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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
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Contents:
  sanitation of additives, Cooler cooler ("Dave Burley")
  Re: moisture content of fresh hops (Mark.Hibberd)
  Re: Dry hopping & adding berries in style (Jeff Renner)
  Dry hopping (widmayer)
  RE: Dry hopping ("Dave and Joan King")
  link of the week - "The Brewers' Handbook" (Bob Devine)
  Artificial Enzymes? (Alexandre Enkerli)


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Date: Thu, 22 Jul 2004 10:49:12 -0400
From: "Dave Burley" <Dave_Burley at charter.net>
Subject: sanitation of additives, Cooler cooler

Brewsters:

Gary asks about sanitation of additives and berries to flavor beer after
fermentation.

There is a basic disagreement that you even need to sanitize hops since "they
didn't do this in the good old days in Britain and hops are antibacterial".
But in the good old days in Britain, dry hopping was done most often by the
publican and the beer was served quickly and usuallly the keg was empty in
very few days. Even if the brewery dry hopped it was only a matter of a day or
two more, usually. Thus some conlcude incorrectly that with the antibacterial
properties of hops and this history you don't need to sanitize the hops.


I disagree, as we tend to keep the beer longer and lactic bacteria need no
oxygen to do their thing. I always "dry" hop by throwing the hops in a small
nylon bag with marbles for weight into boiling water and adding the water and
hops to the keg immediately to avoid dissipating the hop oils by boiling too
long.

I guess you could use this same method with berries. I suggest you freeze them
first to release the juice.
- -------------------

Jim Bermingham has finished his walk-in cooler and wonders why he can't get it
cooler than 55F using a room air conditioner. Forest can answer this better,
but if you trick one of these into running longer to attempt to get cooler you
will burn it up. You will have to build a separate evaporator to get down
there. I use a freezer with a Williams controller to get down into the 40s.
Much easier and it works fine.

Keep on Brewin'

Dave Burley




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Date: Fri, 23 Jul 2004 10:47:35 +1000
From: <Mark.Hibberd at csiro.au>
Subject: Re: moisture content of fresh hops 


> Does anyone know the percent moisture removed when drying hops?

I've found that two-thirds to three-quarters of the weight of freshly
picked hops is moisture compared to normal commercial hops. I've
successfully used fresh Pride of Ringwood (nominal 10% AA) by assuming
them to be 3% when freshly picked. That is, use 3 to 4 times the weight
of dry hops. The variations due to region, growing conditions, etc mean
there's no point getting to precise about these calculations.

Mark Hibberd
Melbourne, Australia



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Date: Thu, 22 Jul 2004 22:18:19 -0400
From: Jeff Renner <jeffrenner at comcast.net>
Subject: Re: Dry hopping & adding berries in style

"Gary Smith" <mandolinist at ameritech.net> writes:

>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?

I use a small nylon bag with a draw string.  I boil it to sanitize 
it, which also always boils out some color from the last use.  I also 
use long, narrow bags sewn up from cheesecloth.  These are disposable.

I don't worry about the hops contaminating the beer.  They never have 
in many dozens of beers over a number of years, and commercial 
brewers don't worry either.

Jeff
Reading HBD off the 'net at http://hbd.org/hbd/CurrentHBD.html

- -- 
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: Thu, 22 Jul 2004 22:57:09 -0400
From: widmayer at chartermi.net
Subject: Dry hopping

I have heard that no sterile precautions are needed for dry-hopping - 
the hops just don't seem to ever cause infections.  So I don't do 
anything special and it seems to turn out OK.

I now dry hop in a cornelius keg used as secondary and I put a tube 
screen on the out tube (fastens with a hose clamp) before I sterilize 
and rack from the primary to this keg, then toss in the hops and rack 
onto them.  I always use whole hops - this probably wouldn't work as 
well with pellets.  When they've had enough time, I transfer from that 
keg to another final serving keg using a jumper hose connected to 
two out connectors, using CO2 to push the beer from the secondary 
keg to the final serving keg (which is open to let the air or CO2 
escape as it is filled with the finished dry-hopped beer).  The hops 
stay behind in the secondary.  Works pretty good.  Some might saw 
off some of the dip tube to which the screen is attached but I am 
able to get by without doing this.  I got the tube screen from one of 
the online beer suppliers - I'm sure our sponsor has something that 
would work.

Cheers-

Warren Widmayer
Chelsea, MI
Darn close to 0,0 AR


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Date: Fri, 23 Jul 2004 16:35:44 -0400
From: "Dave and Joan King" <dking3 at stny.rr.com>
Subject: RE: Dry hopping 

Gary Smith asked about Dry Hop sanitizing.  I've been dry hopping in kegs
for years, and haven't had any problem.  I boil the hop bag for 10 minutes
in about 1 cup of water, and then put the hops in the bag, and bring it back
up to a boil, then turn the heat off and let it sit.  I'm not trying to boil
off the essential oils, just get thing up to a reasonable temperature.  When
it's cooled back down a good ways (time to sanitize the racking gear and
keg), I pour a couple ounces of vodka on the hop bag, and put the lid back
on the pan.

Between these 2 actions, I'm hoping to kill whatever would like to grow, and
it seems to have worked.  Knock on wood.

As far as the clogging goes, I learned the hard way to sanitize and add a
float to the hop bag before it goes in the keg.  A sealed empty small
bottle, like the White Labs yeast container, works fine.  If you don't do
this, the bag will settle, and can get into the pickup tube.  BTW, I leave
the hops for 2 to 4 weeks, and then open the keg and fish the bag out.
Longer than this and they seem to impart an earthy (decomposed?) flavor,
which I don't like.

These work for me, I hope this helps you, Gary.

    Dave King (BIER)




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Date: Sat, 24 Jul 2004 11:18:35 -0600
From: Bob Devine <bob.devine at worldnet.att.net>
Subject: link of the week - "The Brewers' Handbook"

Want to learn more about brewing?  Here is
a complete book on-line.  You can purchase a paper
version or just read excerpts in a browser.

http://www.beer-brewing.com/index.htm

Bob Devine


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Date: Sun, 25 Jul 2004 00:26:15 -0400
From: Alexandre Enkerli <aenkerli at indiana.edu>
Subject: Artificial Enzymes?

Through a discussion on the definition of beer (limited to malted  
barley?), some Members of Barleyment (Canadian brewclub) have been  
discussing the use of artificial enzymes in brewing.
Here are two links about beer produced without malted grain:
http://www.novozymes.com/cgi-bin/bvisapi.dll/biotimes/ 
one_article.jsp?id=23891&lang=en
http://www.whitebeertravels.co.uk/gm.html

Despite the "ethical" concerns, artificial enzymes might open up  
interesting possibilities for exotic adjuncts, gluten-free, and/or  
low-carb beer.
Did anyone here experiment with artificial enzymes? If so, what worked  
and what didn't work so well? Did you do it as a supplement to a normal  
mash schedule or as a replacement for amylase reactions and such? How  
did the beer taste?

Thx!

AleX in Montreal
[555.1km, 62.8] ApparentRennerianCoordinates



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