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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
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Contents:
  Welcome back HBD Digest ("Gary Smith")
  Thank Pat ("-S")
  Re: Malted wheat mash schedule?? ("Greg 'groggy' Lehey")
  Anyone Going To Vegas? (John Palmer)
  Back on Line!!! (Jeff Renner)
  Re: "Anti-oxidant" burnt malt - not- and old beer (Jeff Renner)
  Welcome back ("Dave Burley")
  re:  oxidation & old beer/pt2 ("-S")
  re:  oxidation & old beer/pt3 ("Steve Alexander")
  re:  oxidation & old beer/pt1 ("-S")
  Flakes vs. Whole Grain in Belgain Wit (Kevin Brown)
  Clubs requesting restoration... (Mr Patrick Babcock)


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Date: Fri, 04 Jun 2004 20:59:40 -0500
From: "Gary Smith" <mandolinist at ameritech.net>
Subject: Welcome back HBD Digest

I'm so happy to have the digest in my mailbox again I'm going to brew an 
ale tomorrow & Call it HBD.ORGriginal Ale 

Thanks Pat, glad HBD found its way home.

Cheers!

Gary

Gary Smith
CQ DX de KA1J
http://musician.dyndns.org
http://musician.dyndns.org/homebrew.html

"I am." is considered the shortest sentence in the English language.

"I do." may well be the longest.



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Date: Sat, 5 Jun 2004 01:09:34 -0400
From: "-S" <-s at adelphia.net>
Subject: Thank Pat

Well I had faith that Mr.Babcock wouldn't drop the ball.
Sincere thanks to Pat for all his hard work - hard to believe
he has time for a job and a family on top of his HBD
janitorial duties.

>-\n
Is someone else joining the short .sig club ?

 -S




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Date: Mon, 10 May 2004 10:25:55 +0930
From: "Greg 'groggy' Lehey" <grog at lemis.com>
Subject: Re: Malted wheat mash schedule??

On Friday,  7 May 2004 at 13:20:55 +0930, Greg Lehey wrote:
> On Tuesday,  4 May 2004 at 11:52:27 -0700, Steve Dale-Johnson wrote:
>> Steve Alexander's post yesterday touched on a question that has been
>> bubbling in my mind...
>>
>> <snip>On Weizen, Kunze suggests mash-in of 35-37C, and pulling
>> 33-36% for a decoction which is eventually boiled for 20-25 min.  I
>> think that lands you just under 60C.  Very high attenuation
>> 'course.<snip>
>>
>> Is this for a beer using malted wheat?
>>
>> If not, for a wheat beer using a base of 50% malted 2 row and 50%
>> *malted* wheat, What kind of infusion mash schedule should I be
>> using?
>
> Interesting question.  I don't know how many people on this list are
> also on the German Hausbrauerforum, but I assume there aren't many.
> This topic came up there recently, quite a relief from the normal
> standard of discussion (using washing machines for mashing, or the
> virtues of brewing with baker's yeast).  Rolf Exner
> <rolf.exner at gmx.de> writes (my translation):
>
>   The banana flavour is formed in part from the so-called
>   "Ferulasaeure" [Greg's comment: for ae think that a-like letter that
>   this mailing list rejects; the name could possibly be translated as
>   "Ferula acid" or "Ferulic acid", but I've never heard of it], which
>   is destroyed [Greg: I think he means extracted] in the temperature
>   range 40 to 45 Celsius.  Narziss [Greg: the ss should be another
>   letter that I'm not allowed to use here] states that the optimum is
>   44 <degree symbol>.
>
> Later he writes:
>
>   Ferulic acid is a precursor of 4-Vinyl-Guajacol, which is formed by
>   decaboxylizing this acid.  And this substance gives the sensory
>   impression of bananas.  Not all yeasts are able to create this
>   4-Vinyl-Guajacol.  No bottom fermenting yeast can, and only a few
>   top fermenting yeasts can.
>
> Wolfgang Halmich <wolfgang_halmich at web.de> clarifies in a separate
> message that the acid is formed, not destroyed.  Apart from that, he
> confirms Rolf's description and refers to http://hobbybrauer.info ,
> which unfortunately is only a home page.  With a little effort I was
> able to find a search page, which returned the following URLs for
> "Ferulasaeure":
>
>   http://www.hobbybrauer.info/obergaerigerezepte.htm
>   http://www.hobbybrauer.info/downloads.htm
>   http://www.hobbybrauer.info/Maischen.htm
>   http://www.hobbybrauer.info/technologie.htm
>
> The third of these links gives some additional information and
> suggests that ferulic acid is created only from wheat malt, though
> it's not explicit about this.
>
>> More specifically are the enzymes in malted wheat any different than
>> those in malted barley, or can I treat them as if they are the same
>> as far as temperature rests, etc to obtain the desired body?
>
> Since nobody else has answered, I believe that the answer to the first
> question is "no".  That's only part of the question, of course.

