard surfaces, but there is
enough market potential in bio-remediation and water clarification to
support the current registration.

3) I don't mean to waffle when I say that one minute will provide a log 5
reduction in existing microbial life.  I am a scientist and have a hard time
with absolutes.  This is why the companies that I work for have marketing
people to take the gray stuff that people like me produce and turn it into
black and white for the general public.

4) I'm not sure where all the contact time confusion came from, but it
really is 1 minute for a log 5 and 5 minutes for a log 7.  (That means 1
minute should be enough to sanitize, but 5 minutes can be even better.)

In all seriousness, I hope this helps.

Rick Theiner
LOGIC, Inc.




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Date: Tue, 27 Apr 2004 11:37:34 -0400
From: Jeff Renner <jeffrenner at comcast.net>
Subject: Re:  calories in alcohol

  Bob Devine <bob.devine at worldnet.att.net> wrote

>Math pop quiz -- If your liver can convert 8 - 10 grams/hour
>(roughly 1/3 to 1/2 ounce) and if a bottle of beer contains
>that amount, can you drink an entire 24-bottle case of beer in
>one day at the rate of a bottle per hour and not get legally drunk?

The standard rule of thumb is that you can handle one standard drink 
per hour, but this doesn't agree with your 8-10 grams of alcohol 
metabolized per hour.  I think the difference is in part that a 
bottle of standard beer has more like 14 grams of alcohol.

There is a problem with English units, of course, with two different 
units both called "ounce" (fluid ounce, 29.57 ml, and ounce 
avoirdupois, 28.35 grams), which confuses things.

A typical US beer (such as Budweiser) contains 5% abv, which means 
that a 12 fl. oz. bottle contains 0.6 fl. oz. ethanol.  So this is 
already higher than your estimated amount.  A 1.5 fluid ounce jigger 
of 80 proof (40% abv) spirits or a 5 fluid ounce glass of 12% wine 
contains the same amount.

Since ethanol has a SG of about 0.79, this means that the amount of 
ethanol in a drink weighs about 14.0 grams.  (And of course, when we 
drink a pint and kid ourselves that it's just one drink, or a bottle 
of IPA, or a heavy pour of 101 proof bourbon, and again kid 
ourselves, it's more.  Not that I ever do this.)

So is the rule of thumb that we hear in health class and other 
places, that we can metabolize a drink per hour, wrong?  Sounds like 
it from your 8-10 grams per hour.

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: Tue, 27 Apr 2004 11:50:04 -0400
From: "Dave Burley" <Dave_Burley at charter.net>
Subject: beertools article

Brewsters;

Kenneth Peters asks for comments on an article

http://www.beertools.com/forum/index.php?post=6297#anchr-6297

by "eric" in which he states that (malto)dextrines do not contribute to
mouthfeel and that what gives good mouthfeel in unknown.

Well, it has been known for some decades that it is the protein fraction which
is the major contributor to mouthfeel.  I suspect the sweetness from the
decomposition of some of the maltodextrins in contact with the saliva has a
positive effect also.

As far as early wort hopping goes, I believe the major effect is due to the
co-precipitation of specific ( and perhaps rough tasting)  bittering
components in the hops with the denatured protein as the boil starts. No
proof.

I have been unimpressed with the effect in my experiments. G. Fix had a
different opinion. Maybe because I used only noble hops, as is my practice.

If this co-precipitation mechanism were the case, this would make hops usage
less efficient but might allow the use of rougher ( and cheaper) hops in place
of the noble hops.

I have no idea where eric gets his knowledge that no German brewer is using
FWH, no reference, but that is a major component of his argument.

Keep on Brewin'

Dave Burley




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Date: Tue, 27 Apr 2004 11:30:04 -0500
From: Chris Colby <colbybrewery at austin.rr.com>
Subject: Re: low carb beers in BYO


In the April 26, 2004 Home Brew Digest, "-S" offers some criticisms of the
low-carb beer in Brew Your Own (BYO). As the author of the piece (and editor
of the magazine), I thought I'd respond.

Although I disagree with much of "-S"'s assessment, I would like to say that
I welcome his criticisms and the critiques of other homebrewers for anything
that appears in BYO.

> The first few paragraphs start off well enough discussing the popular Atkins
> diet as the motivation for low carb beer.  Then the article then deviates
> from the obvious "elephant" issue.  .  There is no description of the type
> of carbs in beer nor the type of carbs of concern to Atkins dieters.   This
> is a bit like discussing electricity without mentioning  current and
> voltage.   There is little indication that there even are distinguishable
> carbs.  

    BYO is a homebrewing magazine, not a dieting magazine, and the article
was written with that in mind. There are different kinds of carbohydrates in
beer and I did indeed make little effort to differentiate between them. I
did this for two reasons. First of all, in the previous issue we ran an
article by John Palmer on sugars. In it, he covered the types of
carbohydrates in wort and the order in the which they are metabolized by
yeast. Secondly, although following the Atkins diet is one reason you might
want to brew a low-carb beer, there are others. I will admit that if you
expected the article to be a treatise on the Atkins diet, you would likely
be disappointed. 

