---

	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
		Rob Gardner, Digest Coordinator


Contents:
  Starter questions (Dale Veeneman)
  Sam Smith sale is over (RUSSG)
  Re:  Keg modifications (was Brewing Equipment) (Bob Clark - Sun Engineering)
  Diacytl, Samuel Smith, Bleach to clean bottles (Bill Crick)
  Ooops, My mistake! (Mike Charlton)
  Stupid rotten ginger ale again! (cckweiss)
  Xingu (doug)
  followup on Bud kegs (Kenneth R. van Wyk)
  Greg Beary (Dave Suurballe)
  fermentation crude (mage!lou)
  Yo, Joseph Palladino! (I can't send you the Oatmeal Stout digest) (Chris Shenton)
  hombrewing in NYC area (Rick Noah Zucker)
  brewsheet for the Mac (a.e.mossberg)
  Oars in the Water (Martin A. Lodahl)
  Re: Brewing Equipment ("Andy Wilcox")
  In search of O.P. & misc ("J.L. Palladino, Trinity College")
  temperature control (Pete Soper)


Send submissions to homebrew%hpfcmr at hplabs.hp.com
Send requests to homebrew-request%hpfcmr at hplabs.hp.com
Archives available from netlib at mthvax.cs.miami.edu


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

Date: Thu, 5 Jul 90 8:48:07 EDT
From: Dale Veeneman <dev1 at gte.com>
Subject: Starter questions

     When one uses a starter, how long should it go before
pitching - a couple hours, one day, two days?  Does it make a
difference if you're using dry yeast or liquid yeast?  Is the
addition of hops to the starter mandatory?  Finally, does one
use the entire bottle of starter or just the sediment (assuming
a longer fermentation duration)?  Thanks in advance.

                                            Dale

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Date:     Thu, 5 Jul 90 09:04 EST
From: <R_GELINA%UNHH.BITNET%mitvma.mit.edu at hplb.hpl.hp.com> (RUSSG)
Subject:  Sam Smith sale is over


The sale on SS ales is over. Please, no more requests for the location of the
store. I had no idea the thirst(!) for SS ales at that price would be so
overwhelming.

Just in case(!) I mention a sale again, the store is North End Market (or
Variety or something) on the north end of Elm. St. in Manchester, NH.  They
have a good selection and great prices all the time, although sometimes the
freshness of the beer is questionable.

Sorry you missed it.

Russ Gelinas         R_GELINAS at UNHH.BITNET   (I'm at University of NH)


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Date: Thu, 5 Jul 90 08:53:38 PDT
From: bobc at Eng.Sun.COM (Bob Clark - Sun Engineering)
Subject: Re:  Keg modifications (was Brewing Equipment)

>> From: Greg Beary <gbeary at uswat.uswest.com>
>> Subject: Brewing Equipment
>> 
>> I didn't remove the connections on top, or the long pipe inside. Does 
>> this need to be done to clean the barrels or am I ok as is?

I got my keg system at Christmas.  In response to some of the articles
here, I did no modifications before trying the first batch in it.  Some
contend that leaving the long tube as is will work OK; your first pint
poured will remove all of the sediment at the bottom of the keg.

I found this not to be the case (for me, at least).  So, using a tubing
cutter, I removed about 1" from the end of the long tube.  The next
batch of beer came out crystal clear.

Others recommend a flexible tubing/float arrangement; I have not tried
this.

	Bob C.

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Date: 5 Jul 90 13:31:20 GMT
From: bnrgate!bnr-rsc!crick at uunet.UU.NET (Bill Crick)
Subject: Diacytl, Samuel Smith, Bleach to clean bottles


I sent this in weeks ago, and it seems to have bounced. My apologies
if it has already appeared;-(


Someone asked about fining yeast out of beer to avoid the diacytl
reduction, and get a beer similar to Samuel Smith. I've been doing this for
years. I also boil all of the water. This drives off the oxygen,and 
I beleive when the yeast is short of oxygen in either the respiration,
or reproduction phase, it tends to create more diacytl in the first place.
 It took me a while to figure out that it was the diacytl that was the secret
to my highly popular "house flavors" that a lot of people who tried my beer 
liked so much.
 Put 1/3 of recommended gelatin finings in when you rack to secondary.
add another 1/3 about a week later, and final 1/3 when you bottle.
Note that the fermentation will go slower than you are used to!