Well, it looks like the HBD list has been down longer than
planned--currently 3 days and counting.  In the meantime, Hubert
Hanghofer (also copied on this message), the moderator of the German
HBF list, has added his comments to Rolf's message:

  Biochemically you're right, but the aroma of 4-Vinyl-Guacajol is
  like cloves!  Banana flavours come from iso-amyl acetate, an ester
  that develops more at higher temperatures.  I know brewers who let
  the temperature rise to 28 <degree symbol> C--which isn't difficult,
  due to the heat of fermentation.

  I always get terrible headaches from such beers, and so I prefer the
  Wheat Beer types with clove aroma (4-VG).  So I keep the rest
  between 40 and 45 <degree symbol> C, the fermentation temperature
  under 20 <degree symbol> C and use Weihenstephan type 68 yeast,
  which is available from Wyeast as #3068.

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: Sat, 5 Jun 2004 00:01:15 -0700
From: John Palmer <jjpalmer at altrionet.com>
Subject: Anyone Going To Vegas?

Good God it's great to be back!
Thanks!! Pat!!

Who all's going to Vegas for NHC in a couple weeks?
I will be there and will give a presentation on Water Analysis, 
Residual Alkalinity, and Mash pH, and another on What to Expect When 
You Are Extracting. The first will be partially a tutorial on how to 
use the RA/Mash pH nomograph in my book and my opinions on water 
treatment. The second will cover malt analysis sheets, etc. like my 
Zymurgy article by the same name did, but will also address lauter flow 
and sparging methods. (I figured it was a good opportunity to tie it 
all together.)

Oh and lastly, I am a lightweight and a poor card player. Yeah. ;-)

John Palmer
john at howtobrew.com
www.realbeer.com/jjpalmer
www.howtobrew.com - the free online book of homebrewing




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Date: Sat, 5 Jun 2004 16:22:39 -0400
From: Jeff Renner <jeffrenner at comcast.net>
Subject: Back on Line!!!

Brewers

We're back on line!  Hooray!

Thanks to Pat for hours and hours of work.  I've been in touch with 
him a bit over the last month and I know he's been pulling his hair 
out.  I haven't seen him, but who knows, he may be wearing a 
hairstyle like mine these days. ;)

Some of you may not know that Pat has been too busy with the rest of 
his life to brew the last few years.  Poor guy has to drink 
commercial stuff, I guess.  So here's what I suggest.

All of you who appreciate the HBD and what Pat has done for it over 
the years, including rescuing it (with Karl) from certain death back 
in the 90s, send Pat a six pack of your best in appreciation 
(carefully packaged as for competition, of course).

I've arranged with Mike O'Brien of the Ypsilanti Brewing Co. to 
receive these tokens.  We'll get them to Pat.

Please send them to (don't use the full company name on the label or 
you may alert the shipping company as to the contents; label them as 
"samples for analysis" if you have to declare them):

YBC
Attn: Pat Babcock
4 W. Forest Ave.
Ypsilanti, MI 48197

Let's overwhelm Pat with our liquid gratitude.

Cheers

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: Sat, 5 Jun 2004 16:29:59 -0400
From: Jeff Renner <jeffrenner at comcast.net>
Subject: Re: "Anti-oxidant" burnt malt - not- and old beer

"Dave Burley" <Dave_Burley at charter.net>

>Jeff speculates that the stability of old beers is sometimes due to the
>presence of highly roasted malt and it's "anti-oxidant" content.
>
>I doubt that burnt malt, by definition, has any significant anti-oxidant
>properties.   However, it is possible that the dark malt flavors cover up any
>damage that oxygen does to old beers.

