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Contents:
  Dry hopping & adding berries in style ("Gary Smith")
  Scott ("Jim Bermingham")
  RE: Yeast Starter Questions; RE: Hello; Walk in Cooler finished (eIS) - Eastman" <stjones@eastman.com>


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Date: Tue, 20 Jul 2004 23:14:24 -0500
From: "Gary Smith" <mandolinist at ameritech.net>
Subject: Dry hopping & adding berries in style

In the vastness of what I don't know bout brewing there's a couple of 
gravity wells I keep running into. One particular lack of knowledge deals 
with dry hopping & another deals with adding berries.

I brew, & use both a SABCO fermenter & a conical for primary & 
secondary fermentation. I use Cornie kegs for the final & tap from there. 

When it comes to adding the dry hops I'm unsure what sterile precautions 
needs to be taken. I don't want to contaminate the batch. Also, the 
particles of hops will plug the valve above the dip tube in the corny. 
Seems like I need to put the hops in a bag but if I do that, how do I avoid 
infection?

As to the berries (like Raspberry), How do I add these during the final 
fermentation without the seeds plugging up those poppet valves? Again, 
something like a woman's hose might be the answer but how about the 
bacteria buggers? I want to make a nice Raspberry/wheat beer but really 
don't want to blow it cause of the raspberry.

Rather than my postulating what I think would work best & having this 
brewing microcosm know what a sot I am, I'd appreciate hearing what 
works from those that do it.

Thanks,

Gary


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Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2004 07:39:44 -0500 (Central Daylight Time)
From: "Jim Bermingham" <bermingham at antennaproducts.com>
Subject: Scott

Welcome back Scott.  Are you still brewing in plaid? 

Jim Bermingham


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Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2004 09:22:32 -0400
From: "Jones, Steve (eIS) - Eastman" <stjones at eastman.com>
Subject: RE: Yeast Starter Questions; RE: Hello; Walk in Cooler finished

Traffic is light and I feel somewhat verbose at the moment, so I'll take
up a bit of bandwidth:

John,
I wouldn't exactly call complete fermentation of starters a 'death'
phase. Yeast will grow proportionally more cells at a lower gravity.
Making a 1 pt 1.020 starter, then when finished adding another pint of
1.020 wort will grow more yeast cells than if you were to use 1 pt of
1.040 wort all at once. Using a stir plate will greatly increase this
growth - they say 6-10x more cells because of the continuous aeration. 

I use a 2L erlenmeyer flask on a stir plate with filter paper
rubber-banded over the top to allow gaseous exchange without allowing
microorganisms in. I'll start with 1 pt 1.020 (usually ferments out in a
day or so), add another pint a few days later, then another. I'll
refrigerate it the night before brew day, then in the morning I'll bring
it out and let it come to room temp. While my wort is chilling, I decant
the liquid from the starter, then the first liter of wort goes into the
starter to 'reactivate' it. A few hours later it is at high krausen and
I'll pitch it. I think this way I get the best of both worlds - lots of
yeast at their most active state.

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

Congratulations, Skotrat! You've taken the first step by admitting your
condition! ;^) If I remember right you are in or near Exeter, which is
at 42.9759 N Latitude, 70.94884 West Longitude. This tanslates to [655.1
mi, 81.5 deg] AR.

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

I finished my Walk-in cooler last night! Yaaay! I didn't have a lot of
space availble, and wanted to build it efficient, yet make it somewhat
portable by being able to disassemble and transport it, so it is 4' deep
by 8' wide by 6' high. I built panels about 2 3/8" thick of 2" extruded
polystyrene insulation board with a pine frame made from 2x3s planed
down to 1 1/4 x 2 1/8. Both faces were covered with 1/8" tileboard using
foamboard adhesive. I used 1 1/2" wide foam camper tape and screwed the
panels together with 4" deck screws and finish washers. The door edges
were beveled at about 15 degrees and again I used foam camper tape
covered with metallic tape as the door seal. The bottom panel had
thicker frame members and no bottom covering, with 3/4" melamine on the
inner side.

I had an old 11K BTU window AC unit given to me, and installed it in the
back wall. There is an internal adjustment screw on the controller, but
I could not get it adjusted right to achieve a 48 degree temp, which is
what I was looking for. I could get it down to about 55F, but the
slightest bit of adjustment down would cause the AC unit to run
continuously, dropping the temp at one point to 20F, but freezing up the
coils of the AC unit. So I broke down and bought a Johnson controller,
and last night I installed it. This morning the temp in the cooler was
48F!

I will have space for about 10-12 cornies for cold storage & serving,
installed my 12.2 gallon SS conical for lager fermentations, two large
grain bins to hold about 6 bags of grain, plus space for specialty grain
storage and several cases of bottles.

I haven't tallied up the total cost yet, but I'd estimate it to be
around $500-$550 - certainly much less than anything I could have
bought. It would have been a bit less had I built it in rather than made
it modular, but it is worth it to me to be able to take it with me if I
ever move.

Nuff rambling for now,

Steve Jones, Johnson City, TN
State of Franklin Homebrewers (http://hbd.org/franklin)
[421.8 mi, 168.5 deg] AR





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