Has anyone noticed old bottles getting harder to clean?
Lately, it seems more and more of my bottles are uncleanable due to a fine 
foggy deposit on the bottom. I rinse them after emptying as I always have.
I can clean them with bleach, but suspect this might be the problem?
I have two possible ideas on why this is:
1. The bottles are just getting beat! They have been through about 30 
   refilling cycles.
2. Using bleach to clean the hard to clean ones has damaged them. (I was
   once told by the girl who runs the dishwasher in our cafeteria not to 
   clean my tea cup with bleach, because if I did, it would get dirty faster, 
   and I'd have more trouble cleaning it, and would have to keep resorting to
   bleach to get it clean). Has anyone else heard this story? Maybe the 
  concentration of bleach is a factor. Mayber the use of hot water to clean 
  bottles with bleach is a factor??


Brewius, Ergo Samuel! Bill Crick


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Date:  5 Jul 90 13:07 -0500
From: Mike Charlton <umcharl3 at ccu.umanitoba.ca>
Subject: Ooops, My mistake!

Ooops.  I seem to have goofed.

Al writes:
>Mike Charlton writes:
>>we have had alot of trouble with fusel alcohol

>>rack off the trub before you pitch the yeast.  He maintains that since the
>>wort is below 80 degrees F, contamination is not a real problem.

>I've seen several references to Miller's book and was shocked.  I
>don't know if he's been misquoted or Miller himself is misguided.

It seems that I may have misquoted him.  Unfortunately I can't seem to find
my copy of "The Complete Handbook of Homebrewing".  That'll teach me to
shoot off my mouth when I can't back things up :-).  I was, however,
quite sure that he mentioned that the wort loving bugs are partial to
wort at temps between 180 and 80 degrees F and that this was justification
for his practice of letting his wort sit overnight.

Pete Soper writes:
>  Assuming you thought (and I thought) that you were paraphrasing Miller's
>book "The Complete Handbook of Homebrewing": Wow; This sets some kind of
>record for distortion.

       [A quote (refuting my statement) from Miller's book deleted]

It does seem that I was wrong (too much homebrew, I guess!)

>>  We decided
>>to pitch the yeast immediately (more for time reasons than for worrying) so
>>we were not able to rack off the trub.  I have two questions (finally).

>  Why not?

We didn't have enough time the next day to rack off the trub.  For some
reason I'm also under the impression that the fusel alcohol whose production
can be attributed to the trub, is produced within the first day or two
of fermentation.  Does anyone know if this is true?  (I just know I'm
going to get into trouble again -- I can feel it!).  If this is the case,
then racking after you start the fermentation may be fruitless.

Anyway, I'm sorry for any misinformation I've propagated.

                 Mike


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Date: Thu, 5 Jul 90 13:38:29 -0700
From: cckweiss at castor.ucdavis.edu
Subject: Stupid rotten ginger ale again!

 
Apologies if I'm becoming tiresome on this subject, but yet another
weird occurance has fallen upon my latest batch of beer (Ginger Pale
Ale). If anyone can offer a clue, I'd be a much more relaxed person.
 
I tasted the first bottle of this batch about 10 days after bottling.
It tasted okay, and had good carbonation and a nice head. It was 
very clear, maybe even brilliant.
 