I'm pretty sure that George Fix suggested that dark malts actually 
serve as some kind of stable "sink" for free radicals or whatever 
those loose electrons are called, and prevent oxidation of other beer 
components.  I'll see if I can find this reference.

Briess has claimed in the past in their newsletter that their 
Carapils serves as an antioxidant.  I can't find this on their newly 
designed website.  This is a very pale grain, of course, not a dark 
one.  I don't know what component of it or of dark grains would be 
responsible.

>And George Fix is correct that beer in a reduced state will not ( by
>definition) be oxidized. Duh.

George wouldn't have said anything quite as elementary as that - I 
probably just didn't summarize him well.  I think that what he said 
was delivering (dark) beer to the package in a reduced could result 
in remarkably long life.  I think that this was in his O'Fest book.

>The best protection for beer is to bottle it with yeast.

Agreed.  I tasted the counter-pressure bottled CAP we brewed for the 
2000 NHC after 15 months and it was noticeably oxidized.  I know we 
were careful to purge the bottles and bottle on foam, but it wasn't 
enough, apparently.  (Any of you who saved them as souvenirs, don't 
bother to open them now).

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: Sun, 6 Jun 2004 09:01:35 -0400
From: "Dave Burley" <Dave_Burley at charter.net>
Subject: Welcome back

Brewsters:

PatB says "Welcome Back" to us.

I think we all owe Pat and Karl ( I assume he is still involved?)  a big hand
of praise for reestablishing this vital link in our hobby. Welcome back to
you!

Keep on Brewin'

Dave Burley




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Date: Sun, 6 Jun 2004 15:44:45 -0400
From: "-S" <-s at adelphia.net>
Subject: re:  oxidation & old beer/pt2


I little background on oxidation is needed:

The term "oxidation" and it's inverse "reduction" have proper definitions,
but it would take several pages of snooze material  and there are many
websites devoted to this topic.  In brief an oxidation-reduction (aka redox)
reaction involves an electron transfer away from the thing being oxidized
and to the thing being reduced.  Often oxygen molecules play the role of
electron-thief, but chlorine, bromine and many others can well.  Oxidation
does NOT require oxygen, but nearly all beer/food oxidation does involved
oxygen.

//NB: Except in rare cases (charging a capacitor from a chemical battery)
all electrons remain in one of the compounds, so the amount of oxidation is
exactly balanced by the amount of reduction !   The electrons aren't lost.
Therefore we can only sensibly talk about one isolated fraction of beer
becoming oxidized, while some other part of beer (often introduced O2 or
oxygen from the freely available  hydroxyl groups -OH) is necessarily
reduced.  When we say 'beer oxidizes' we really mean the fraction we are
interested in oxidizes and the fraction which we don't care about
necessarily is reduced.

Oxidized chemicals *usually* also change their chemical form at the same
time, but the defining feature of "oxidation" is that the original molecular
components are short an electron or so.  In organic chemistry the "thing"
under consideration is always the original carbon atoms .. in food it's the
carbon skeletons of a the carbos, lipids and proteins we must watch.

A dead simple example of oxidation is burning carbon C, to form CO2.  The
original carbon has 4 electrons in it's outer shell while each oxygen
(energetically) lacks 2 electrons to fill it's outer shell.  As a compound
(CO2) they share the carbon's 4 valence electrons rather unequally in favor
of the oxygen.  Note that the carbon is oxidized (CO2 is the most oxidized
state of carbon having lost all 4 valence electrons), and the oxygen
molecules are each reduced by two(each gains two electrons).  Note that the
carbon (which we care about) was oxidize, the oxygen (we care little about)
reduced and the net change is zero.

Most of the oxidation in beer and food generally does involve oxygen., but
very often it doesn't involve free oxygen.   The greatest redox reaction
which takes place in beer is anaerobic fermentation and it uses no free
oxygen !   Skipping along the high points of the Embden-Meyerhoff-Parnas
pathway, the original glucose molecules carbons have an oxidation level of
zero(0)  by my count [the -H bonds lend an electron to the carbons].  The
yeast apply some chemical transformation to the glucose and pry it apart
into 2 3-carbon chains in the form of glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate which each
have an oxidation state of 0 (the original 6 carbons still have a sum zero
oxidation level).

