---

	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
		Digest Janitor: pbabcock at hbd.org


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Contents:
  Groggy's beefs ("Pat Babcock")
  Mash Enzyme Optima (John Palmer)
  Re: Warm fermenting, part 2! (Scott Alfter)
  Optimum pH ("A.J deLange")
  Re:  Autoclaving equipment ("Dennis Collins")
  Spirit of Belgium 2005 - January 14-16 ("Rick Garvin")
  Re: Growing Brett & Belgium (Joe Preiser)
  New kegger having problems -- they won't hold pressure! ("markmier@netzero.com")
  Warm weather yeast ("Nick Nikiforov")
  HERMS set temperature (Steve Funk)
  sec: unclass Brew Stand Design ("Williams, Rowan")


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Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2004 01:24:39 -0400
From: "Pat Babcock" <pbabcock at hbd.org>
Subject: Groggy's beefs

Greetings, Beerlings! Take me to your... Ah, forget it.

Though I don't believe that within the Digest is the place for the rest of 
this discussion, I will address it here since Greg's comments appeared here, 
and in the hopes of allaying any forthcoming comments. The Digest is *NOT* 
the correct place to make suggestions for Digest operation. I would also 
appreciate private email stating a problem rather than the segways into a 
posting, such as that which Greg provided - it's not just him, though: many
others have as well. The place to communicate with me is through my email
address; not through a Digest post.

To his first comment, Western-ASCII; not Western European (ISO 8859-1). In 
the "Old Days" there was such a beast. Perhaps it's time to strike that 
option from the FAQ since it is apparently confusing people and/or the 
WESTERN-ASCII label no longer exists. In the future, I hope to modify the 
Digest to substitute "legal" characters for those it encounters from non-ASCII 
character sets, automatically convert HTML to plain text, and to automagically 
wrap long lines; however, there are many other projects in the queue ahead
of these, and, in terms of coding, it's now a solo act. First, though, I will 
modify the code as you suiggested: to show the offending line for the non-ASCII 
stuff.

Second, yes. My mailer, too, is encumbered with the modern inflexibility in 
setting lines lengths, so, to follow the HBD rules, I must manually chop
them if I wish to post from this mailer. And since I missed chppping one line in 
my reply to you, the Digest rejected my post and I had to resubmit - just like 
everyone else's.

Third, publishing the SPAM trigger words would make the technique rather 
pointless. There would be those intrepid spammers who would put the list to 
good use, limiting the protection it affords the Digest. I will publish those 
words that are not SPAM triggers and that also make the server simply die on a 
post so that they can be avoided in posts.

Fourth, yes. It is necessary to preclude mail having p*stmaster in it from
reaching the Diges - mail that *should* have gone to the p*stmaster address 
does not belong in the Digest; therefor, it makes sense to prevent such mail 
from entering the queue. You, as a Digest reader, would derive little value in 
knowing that so-and-so's mailbox is over its limit, or has been suspended, or 
the other administrivia that normally comes with that address attached. And, 
if a sysadmin couldn't figure out how to configure his/her server to send error 
messages to the errors-to address rather than the reply address, chances are 
the rest of their configuration is flaky, and those notes would be of limited 
informational value even to me.

Certain of your comments have prompted ideas which will enhance the Digest's 
functionality and user-friendlines. Thank you, I do appreciate it; however, I'll 
say it again: the Digest itself isn't the place for this discussion. Private 
email will suffice.

- --

See ya!

Pat Babcock in SE MI
pbabcock at hbd.org


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Date: Tue, 14 Sep 2004 23:27:45 -0700
From: John Palmer <jjpalmer at altrionet.com>
Subject: Mash Enzyme Optima

Yesterday Greg asked a question about what the actual optimums are for 
the mash temperature and pH for Alpha and Beta Amylase, regarding a 
message on the German homebrewing forum.

In short, different sources have different sets of numbers. And, 
because of the .3 pH difference between mash temperature and room 
temperature, you have to be cognizant of what temperature the reading 
was taken at, or know that the source is quoting the pH as measured at 
the standard temperature of 20C.