I have opened six more bottles of this beer. Every bottle has been 
absolutely flat, no carbonation at all. I noticed a small 'ring around
the collar', which has been mentioned as a warning sign of bacterial
infection. I was ready for a gusher, but not for flat beer! There is no
taste discernable to my (abused and untrained) palate that would
indicate that there really is an infection. I suppose it's possible that
I mis-capped six bottles in a row, but it doesn't seem likely. It also 
doesn't seem likely that the priming sugar could have been so poorly
distributed through the beer as to result in some bottles being okay
and some being completely flat. Ditto for yeast.
 
Here's the exact procedure I followed for bottling:
 
Before bottling, I ran all my bottles through the dishwasher with
no soap. I use a glass carboy for a secondary. I filled my siphon hose 
with bleach solution (mild), put the siphon in the carboy, and 
siphoned out about a pint of beer, to make sure that all the bleach 
was run out of the hose. I then added my cooled priming sugar syrup 
and 1 packet of Knox unflavored gelatin (dissolved in cool water)
directly to the carboy. I gave the carboy a stir with the racking tube
and proceeded to fill all my bottles. I then capped all the bottles, 
using boiled bottle caps, and one of those cappers that looks kind of 
like a drill press.
 
The yeast used was Edme ale yeast, and the bottles have been sitting
at around 70 degrees F. Woe is me. I don't really want to bottle 
another batch until I figure out what happened to this one. HELP!!
 
Ken Weiss
krweiss at ucdavis.edu
cckweiss at castor.ucdavis.edu

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Date: Thu, 5 Jul 90 18:09:16 EDT
From: hisata!doug at gatech.edu
Subject: Xingu


Mike Zentner asked if anyone has ever had Xingu beer.  I had it a few
wks ago when I was in Boston and it was delicious!  Also, about the
darkest beer I've ever seen--I couldn't see a bit of light through it.

I seem to have as very vague recollection of reading about it some time
ago in rec.food.drink.  I know it's made by the Amazon Indians.  I seem
to recall reading that the grains are ground by Indian women chewing the
grains then spitting them into a vat.  This would, of course, introduce
more enzymes.  Has anyone else heard this, or am I just contributing to
urban legends?  Can anyone provide some enlightenment about this beer?

Doug
gatech!hisata!doug


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Date: 5 Jul 90 21:13:59 EDT (Thu)
From: hplabs!gatech!oldale.pgh.pa.us!ken (Kenneth R. van Wyk)
Subject: followup on Bud kegs

After bringing it up here on the digest, I walked into a beer
distributor (don't ask, it's Pennsylvania...) this evening looking for
an empty keg of Budwieser.  First two places said no go - "it's
against the law to sell empty kegs in PA".  Third place was all for
it; the clerk was helpful and sounded real interested in the idea of
homebrew.  After a round of "how's it taste", "how much is it", and
"how long does it take" questions, I got my 1/4 keg of Bud for $10,
the price of the deposit. 

Hmmm.  Looked a bit like aluminum to me.  I figured no problem, if
it's not what I want, I'll just return it for the deposit (before
cutting it apart...).  Got home, and it didn't pass the refrigerator
magnet test (magnets stick to steel, dontchaknow).  Bud kegs are made
out of aluminum.  :-(

Now, there are those out there right now getting ready to hit the
REPLY key to say that aluminum is just fine.  Lord *knows* I don't
want to be responsible for starting *that* holy war this time.  I'm
not saying that aluminum is any better or worse than stainless steel;
merely that it wasn't what *I* was looking for.

It was certainly worth the try, though.  I'm interested to hear what
other folks come up with.  Are there any stainless steel kegs that
would be suitable for modifying into brew kettles out there?

Meanwhile, my latest ale, a half-mashed effort, is fermenting away
downstairs.  Any other half-mashers out there want to compare war
stories?  Using 3.3 lbs. extract and 4 lbs. grain, I get an OG of
1.046 - with only a wort chiller and sparge bag (total cost $15) in
addition to my all-extract equipment.  The effort has paid off for me.