The phosphates is removed and the terminal carboxyls at the other end is
freed as CO2 yielding two acetaldehydes(ox.level=-2 each) and two
CO2's(ox.level=+4) . Together the 6 carbons now have an oxidation level of
+4 (and the yeast have a lot of energy gain).  The next step is a bit odd.
The yeast are forced to expend energy to convert acetaldehyde into ethanol
in order to balance their own internal metabolic redox level (else die of
terminal heartburn).  The ethanol(ox.level = -4) is more reduced than the
acetaldehyde and this costs the yeast energy.

The net-net is this, glucose starts at oxidation level of zero and all it's
products together (2 ethanols + 2 CO2) have  a net oxidation level of zero.
The big deal is that the oxidation isn't balanced ... the CO2's flies out
the fermentation lock carrying off a ton of oxidation (net oxidation level
of +8 for the two CO2s) and the beer is left with a lot of reduced state
carbons (-8 in the 2 ethanols).

Fermentation is a HUGE reducing force in beer because the highly oxidized
CO2 goes up the flue and the remnants are far more reduced.

Several studies have found that the reducing action of fermentation can
actually reduce(de-oxidize) some few oxidized flavors compounds (mostly
aldehydes with a terminal C=O carbonyl group to alcohols with a terminal
C-OH; same activity as acetALDEHYDE => ethanol) but this isn't effective
against  the oxidized lipids and with non-terminal C=O groups (ketones) nor
the epoxides w/ oxygen attached to adjacent carbons.

VDK reduction late in fermentation is worth considering too.  A VDK (vicinal
di-ketone) is just an organic molecule with two ketones(duh!)(ketone =
non-terminal C=O group)  in the vicinity of each other (at adjacent
carbons).   Diacetyl (aka butanedione) is the simplest and most prevalent
example (a 4 carbon chain with the two non-terminal carbons being each a
ketone group).  Yeast reduce diacetyl to relatively flavorless acetoin by
converting one of the ketone carbonyl groups to a hydroxyl.  The other
carbonyl may also be reduced to a hydroxyl leaving butandiol.  This ability
of yeast to remove ketone groups isn't very general so we can't count on
yeast to clean up an oxidized mess.

 (continued)
 -S




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Date: Sun, 6 Jun 2004 16:30:04 -0400
From: "Steve Alexander" <steve-alexander at adelphia.net>
Subject: re:  oxidation & old beer/pt3

(continued)

As wort & beer is exposed to free oxygen energetically favored oxidation
reactions take place. These are almost always flavor negative but vary
greatly in the extent of that flavor detraction..  [Our noses were developed
to help us avoid oxidized stale foods after all].  Some of these oxidized
products have particularly revolting flavors and aromas  and we humans can
detect some of these at terrifically low concentrations - oxidized oils and
certain oxidized peptide compounds for example.  Many other beer chemicals
will become oxidized yet have only a small impact on the flavor and aroma.
For example the simple unoxidized phenolic acids in beer may give it a
little zingy fresh kick, but as they oxidize they only become only slightly
unattractive to the flavor.  Ascorbic acid and free sulfite ions exists in
beer and again give a "fresh" impact, but when these oxidize the
dehydroascorbic and sulfate ions aren't particularly flavor negative.

We arbitrarily label the chemicals which readily take on oxidation and yet
have little flavor impact "antioxidants".  These don't prevent oxidation at
all, instead they take the oxidized state themselves and harm the food
relatively little.  BHA and BHT for example are just readily oxidized simple
phenolics, ascorbic acid and sulfite have already been mentioned.  *Some* of
the oxidized flavor negative compounds in beer can even transfer their
oxidation state to an strong "antioxidant" and thus reverse the flavor
damage.   In practice this can reduce damage but never completely reverse
it.

> The best protection for beer is to bottle it with yeast.

As much as I loathe bottling beer, I have to admit that bottle conditioned
beers have a lifespan that far exceeds any reasonable expectation.  A few
years back I bottle conditioned and kegged (unfiltered) the same beer, and
it was just a few months before the bottle conditioned beer was far ahead of
the keg in flavor.