For instance: Malting and Brewing Science, Volume 1, p.279
  9.14 - Mashing and pH
"The addition of some salts to the mash alters the pH as outlined 
above. In addition the pH of a mash or wort alters with the 
temperature. At 65C (149F) the pH of the mash will be about .35 unit 
less than at 18C (65F), owing to the greater dissociation of the acidic 
buffer substances present. Therefore enzymes whose pH optima are known 
from determinations at 20C (68F) appear to have a higher pH optima in 
the mash if this is cooled, as is usual, before the pH  is determined. 
An infusion mash is best carried out at pH 5.2-5.4. Consequently the pH 
in the cooled wort will be 5.5-5.8."

And as an example of one notable source:
Kunze, W., Technology of Brewing and Malting, 2nd Ed. p. 193
Beta Amylase: 62-65C (144-149F)  pH 5.4-5.5
Alpha Amylase: 72-75C (162-167F) pH 5.6-5.8
(these pH optima are likely quoted at 20C)

Also, the type of starch substrate seems to make a difference as well 
as how the alpha and beta are separated. Lots of room for 
interpretation here.
John Palmer
john at howtobrew.com
www.realbeer.com/jjpalmer
www.howtobrew.com - the free online book of homebrewing




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Date: Tue, 14 Sep 2004 23:55:03 -0700
From: Scott Alfter <scott at alfter.us>
Subject: Re: Warm fermenting, part 2!

On Tue, 14 Sep 2004 at 10:54:56 -0400, pacman at cox.net wrote:
> This morning I received a whole lot of email saying
> that I should try Belgian styles, which are fermented
> at much warmer temperatures than many other ales. 
> I enjoy a good Belgian, so I decided to do some
> Googling. Unfortunately I am getting mixed messages.
> 
> See: http://brewery.org/library/mashtun/belg.html
> 
> brewery.org says repeatedly that these styles are
> fermented at below 65 degrees. The few belgian styles
> that don't say below 65 degrees don't say anything at
> all. So I ask you this: which Belgian styles of beer
> should be fermented (and I mean the entire fermentation,
> I cannot do any of it below 77 degrees, and really,
> I'm looking at close to 80. 

Randy Mosher wrote recently that abbey ales have been fermented as high as
80 degrees; this is done, in part, to encourage production of the esters
that give a good dubbel or tripel its character.  

I recently made a tripel that turned out fairly well, with a fair amount of
clove flavor to it.  It was fermented at 76 (room temperature, since the
beer fridge currently has a Jever clone lagering in it) with WLP500.  The
recipe is something like this:

* 6.5 lbs. extra-light DME (the lightest you can get)
* 2 lbs. turbinado sugar
* 1 lb. Cara-Hell malt
* 2 oz. E. Kent Goldings 6% 60 min. before end
* 1 oz. Saaz 4% 15 min. before end
* WLP500 Trappist Ale yeast (make a starter)

Steep the grain in a bag for 30 minutes in one gallon  at  150 degrees.  Fish
the bag out, add another gallon of water, add the extract and sugar, and
bring to a boil.  Boil for 60 minutes, with hops added according to the
times listed above.  Chill, rack into the fermenter, top off to make 5
gallons, pitch the yeast, and let it bubble away for a couple or three weeks
at room temperature before packaging.

  _/_  Scott Alfter
 / v \ Visit the SNAFU website today!
(IIGS( http://snafu.alfter.us/      Top-posting!
 \_^_/ rm -rf /bin/laden            >What's the most annoying thing on Usenet?



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Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2004 12:56:00 +0100
From: "A.J deLange" <ajdel at cox.net>
Subject: Optimum pH