Cheers,

Ken van Wyk

krvw at cert.sei.cmu.edu   (work)
ken at oldale.pgh.pa.us    (home)

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Date: Thu, 5 Jul 90 19:03:08 PDT
From: hsfmsh.UUCP!suurb at cgl.ucsf.EDU (Dave Suurballe)
Subject: Greg Beary

Greg Beary!  Go out to your garage and empty those Cornelius cans the
minute you get home.  Chlorine bleach is corrosive to the stainless
steel.

I know.  I ruined one that way, and I had bought it new and never used it.

I sterilize them now with Clorox before use.  Between uses, I store them
upside down, dry, and disassembled.

Suurb


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Date: Thu, 5 Jul 90 22:35:23 MDT
From: hplabs!mage!lou
Subject: fermentation crude

In HBD #454 Mitch Evans writes:

>I get an ugly brown residue along the wort/air boundary during my
>initial fermentation.  I have been assuming that this is yeast, or some
>other related (read non-nasty) product of the fermentation process.  BUT,
>with all of the sanitation articles floating around, I have begun to
>worry.  I take very intricate precautions with sanitation, and would hate
>to think I have been allowing mold or other critters into my beer for the
>past two years  ;)

Mitch, I think you have a bad case of the worries.  Take two homebrews and call
me in the morning :,)

I think your initial assumption is correct and this is some non-nasty by
product of fermentation.  I use the blow-off method and always get some of this
gunk adhering to the top of my carboy and the rest gets blown off.  This is one
of the reasons why I like using blow-off.

More to the point, however, is that there are at least as many "right" ways to
brew as there are brewers.  If you like the beer you have brewed over the last
two years then you are doing it right.  If something about your technique fails
to meet someone else's sense of esthetics, well that is their problem not
yours.  If you didn't like your beers then maybe you should be concerned, but
don't look for problems without a reason.

Louis Clark


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Date: Fri, 6 Jul 90 11:24:40 EDT
From: Chris Shenton <chris at asylum.gsfc.nasa.gov>
Subject: Yo, Joseph Palladino! (I can't send you the Oatmeal Stout digest)

Sorry for the broadcast, but I can't reach you, Joe. Can you get me another
address? As you can see below, I've even tried routine through uunet... Help!

    Subject: Returned mail: Host unknown
    From: MAILER-DAEMON at uunet.uu.net (Mail Delivery Subsystem)

       ----- Transcript of session follows -----
    550 <palladin at muscle.trincoll.edu at uunet.uu.net>... Host unknown


I'd hate to post the message here -- it's 10K...

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Date: Fri, 6 Jul 90 10:42:41 -0700
From: noah at cs.washington.edu (Rick Noah Zucker)
Subject: hombrewing in NYC area

	I have just returned from a trip back east.  Two of my friends
were very interested in learning about homebrewing since I have taken
it up.  What I was wondering was: 1) does anybody know of a homebrew
organization in the New York City area?  One of my friends would prefer
having the opportunity to watch over someone's shoulder to get a feel for
what is involved before going out and getting all the equipment (which
could take a fair amount of space in a small Manhattan apartment).
2) Does anyone know of homebrew supplies stores in the New York area?
I found only one which was on Spring Street.  This guy also sells wine
making equipment, coffee and tea.  I found it surprising that NYC has
only one store since we in Seattle we have four or five stores that are
pure brewing supply places.

						Rick Zucker
						noah at cs.washington.edu

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Date: Fri, 6 Jul 90 14:09:33 EDT
From: a.e.mossberg <aem at mthvax.CS.Miami.EDU>
Subject: brewsheet for the Mac


Frederic Brehm has ported Chris Stenton's TeX brewsheet to Microsoft
Word 4.0 for the Mac, and it is now available at the homebrew archives
on mthvax.cs.miami.edu as ~ftp/pub/homebrew/brewsheet.sit.hqx

aem


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Date: Thu, 5 Jul 90 14:19:21 PDT
From: Martin A. Lodahl <hplabs!pbmoss!mal>
Subject: Oars in the Water

HOMEBREW Digest #454 was rich indeed.