> As long as the yeast
> remain viable in the bottle and the beer is under CO2 pressure, the beer
> will remain in a reduced state as the yeast will take up oxygen and its
> progenitors.

My baloney meter just went off the chart again !

Yeast in a conditioned bottle will be 90% NON-viable in just a matter of
weeks.  Probably 99% in a couple months.   Bottle conditioned yeast are
essentially non-viable in a hurry yet the bottle conditioned beer will
remain in very good shape for year in many cases - long after 99.9% of the
yeast are non-viable.  Yeast viability is NOT the issue.

I *think* the situation is this.  The closed bottle fermentation does a
tremendous job of removing free O2 and reducing VDKs and other oxidized
products.   If the conditioning yeast have good highly impermeable
lipid-full cell membranes (re-pitch w/ oxygenated yeast) then when they die,
then they won't significantly autolyze and the beer will remain stable for a
very very long time.

Some yeasts autolyze more readily and I've had out-of-date examples of
bottle conditioned Unibroue for example with a very bad autolysis flavor.
This probably also explains why bottle conditioned weizens never use the
weizen yeast (weizen yeast seem to autolyze very readily).


> Like Jeff, I have opened decades old beer that was still good and it was
> always beer that had been bottled with plenty of yeast. Which also brings
> into question the yeast autolysis momily.

Autolysis is no momily  - it's very real and very very damaging to beer
flavor !  The point is that autolysis is NOT the inverse of viability.
Yeast can be live(viable), dead(non-viable) and also autolyzed (dead and
damagingly degraded).

In all I'd have to say that any consideration of oxidation damage to beer
must make far finer distinctions than Dave permits.  Beer isn't merely
oxidized vs reduced, the hundreds of relevant oxidation carriers and several
mechanism must be distinguished.  Similarly yeast isn't merely viable vs
autolyzed - there are states in between.  Things should only be simplified
as much as possible - not farther !

More poetically ...
"Firewood does not become ashes [oxidation] and life does
    not become death [loss of viability]
Just as the winter does not become the spring
Every moment of time is self-contained and quiescent "
 -- Dogen,

Here Dogen objects to the "become" process description.  The more obvious
and concrete brewing corollary is that ashes never become firewood, nor
death become life, the states are clear-cut and separate, and for entropic
reasons irreversible.


- --
At about this point in any HSA or oxidation discussion some someone ventures
the opinion that they ignore all he rules and their beer tastes great. To
that I emphatically state: 1/ oxidation 'damage' presents only minor (yet
clear IMO) flavor deficits in fresh beer.  You won't have bad young beer if
you ignore oxidation, it's just they you could have somewhat better beer
with a little sulfite or O2 reduction in the mash.  2/ In the long run the
differences are unmistakable and do constitute a clear deficit ... but this
is only for several month old beer at the earliest given decent handling).
Controlled comparisons of beer with and without oxidation & HSA care must be
made to see what differences are available.   "My stuff is great" is just
another uninformed opinion unless you also know what a carefully handled
version would taste like.
- --


 -S




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Date: Sun, 6 Jun 2004 16:52:21 -0400
From: "-S" <-s at adelphia.net>
Subject: re:  oxidation & old beer/pt1

About a month ago, Dave Burley wrote ...

> Jeff speculates that the stability of old beers is sometimes due to the
> presence of highly roasted malt and it's "anti-oxidant" content.

Malts do have some interesting (and horribly complicated) anti-oxidant
properties.  As I recently mentioned these have been studied in recent
years (JIB circa 200) and one British company is now producing a malt
specifically for it's anti-oxidant properties.  Some of the Maillard
secondary products, but also heterocyclic pyrolysis product also have
anti-oxidant properties.

Here's an abstract from BRI on malt anti-oxidant properties.
http://www.hgca.com/default.asp?InitialPage=/research/DisplayCurrentProjects.asp
that recites some results.

> I doubt that burnt malt, by definition, has any significant anti-oxidant
> properties.

I can't imagine how anyone could come to that conclusion !  The pyrolyzed
phenolics and heterocyclics of wood smoke are such potent antioxidants that
we commonly 'smoke salmon'.  In tiny amounts the wood pyrolysis products can
keep the very easily oxidized (very foul smelling if oxidized) fish oils
intact for many months !  The barley husk is similar and malt contains
similar phenolics as wood, and the starches also create a range of
heterocyclics when pyrolyzed.  At first glance roast malt could be a great
source of antioxidants.