As I mentioned in yesterday's post I was in Belgium last week (to Jim 
Liddil: get away from Brussels' crowds of tourists; drink any beer 
anywhere - you won't be dissapointed) for the XI DeClerck Chair which is 
a conference presented every other year jointly by the faculties of the 
KUL and UCL (both translating as  Catholic University of Louvain but the 
former being in Leuven where Flemish is spoken and the latter in 
Leuvain-la-Neuve where French is the language). The old hands will 
recognize the name of Jean DeClerck, arguably the worlds foremost 
brewing scientist, living or dead,  whose 2 volume "A Textbook of 
Brewing" is seldom out of reach even though it was published in the 
50's. The title of this year's conference was "The pH Paradox in the 
Malting and the Brewing Process". Academics, brewers (from little 
outfits like Interbrew) and one home brewer (you can probably guess who 
that was and to this day I still don't know how this came to pass) 
presented papers on the effects of pH on the various aspects of beer 
making.  Simply put, the paradox is that there is no optimum pH. As 
Greg's post of yesterday points out alpha amylase works best at a range 
of pH's that is quite removed from the best range for beta and these are 
just 2 enzymes of the hundreds involved so in answer to his question as 
to whether there are other factors the answer is "Yes, lots". Some of 
these have to do with FAN production, wort and beer viscosity (which are 
more important to commercial brewers who have to filter the stuff), 
colloidal stability, microbiological stability, flavor stability, 
Maillard (browning reactions) and on and on. The last presentation was 
on the traditional acid beers of Belgium and the chairman of that 
session observed that these beers violate nearly all the guidelines 
presented during the preceding three days of papers. So there it is. An 
optimum pH would only exist as a mathematical abstraction: the pH which 
maximizes the weighted sum of desireable beer attributes (e.g. you'd 
have to trade off things like fermentability and longevity in the 
bottle). Practically speaking, strike pH's of 5.2 - 5.6 should serve 
most of us as homebrewers with the best point (the one that produces the 
best beer) in that range determined experimentally.

Let me leave the technical for a minute to comment on the social. The 
differences between  drinking beer with guys who bought more breweries 
last year than the total gallonage you have brewed in your lifetime are 
amazingly few. I think a brewer is a brewer is a brewer at whatever the 
scale and they all seem to be nice folks!

A.J.


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Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2004 09:17:36 -0400
From: "Dennis Collins" <dcollins at drain-all.com>
Subject: Re:  Autoclaving equipment

John Harvey in HBD 4604 laments an infected brew.  Alas, John, I feel your
pain.  After a long period of success, to get an infected batch is certainly
disheartening.  I recently spoiled an entire batch of IPA and I was
devastated.  However, don't panic.  I hardly think that autoclaving your
equipment is necessary.  When I threw out my IPA, I did do some "house
cleaning", and have brewed 3 perfectly good batches since, and autoclaving
wasn't on my list of fixes.  Here are some things that I think will help:

1.  Are you handling your yeast properly?  Are you making starters using
proper sanitation techniques?  I would look at this first.

2.  Taste your starter before you pitch.  I know this sounds weird, but you
can head off a disaster with just one simple taste.  No, it won't taste like
beer, but believe me, if your starter has gone south, you will know it.
Just flame the rim of your starter jug really good and pour a little of the
starter wort into a shot glass before you pitch it into your wort.  Keep
some dry yeast handy in case you discover that your starter is bad.

3.  Replace your plastic hoses periodically.  Plastic does not last forever
and it's relatively cheap, so do this probably once a year depending on how
often you brew.

4.  Brew often.  Equipment that sits around for months at a time accumulates
"stuff".  The more you use it, the less time that "stuff" has to make a home
in your equipment.

5.  Don't EVER put your equipment away wet.  This includes hoses.  After you
rinse out your hoses, grab them by the end and spin them around quickly to
get rid of as much moisture as possible.  Hang them vertically in an area
that gets some circulation, don't put them into a closed box.

6.  Ferment in glass, or replace your plastic fermenter periodically.
Plastic doesn't last forever as I've mentioned before.  Small scratches (or
big ones for that matter) can harbor nasties that may never come clean.  I
know there are a lot of people here who swear by plastic fermenters, but I'm
not disparaging plastic at all.  I'm just saying that you will decrease your
risk of infection by going with glass or getting a new plastic bucket.  You
said you were paranoid, so I think this is a perfectly reasonable
recommendation.

7.  Use a no rinse sanitizer.  Removing a piece of equipment from a
sanitizing solution, shaking off the excess, and using it immediately will
go a long way towards minimizing infection.  My sanitizer of choice is
Iodophor mixed to 12.5 ppm, but there are others to choose from as well.

8.  Lastly, take a close look at all your post boil procedures.  Minimize
the time from knock-out to installing an air lock, and minimize the number
of items that actually contact the wort.  From the time the burner is turned
off, cover your kettle if possible.  Leave your hoses in sanitizer until
right before you use them.

I am certain you can fix your problem with resorting to an autoclave.  Hope
these suggestions help.