Mitch Evans asked:
>    I get an ugly brown residue along the wort/air boundary during my
>initial fermentation.  I have been assuming that this is yeast, or some
>other related (read non-nasty) product of the fermentation process..

This is a source of great debate among ale brewers.  At various
times I've been told that it must be skimmed off to avoid off
flavors, that skimming it off poses more of an infection hazard than
it's worth, that blowoff fermentation is superior because it gets rid
of this brown stuff, and that blowoff fermentation is needlessly
wasteful because it gets rid of a portion of the beer, including
this brown stuff.  I truly can't tell the difference, having had
good batches each way.  Beers I've brewed where I've allowed the brown
kreusen to sink back into the beer have shown no sign of infection.

Algis R Korzonas observed:
>Charlie Papazian says "fusel oils."  I don't know which is correct.

My father, a homebrewer and moonshiner during prohibition, used the
same term, as did the moonshiner who pointed out to me the (oily)
appearance of the fusels on the surface of a batch of fresh 
distillate.  Chemically, though, I've been told their alcohols.

And concerning the feud over Miller's recommendations:  I've
followed the suggestion in the paragraph Pete quoted, and it works. 
Chilling right down to the 30's produces a truly impressive cold
break, and leaving it to slowly warm up to pitching temperature over
night assures trub removal without yeast loss.  Removing brown
krausen hasn't made a difference in my beer that I could taste, but
removing trub sure has.  The "wort spoilers" seem only to thrive in
a specific temperature range, so the trick seems to be to move
through that range as quickly as possible.  Granted, handling the
beer again (racking unpitched wort from the settling vessel to the
fermentor) when it's at pitching temperature presents a significant
risk, but one I believe to be justified by the results.

And Gary F. Mason echoed my own mind:
>If one wishes to aerate the wort when pitching yeast, and have it 
>mixed well too, wouldn't the ideal method be to pour the starter into 
>the fermenter first, then rack the wort in on top of it in a splashy 
>manner?

That same thought struck me, so I tried it.  Works fine.

= Martin A. Lodahl    Pac*Bell Minicomputer Operations Support Staff =
= pacbell!pbmoss!mal  -or-  mal at pbmoss.Pacbell.COM      916.972.4821 =
= If it's good for ancient Druids, runnin' nekkid through the wuids, =
= Drinkin' strange fermented fluids, it's good enough for me!  8-)   =



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Date: Fri, 06 Jul 90 22:19:09 EDT
From: "Andy Wilcox" <andy at mosquito.cis.ufl.edu>
Subject: Re: Brewing Equipment


Using those stainless bud kegs is a great idea.  In days past,
my college roomates and I made a STILL out of a 7.5 gallon keg.
It produced liquid *so* frightening (we used a slobber box and
all, really quite elaborate), we only used it once.  But I digress...

Does anybody have the "definitive guide" to brewing/fermenting
with these kegs?  How big a hole should you cut in the brew pot?
Using the big kegs (15.5g) to make 2 or 3 5gal kegs is a great
and very appealing idea.  I'd love to hear experiences from anybody
whose done it.

 -Andy Wilcox
(andy at ufl.edu)


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Date: Sat, 7 Jul 90 13:53 EST
From: "J.L. Palladino, Trinity College" <PALLADIN at vax1.trincoll.edu>
Subject: In search of O.P. & misc

Greetings:

1) Has anyone succeeded in replicating Theakson's (?) Old Peculiar?
  Papazian suggests adding a cup of molasses to a pale ale recipe.  
  Does this work?  I just started a batch using 1 cup unsulphered
  molasses added to 6.6lbs extra light extract, 1.5# crystal and 
  0.5# toasted malt.