    However, the article was not about the Atkins diet, it's about making
low-carb beers. Whether you regard the introduction to the piece as an
"elephant" or just a lead into the article is up to you.

> This is exemplified in the attempt to measure beer carbohydrate
> using a type of diabetic blood sugar meter which only registers glucose
> (most strip meters use a glucose oxidase enzyme reaction specific to
> glucose).  The author may as well have used a pH meter to measure total
> carbs.  Apparently no thought process exists behind this dismally misguided
> effort beyond, "I have hammer, therefore everything is a nail".

    The reason for the attempt to use a blood glucose meter is explicitly
spelled out in the article -- many homebrewers would like to have a simple
way to measure carbs in beer. They may think that a blood sugar meter would
work. I show that, in fact, this is a poor choice. The rationale was not "I
have a hammer, the problem must be a nail." The rationale was "you may have
this 'hammer' in your house -- is it the right tool for the job?"

> There are several sweepingly erroneous statements, for example that certain
> flavors ("Sweet and malty are out") are unavailable in a low-carbohydrate
> beer.  Malty flavors are primarily due to tiny amounts of Maillard products
> which do not add any considerable carbohydrate, and there are plenty of
> non-carbohydrate sweeteners in use, including in alcoholic beverages.  This
> particular assertion is central to designing beers and is also apparently
> dead-wrong.

    The sentence "-S" quotes comes in a section of the article devoted to
"normal" beers. A sweet beer -- made the "normal" way is obviously going to
a be a beer that has a relatively high carbohydrate concentration.
Similarly, the grains that contain more Maillard products typically contain
more unfermentable carbohydrates.

    Later in the article, I discuss adding sweetness and reducing residual
carbs, making sweetness possible. (My own, admittedly small scale,
experiments indicated to me it was hard to get any maltiness in beer,
although I agree it's theoretically possible.)

    Taken as a blanket assertion, my statement "Sweet and malty are out" is
false. Placed in the context of the article, I don't think it is misleading.

> [. . .] There is no consideration for the
> fact that Beano's intended purpose is to degrade non-Atkins type complex
> carbs, which don't matter,  into simple ones.  A proper look at this issue
> would require a serious analysis of the actual sorts of carbs present in
> well attenuated beer and which are degraded by the respective enzymes.

    A serious analysis of the actual sorts of carbs present in beer would
indeed be of interest to "hard core" Atkins types. If I had written the
article for an Atkins publication, I should be taken out and whipped (with
wet noodles?). In actuality, I wrote it for BYO readers -- most of whom I
believe would find this analysis very boring. As it is, I tried to write the
low-carb article to be as accessible as possible to homebrewers. Yet, the
most common complaint I've heard is that it was too technical.

> The article suggests that the first mention of Beano in Brewing
> appeared in BYO circa May 2001.  I myself posted about Beano in HBD#3012,
> Apr 1999, and I certainly wasn't the first.  The article ignores the brewing
> issues involved in adding starch based Beano tablets to the fermenter.

    I did not know this. I will retract this claim on our Mail page. (If
"-S" will email me, I can publish a letter from him, explaining his
criticisms.)  

> After discussing the reduction of residual enzymes the author launches into
> a completely counterproductive discussion of adding vast amounts of
> artificial sweeteners with carbohydrate bulking agents to the highly
> attenuated beers.   No support for this action appears tho'  the author
> boldly states that sweeteners counteract the thin body of well attenuated
> beers,  also that one can (and by implication should) add an equivalent
> amount of sweetener to make up for the lowered gravity due to Beano.

    My advice was based on some trials I did. I felt that Splenda did a
pretty good job of adding back sweetness and mouthfeel.

> Did
> the author think that the dextrins reduced by Beano were sweet flavored
> (they aren't) and therefore deserved replacement with equivalent sweetness ?

    All but the driest beer have some sweetness to them. Adding Beano
reduces both the sweeteness and mouthfeel in a beer. Adding Splenda adds
some of this back (although the flavors are not exactly the same and the
ratio is -- I think -- a little off).

    Adding Splenda to beer does not replace the exact equivalent (from a
flavor or mouthfeel perspective) of what Beano takes away from a finished
beer. But, I think it does a pretty good job at 'doctoring" the flavor to
make it more acceptable. Upon rereading the article, I agree that I could
have made this much clearer.

> Does he not realize that the malto-dextrin Splenda bulking agent is exactly
> the sort of carb he just removed from the beer ?

    There are different kinds of malto-dextrins. Some are digestable by
humans (and, I think, certain yeasts such as _S. diastaticus_). Others are
indigestible. It's not clear (to me at least) that the carbohydrates Beano
works on are exactly the same as the malto-dextrin in Splenda.

>   He concludes the section
> suggesting the addition of 12-16 ounces (by volume?) of Splenda to a typical
> beer !  

    Yes, by volume. The article say 12-16 oz. and gives the metric
equivalent as 355-473 mL.

> Tho' a much smaller amount of sweetening might be useful, the author
> would  be well advised to consider non-carbohydrate body & mouth-feel agents
> such as proteins or (non-Atkins carbo) glycerol..

    Good idea. I hadn't thought of that.