Dennis Collins
Knoxville, TN
http://sdcollins.home.mindspring.com



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Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2004 10:08:43 -0400
From: "Rick Garvin" <rgarvin at garvin.us>
Subject: Spirit of Belgium 2005 - January 14-16

The Brewers United for Real Potables (BURP) homebrew club is sponsoring the
Spirit of Belgium 2005 Conference on January 14 through January 16, 2005 in
Arlington, Virginia. This celebration of Belgian and Belgian-Style Beer will
feature speakers from Belgium, England and the United States. More
information is available at http://www.burp.org/events/sob/2005/.

Cheers, Rick

Rick Garvin, rgarvin at burp.org
BURP Fearless Leader




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Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2004 09:50:52 -0500
From: Joe Preiser <jpreiser at jpreiser.com>
Subject: Re: Growing Brett & Belgium



 >
 > Subject: Growing Brett
 >
 > I have heard that Arthur Tome of the Pizza Port has produced a beer
 > fermented with all brett. Anyone have sucess growing Brett into a
 > culture that would be able to do this? I have had very poor luck
 > keeping it alive as it grows. Does ok in the lambic/orval clone when
 > it is mixed.
 >
 > Yes, I have read the lambic faqs.
 >
 > Thanks,
 > Bill in Southern CT
 >
 >
 >

Bill,  I haven't tried culturing Brett.  I can confirm that Tomme Arthur
did indeed have a beer at this year's AHA Conference that was fermented
with 100% Brettanomyces.  It, however, wasn't one of the usual two
Brett. strains we're used to (B. lambicus & B. bruxellensis).  I believe
it was B. anomalous.  Don't ask me where he got it (probably wine
country) or how he cultured it though.

 > ------------------------------
 >
 > Date: Tue, 14 Sep 2004 10:27:32 -0700 (MST)
 > From: Jim Liddil <jliddil at VMS.ARIZONA.EDU>
 > Subject: Belgium
 >
 > Long time reader mainly lurking for a while.  I finally have a
 > chance
 > to go to Belgium.  i'll be staying in Brussels. I will only be there 
three
 > days. So can folks suggest a must see bar, beer stores and choolate shop?
 > Any beer that you would only have in Belgium? A must have?  any other 
cool
 > suggestions welcome.
 >
 > Jim Liddil
 > North Haven, CT
 >
 >

Jim, some places to visit in Brussels are:

    Bier Circus (Awesome beer selection)
    Rue de l'Enseignement, 89 (through at least the end of the year)
       -then-
    Rue de l'Enseignement, 57 (new home sometime Feb-Mar 2005)

    La Mort Subite (Sells unsweetened Mort Subite lambic)
    [not owned by the brewery producing the lambic of the same name]
    7 rue des Montagnes aux Herbes Potageres

    In 't Spinnekopke ("In the spider's web")
    [Great food-usually cooked w/ beer-for dinner]
    1 Place Du Jardin Aux Fleurs

There are several beer cafes (bars) around the Manneken Pis statue.  I
can't remember their names at this time.  There's the Brewer's Guild
Hall in the Grand Place and a brewpub on one of the streets leading to
the Grand Place but the latter wasn't that good when I last tried it a
couple years ago.

In case you weren't aware, meals in Belgium aren't what we're used to in
the US.  Depending on where you're staying, breakfast will be
Continental with the possibility of a hard-boiled egg and cold cuts.
Locals usually have a cold plate of cheese & pickled veggies for lunch.
   Dinner is the big deal and is usually a multi-course event; often with
a set menu.

"Snacks" are available throughout the day and are quite substantial and
always of good quality.  They include the Belgian national food, frites,
spaghetti, lasagna, kababs (similar to gyros), etc.; all freshly made.
There are _tons_ of restaurants all around the Grand Place.

In 't Spinnekopke offers great beer and the food is excellent and often
prepaired with beer.  They serve beer during the day but only serve food
(IIRC) in the evening.

Can't help you on the chocolate front.  The shops around the Grand Place
will carry some high quality stuff but you'll pay dearly for it.

    Joe




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Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2004 15:06:53 GMT
From: "markmier at netzero.com" <markmier@netzero.com>
Subject: New kegger having problems -- they won't hold pressure!


Greetings from a long time lurker, first time poster.  I've been brewing
extracts/cider/mead for about 10 years now.  A few months ago I finally 
made the plunge and bought a Cornelius kegging system from morebeer.com.  
I'm very happy with it for the most part, or I should say I am very 
happy with the one keg that actually works.  