The BRI abstract above notes, "In the case of coloured malts, the taa [total
antioxidant activities - sja] was found to correlate with colour up to a
malt colour of 400EBC...".   In other words the darkest possible
crystal(coloured) ~150L is also the most antioxidant among crystal
(coloured) malt.  The researchers also note ... "For black malts (1750EBC),
the higher grain temperatures employed during roasting resulted in a higher
taa in the malt".  My interpretation of the abstract (not having seen that
particular paper) is that taa increases w/ malt color to abt 150L then
levels out near that highest level.  Roast malts are a different matter, yet
these are antioxidant.  The JIB paper correlates w/ this abstract in that
other factors (the original malt's phenolic composition and the master's
handling) are large factors.  In the formation of crystal/caramel malt some
of the Maillard products have modestly anti-oxidant properties, but in the
formation of roast malts there are many heterocyclic pyrolysis products -
some which are very active anti-oxidants.

The abstract also hits several interesting points... late runnings contain
virtually no anti-oxidants and are most oxidation prone.  CO2 mash blankets
and potassium metabisulfite were employed in this study to prevent this
early oxidation and increase 'taa'

> And George Fix is correct that beer in a reduced state will not ( by
> definition) be oxidized. Duh.

Then you & Fix & this definition are wrong.  "Beer" is not a single chemical
compound; if it was the statement above would be correct.  Instead it is
normal for fresh beer to be in a very reduced state (due to fermentation)
yet it may still contain flavor negative oxidation products ... say oxidized
lipids from stale malt or a badly conducted mash.  No amount of anti-oxidant
addition will completely reverse this flavor damage.

As brewers we are ONLY concerned with the flavor (and maybe clarity & color)
impact of oxidation products.   We want beer to pass an analysis of the
nose&tongue, not an ITT test for reducing power in a chem lab.  The
oxidation products of primary interest are those which impact flavor - and
that's (thankfully) a minority.  BTW an ITT(indicator time test) is a common
food-lab measure of the reducing power in a food where the time until a
oxidation indicator (a ferric ion based colorimetric test as I recall)
changes is recorded.   Numerous studies show a correlation between beer ITT
values and the beers flavor stability in aging.  Stability *doesn't* mean
that there are no bad-tasting oxidation products present ... just that new
ones aren't being formed.

(continued)
 -S




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Date: Mon, 07 Jun 2004 10:12:13 -0400
From: Kevin Brown <kbrown at uvi.edu>
Subject: Flakes vs. Whole Grain in Belgain Wit

WooHoo the HBD is Back!

A big THANK YOU goes out to Pat and any others who helped with the move! 
Sometime you just don't know what you have until it goes away. I sure 
missed this list!

Now back to brewing questions. Two months ago I made an all grain 
Belgian Wit and I must say it came out great. 45:45:10 Belgian pilsner 
malt: whole wheat: rolled oats. I used whole wheat berries from my 
brother in-law's farm in Indiana but, alas he is no longer growing 
wheat. I want to make another and even keep this beer in my normal 
brewing rotation so I am curious as to how flaked wheat works in a wit. 
I know that it will work but what I am wondering will I get that great 
"wit" color like when using whole wheat? I must say the whole wheat 
berries gave me the color of a wit just like I remember while drinking 
them in Belgium last fall.
- -- 
Cheers,
Kevin Brown
St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands



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Date: Mon, 7 Jun 2004 09:09:53 -0700 (PDT)
From: Mr Patrick Babcock <pgbabcock at yahoo.com>
Subject: Clubs requesting restoration...

Greetings, Beerlings! Take me to your lager...

Folks! If you are looking to get your website
restored, please email me at pbabcock at hbd.org and no
other address (I should have mentioned this in my
original note :^). In any case, I haven't been
ignoring you. It's just taking me some time to
"discover" your note.

Also, my personal 'puter - the one I do most of the
HBD work from, decided to take a permanent vvacation
last week Wednesday. Still waiting for the replacement
to arrive, so most work has to be done from the
dungeon - er, I mean "network room". THe dark, dank,
close quarters hampers my efficiency. Please bear with...



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