> A table of nice HB recipes with apparently fictitious carbohydrate content
> listings is included.  Where the writer could possibly have gotten these
> figures is unexplained.

    I ran out of space to cover a "quick-and-dirty" way to estimate carbs in
beer; the article explicitly states that the figures in the recipes are
estimates (not measurements) and that the actual amount of carbs in a
homebrewers beer will depend on how it is brewed.

> [. . .] Someone's asleep at the wheel on the editorial staff.

    I'll consume some tasty, tasty carbs in the hopes of waking myself up.


Chris Colby



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Date: Tue, 27 Apr 2004 18:34:54 +0000
From: bob.devine at att.net
Subject: Re:  calories in alcohol

> I wrote
> >Math pop quiz -- If your liver can convert 8 - 10 grams/hour
> >(roughly 1/3 to 1/2 ounce) and if a bottle of beer contains
> >that amount, can you drink an entire 24-bottle case of beer in
> >one day at the rate of a bottle per hour and not get legally drunk?

This question was actually inspired from a news story I read
in the past month about a practice at an Ivy League (Yale, I think)
that encouraged the 24-beers-a-day based on the old rule-of-thumb
and the quote from Norm of the "Cheers!" tv show -- "24 beers in a
case; 24 hours in a day. Coincidence? I think not."

Imagine the typical frat boy declaiming, "And ya won't get drunk!"
Science roolz, dude!

Jeff Renner does the calculations and finds a mismatch.
> So is the rule of thumb that we hear in health class and other 
> places, that we can metabolize a drink per hour, wrong?  Sounds like 
> it from your 8-10 grams per hour.

I agree, it is wrong.  Or it is correct only as a loose rule over
a short time period.  Extrapolating to just 24 hours shows the problem.

A good survey of alcohol metabolism and portion sizes is:
  http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/tt/1997/oct29/alcohol101.html

According to that link, metabolism is 6-8 g/hr for a 154 lb man
(both values might be too low for a HBD reader ;-) and a typical
lager has 18 grams of alcohol.  So using their numbers, for every
beer you need almost 3 hours to totally metabolize the alcohol.

Bob "weeding out the slow neurons since the 1970s" Devine


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Date: Tue, 27 Apr 2004 22:26:18 +0000
From: "Janie Curry" <houndandcalico at hotmail.com>
Subject: American Hop Museum--Toppenish WA

While out cycle touring through the Yakimah Valley wine country last week, I 
stumbled across the American Hop Museum.  It's a small museum established by 
a hop grower cooperative in the Yakimah valley.  Overall, well worth the 
visit if you are in the area visiting tasting rooms.  They offer a guided 
tour, and have a nice collection of antique implements.  Admission is $2.  
The address is 22 South B Str., Toppenish WA, phone 509-865-4677.  The 
museum curator wasn't too excited about their web page, but they plan to put 
some work into it. Here's the link.  www.americanhopmuseum.com.

If you want a good lunch head for the Pioneer Kitchen, 227 S. Toppenish Ave 
(closed on Sunday).  Typical small country restaurant food.  I had one of 
the chicken fried steak sandwiches...most excellent.

Up the street from the hop museum you can find Pioneer Foods, a producer of 
flavored coffee syrups and specialty soft drinks.  This company is owned by 
a sweet old couple and they really enjoy giving tours and tastings.  Their 
prices on flavored coffee syrups are very reasonable!

Struck up a conversation with a hop grower and the chief founder of the 
museum.  Dismal news for the American hop growers overall.  Weak dollar in 
Europe and the production of hop varieties with 14-16% Alpha Acids have 
forced growers to cut back hop production by 50%.  Higher AA levels and 
better extraction methods have lead to increased production of hop extract.  
Most of the country's hops are grown in the Yakimah valley so you can 
imagine the ecconomic impact. The grower mentioned that hop picking 
equipment that normally sells for $1M now goes for $35K.

He mentioned that one grower is trying to cater to microbreweries by growing 
different and unique hops, as most producers are growing for the mega-swill 
producers and remain very secretive about the development of new varieties.

Overall, I couldn't get over the hospitality and friendliness of the locals. 
  The local wine producers that owned and operated the wineries we visited 
(not the big ones with the "wine chick" out front pouring tastings) were 
very gracious and talked for an hour or so.  Matter of fact, we had to cut 
our bike rides in half because we spent so much time talking.

Todd in Idaho
KE4ALG



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Date: Tue, 27 Apr 2004 15:50:47 -0700
From: "Brad Allen" <ballen at globexplorer.com>
Subject: Lambic Questions

I am working on putting together a Lambic/Gueuze recipe.  
Not sure if anyone here has much experience, but I have a few questions.
1.  Has a Lambic blend is this all I need?  Do I need this and a 
standard ale yeast?  Or do I need this and other bacterial/wild yeast 
cultures (i.e. bruxellensis, lambicus, pediococcus)
2.  All of the recipes I find on the web have the bacterial/wild yeast 
cultures pitched after primary fermentation.  Why is this?  To me 
spontaneous fermentation happens (in Belgium) when all of these 
bacteria fall in to the wort at the same time.

Thanks for any help


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