2) What is the current consensus on Edme dry yeast?  I was suprised to 
  notice that the package doesn't specify ale or lager but rather that
  it is 'good for all types of beers'  or something like that.  I suspect it
  is a top fermenter.  I pitched at 2:00 and by 6:00 there was a very
  active fermentation going on (at 68 deg F)!

I'm not worrying or anything, just curious.

Thanks, 

Joe P.

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Date: Sat, 7 Jul 90 21:06:19 EDT
From: Pete Soper <soper at maxzilla.encore.com>
Subject: temperature control

___Chill-Fining

  In a recent Digest cckweiss at castor.ucdavis.edu (Ken Weiss) wrote:
>Does anyone know how commercially produced beers like Sierra Nevada get
>the yeast in the bottle to get kind of hard, so it doesn't cloud up the
>beer when poured?

  I think the answer to this is that 1) the yeast packs very well and 2)
Sierra Nevada doesn't let much sediment into the bottle in the first place.

  In January of 1989 Rob Gardner wrote this in the Digest:

>I have started using a fairly simple method to reduce the sediment in
>the bottle, even with single-stage fermented beers. Just before
>bottling, I place the entire fermenter in a cold place. I have
>successfully used the fridge, the wintery outdoors, and a tub of
>ice-water. The fermenter should stay in this cold place for 12-24
>hours. During this time, a ton of yeast will settle out of the beer to
>the bottom of the fermenter (and will therefore not be available to
>settle on the bottom of your beer bottles. ;-) After bottling, you
>should store the beer at whatever temperature you would have
>ordinarily for conditioning.

  Rob's posting happened to come when it was around 20 degrees F outside
my house. Instead of bottling my next batch of beer as usual I first put the 
carboy of wort in the garage and marveled at the layers of sediment that fell 
out of it, leaving ever clearer bands of wort above. After a couple days 
I bottled as usual and enjoyed a drastic decrease in the amount of sediment 
in each bottle.
  Seventeen months and many sample points later I'm here to tell you that Rob's
scheme works very well. I use a fridge instead of Mother Nature except when it
is cold here (about 48 hours per year :-).  Chilling for 1 to 4 days at 40-50
degrees is usually enough to give me beers with just the slightest smudge of 
sediment. If I am extra careful during the racking prior to bottling and the 
yeast is a type that packs well then I don't even get a smudge - just a layer 
of yeast stuck to the glass on the bottom of the bottle. 
  Not only is there still enough yeast left to provide carbonation but bottling
after chilling results in more dissolved CO2 than I would otherwise get since
the chilled beer looses a lot less during the bottling process. So I actually 
get a head start on carbonation and can get away with less priming ingredients 
than I would otherwise use (in fact it is important to take this into account 
to avoid over-carbonation). Note that depending upon the temperature of your
fermentation before you chill, your mileage (in the form of dissolved CO2)
will vary.
  I know that those of you without a spare fridge can't get too excited at
this time of year. So for you I'd suggest parking this idea away for a cold 
day unless you can get a good deal on ice.
  And sure, this is mainly just a time tradeoff. Given enough time the yeast 
will settle out properly at room temperature, but who wants to wait? This 
scheme is also of course just for warm-fermented beers.

___T-shirt cooling

  This is a followup about evaporative cooling of fermenters. I recently 
started a porter fermenting and since my fridge was tied up with lagering
another beer I couldn't use it. So I used the wet T-shirt trick but this time
I instrumented everything to track the actual temperatures. Note that I had a 
little fan blowing air on the T-shirt constantly and the fermenter (7 gallon
glass holding 5.6 gallons of wort) was in a pan of water so the shirt was 
constantly  wicking water up.  Also, this was in a small bathroom which was
kept with the A/C vent open fully and the door shut all the time. Outdoor
highs were generally upper-80s to mid-90s and lows were around 65. The house
A/C thermostat was set at 77 degrees. I had a thermometer under the T-shirt
and in contact with the glass of the fermenter, an electronic thermometer
probe in the wort and a third thermometer to measure the overall bathroom
temperature.  In addition I took rough measurements of the time between
fermentation lock "glubs".  Here is what I measured:

Day	inside	under	in    lock glubs
	bathroom T-shirt wort  per minute

0,1pm   65       59      75    0
0,8pm   65       59      65    1
1,8am   71       66      67    10
1,6pm   68       62      63    30
2,8am   71       66      68    120
2,6pm   65       60      62    90
2,8pm   65       60      62    40
3,8am   71       66      68    30
3,6pm   65       61      62    2
4,8am   68       65      65    4
4,6pm   64       61      61    2
5,8am   69       64      65    2
5,5pm   64       60      61    1
6,8am   70       65      65    1

  I was concerned with getting the wort temperature down after pitching since
it is against my religion to exceed 70 degrees with an ale fermentation and
my tap water is so warm my chiller wouldn't do any better than 75. Anyway, I
was pouring water on the T-shirt to augment the wicking action and hoping for
the best when I put the thermometer in the wort a few hours later. I was amazed
to see that the wort had cooled 10 degrees in 7 hours. Despite the large drop 
in temperature I had CO2 production after just a few hours and a nice cover of 
foam a few hours after that. Except for the first few hours I relied on the
wicking action of the shirt to keep it wet. Note that it is important that the
shirt be all-cotton or as close to this as possible. The more polyester in the
shirt the less effective the wicking will be.
  One observation is that when the temperature outside the house was high the
A/C ran a lot which pumped a lot of cold, dry air into the bathroom containing
the fermenter. As can be seen, the wort temperature was driven down at the
end of each day's A/C activity and warmed back up overnight when the A/C was
almost idle (and the air in the bathroom grew damp).
  Before you conclude that large temperature drops don't matter, let me share a
a thought. Maybe it is superstitious, but maybe not. I believe that if I had 
pitched a liquid culture, even with a starter, the 10 degree drop in wort 
temperature might have created a big problem.  As it was with 14 grams of very 
carefully rehydrated yeast (Whitbread Ale) I got away with it. I bring this up 
because I have been sloppy with temperatures while using liquid cultures in 
the past and I've gotten nailed more than once. So If I were going to do this 
again with a liquid yeast I might arrange for the starter to be at 70 degrees 
and pitch it into the wort after perhaps 3 hours of "shirt cooling" to more
carefully match up the temperatures.

___Rehydration temperatures

  Speaking of rehydration, I've got a scheme for this now that works well for
me. I boil two beakers of water in my microwave oven with a temperature
probe in one. I then let the water cool until the measured sample is at 105
degrees.  I assume the microwaves slaughter anything in the air in the microwave
and the boiling takes care of the water in the beakers.  I then mix the dried 
yeast into the other beaker, slap some aluminum foil on it and put both beakers
into a shallow pan of water with a couple ice cubes. Over roughly a half hour
the control beaker drops from 105 to 75 degrees (and I assume the yeast+water
is at a similar or lower temperature. The added yeast should drop it down but
the foil cover would tend to slow cooling). Then I pitch the yeast and water 
slurry which is foaming nicely and matched very closely to the temperature of 
my ale wort. I had not used the pan of water in the past and found it took 3/4
of forever to drop from 105 to the wort temperature.

___Fridge-power

  To give you an idea of how impressive that 10 degree drop with a wet T-shirt
was let me compare it with something else I did recently. In making a batch
of lager recently I cooled 5.3 gallons of wort in my spare fridge, which is a 
full sized model capable of running down to 5 degrees F (god knows what the 
freezer section goes to!). It took this fridge, pre-cooled to 28 degrees and 
running flat-out afterward, 3 hours to drop my lager wort from 70 to 60
degrees. It took 3 more hours to get from 60 to 53 degrees. So in comparison
evaporative cooling with a T-shirt and house A/C looks pretty good.

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End of HOMEBREW Digest #455, 07/09/90
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