I'm not very happy with the quality of (4 of the 5) used kegs I got.  
Out of 5 kegs that I bought, I can only get one of them (currently full 
of IPA) to hold pressure.  I am wondering if there is any trick to it.  
When I got them, I also bought new gaskets and all kinds of spare parts, 
extra poppets, posts, relief valves, lubes and all that.  When I got the 
kegs from morebeer, I totally took them all completely apart, cleaned 
everything, replaced all the gaskets and some of the poppets, lubed up 
the posts with the thicker paste lube (a morebeer product), and lubed up 
the gaskets with the spray lube (also a morebeer product).  Actually, 
one of them had the posts so stuck that I had to lengthen my ratchet 
with a pipe, and used another pipe for leverage to pry off the post. 
I damaged the threads on that one, which was I guess my fault but the 
post just would not come off any other way.  And now, like I said, 4 of 
the 5 kegs won't hold pressure.  At all.  It leaks out noticeably as
soon as I turn on the gas.  2 of them from the lid, and 2 of them from 
poppets.  What am I doing wrong?  I've tried every permutation of 
post/different poppets/spacer rings (some of them came with white 
plastic spacer rings that fit underneath the poppet), and I've tried 
replacing the lid gaskets, lubing, not lubing... I don't know what else 
to do.  Did I just have bad luck and end up with 4/5 junky kegs?  Does 
anyone have any suggestions of what else I can try?

By the way, the 5th keg works like a charm.  :)

Mark Mierzejewski
Kirkland, WA


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Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2004 16:01:20 -0400
From: "Nick Nikiforov" <NNikifor at dos.state.ny.us>
Subject: Warm weather yeast

It has always a challenge for me to keep a steady ferment temp of 70
degrees.
I brew ales and starting out I was constantly getting ferment temps
between 70 and 75. Definitely do NOT use Nottingham dry yeast if you
are
at 76 degrees. The off-flavors are not as nice as the fruitiness you
get from
WL Burton, European, or British Ale yeasts.

I now ferment in an old chest freezer in my cellar that maintains a
constant temp all summer of
70 degrees +-2degrees. In the winter the inside is around 55. The
freezer is 50 years old
and I have never turned it on. It was in the cellar when I
moved into the house.  Glad I kept it. Fits three 5 gallon buckets.

Nick
Albany NY


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Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2004 16:21:51 -0700
From: Steve Funk <steve at hheco.com>
Subject: HERMS set temperature

I would like to ask the HERMS users in this group about the set 
temperature for the heat exchange media.  This is water in a HLT for me. 
When performing temperature ramps, should the set temperature be close 
to the target temperature or can it be set a fair bit higher?  In other 
words, is there a limit on the set temperature that shouldn't be 
exceeded in order to prevent permanently denaturing the enzymes? Can the 
mash enzymes tolerate a brief period of say 88C/190F?  Obviously, I 
would like to set the temperature to the highest tolerable value to 
minimize ramp times.  I have PID control on the heater in the HLT, so 
risk of temperature overshoot is minimal. What is the highest set 
temperature that isn't detrimental to the mash process?
Thanks,
Steve
Stevenson, WA




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Date: Thu, 16 Sep 2004 11:46:07 +1000
From: "Williams, Rowan" <Rowan.Williams at defence.gov.au>
Subject: sec: unclass Brew Stand Design

G'day all,
After being chased out of the kitchen by SWMBO who prefers the smell of
freshly baked pies to the aroma of my bittering hops (pagan woman!!),  I
need to build a brew stand for my all grain system that I'm currently
developing.  I need a brew stand that will hold  a 5 Gal Electric HLT, 10
Gal Rubbermaid mashtun and a keg shaped kettle with three ring burner.  I
have a counterflow chiller, but no pump so I need to design a gravity fed
system. 

Now, I'll readily admit that I'm no chippie, but I reckon I could build a
stand with slotted steel angle, a grinder and my cordless drill with a 10mm
screwdriver socket.

Does anybody know of a website (other than morebeer or brewtree.com) that
has plenty of design plans or pictures of brew stands that I could look at
to assist me in designing my own brewing sculpture?

Thanks in advance,

Rowan Williams
Canberra Brewers Club
[9588.6, 261.5] AR (statute miles)



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