HOMEBREW Digest #4609 Wed 22 September 2004


[Prev HBD] [Index] [Next HBD] [Back]


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


***************************************************************
       THIS YEAR'S HOME BREW DIGEST BROUGHT TO YOU BY: 

                  Beer, Beer, and More Beer
      Visit http://morebeer.com to show your appreciation!

    Support those who support you! Visit our sponsor's site!
********** Also visit http://hbd.org/hbdsponsors.html *********


Contents:
  Steam Beer Yeast in Warm Weather ("William Frazier")
  Formula for estimating O.G. with refractometer & hydrometer ("Greg 'groggy' Lehey")
  A Handful of Hops (Jeff Luck)
  Hopbacks (FLJohnson)
  Re: Formula for estimating O.G. with refractometer & hydrometer (Jeff Renner)
  Fishing and beer,Candi sugar,Rowan's stuck Fermentation, tod's hops ("Dave Burley")

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * The HBD Logo Store is now open! * * http://www.hbd.org/store.html * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Suppport this service: http://hbd.org/donate.shtml * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Beer is our obsession and we're late for therapy! * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Send articles for __publication_only__ to post@hbd.org If your e-mail account is being deleted, please unsubscribe first!! To SUBSCRIBE or UNSUBSCRIBE send an e-mail message with the word "subscribe" or "unsubscribe" to request@hbd.org FROM THE E-MAIL ACCOUNT YOU WISH TO HAVE SUBSCRIBED OR UNSUBSCRIBED!!!** IF YOU HAVE SPAM-PROOFED your e-mail address, you cannot subscribe to the digest as we cannot reach you. We will not correct your address for the automation - that's your job. HAVING TROUBLE posting, subscribing or unsusubscribing? See the HBD FAQ at http://hbd.org. LOOKING TO BUY OR SELL USED EQUIPMENT? Please do not post about it here. Go instead to http://homebrewfleamarket.com and post a free ad there. The HBD is a copyrighted document. The compilation is copyright HBD.ORG. Individual postings are copyright by their authors. ASK before reproducing and you'll rarely have trouble. Digest content cannot be reproduced by any means for sale or profit. More information is available by sending the word "info" to req@hbd.org or read the HBD FAQ at http://hbd.org. JANITORs on duty: Pat Babcock (pbabcock at hbd dot org), Jason Henning, and Spencer Thomas
---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 21:33:50 -0500 From: "William Frazier" <billfrazier at worldnet.att.net> Subject: Steam Beer Yeast in Warm Weather Pacman asks "Has anyone brewed a California Common at warmer than room temperature? I don't think anchor does, but, and nothing I can find on the Internet suggest doing so but,of course, that doesn't mean it can't be done!" I'm doing it right now. My basement brewery is about 70F at the moment. I'm brewing a rye ale recipe (thanks Rob) with Wyeast 2112 California Lager Yeast. I added two Activator Packs to 6 gallons of wort so the fermentation would take off fast (I need this beer pronto). It seems to be very happy at 70F...lots of CO2 coming off the foam layer. I report how the beer turns out. Bill Frazier Olathe, Kansas USA Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 12:29:27 +0930 From: "Greg 'groggy' Lehey" <grog at lemis.com> Subject: Formula for estimating O.G. with refractometer & hydrometer On Tuesday, 21 September 2004 at 9:27:33 -0400, Jeff Renner wrote: For years I've used a high quality Japanese "protometer" > refractometer that my wife's lab was tossing as surplus. It doesn't > have a Balling, Brix or Plato scale, only urine SG, blood serum > protein, and Refractive Index. I'd been using a chart that converts > RI to per cent sucrose, and thought that was Plato, but ProMash > shows that to be Brix (I think I've got that right), and Plato is > slightly different. I'd love to know what the difference is. I've looked, but haven't found any explanation. Plato is based on pure saccharose solutions, but I haven't found really good explanations for the others. BTW, you don't need to spend lots of money to find this stuff. I have it on my web site (http://www.lemis.com/grog/brewing/Brix-to-SG.html), and there's free software which calculates it too (thanks, BTW, to Domenick Venezia, the author of ProMash). Greg - -- Finger grog at lemis.com for PGP public key. See complete headers for address and phone numbers. Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 22:35:08 -0600 From: Jeff Luck <jeff at woods.net> Subject: A Handful of Hops Hi Gang, I recently found myself the recipient of some fresh-grown hops ("If you wanna pick em, you can have em!") But I don't own a scale that can measure ounces that well. Can anybody give me just a rule of thumb for volume to weight, something like "1 cup of dried hop cones weighs 1 oz" or the like? I understand this is a seat-of-the-pants measure, and am not expecting anything too precise. Thanks -JL Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 08:32:28 -0400 From: FLJohnson at portbridge.com Subject: Hopbacks I've finally concluded that I can't control the bittering of my beers using my old methods. I used to chill with an immersion chiller and added the finishing hops at the very end, just before I turned on the cooling. The kettle dropped its temperature in a relativley short time. Now, using a counterflow chiller, I can't easily prevent or control the length of time the hops are in contact witht the hot wort if I add the hops to the kettle at the end. I've made a number of beers with finishing hops that are definitely contributing a lot of bitterness to my beers, so I believe I MUST go to a hopback for adding these. (I probably also need to start adjusting when I add the earlier hop additions also.) I would like the hopback to be sealed, i.e, flow in and out is controlled by a pump, not gravity. I'd appreciate anyone pointing me to sealed hopbacks that I could build or buy. Fred Johnson Apex, North Carolina USA Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 11:07:20 -0400 From: Jeff Renner <jeffrenner at comcast.net> Subject: Re: Formula for estimating O.G. with refractometer & hydrometer At 12:29 PM +0930 9/22/04, Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote: >I'd love to know what the difference is. I've looked, but haven't >found any explanation. Plato is based on pure saccharose solutions, >but I haven't found really good explanations for the others. AJ DeLange has explained the difference between Plato and Brix, but I always forget. I think that one is x grams of sugar in 100 ml solution, the other is x grams of sugar in 100 grams of solution. Obviously, these would diverge as x increases. I believe that Brix merely refined Balling's work, so they are the same definition, Brix is simply more accurate in the decimals. Until I got ProMash, I didn't worry about the differences, and now I let it take care of them. I just make sure I ultimately use SG, with which I am most comfortable. Interestingly, in making a quick run through my disorganized library to try to get a better handle on this, I find that Charlie Bamforth ignores the differences in his "Standards of Brewing: A Practical Approach to Consistency and Excellence" (Brewers Publications, 2002). In his units appendix, p. 152, he simply states: "Specific Gravity *Plato = * Brix = %w/w cane sugar 10 *Plato = specific gravity of 1.040" I guess that's where the "practical" in the title comes in. Probably not a bad idea. But I can get off on a tangent of decimal places beyond the accuracy of my instruments. There is a difference, of course, between the R.I of sucrose and that of the mix of maltose and other sugars in wort. ProMash includes a correction factor that can be changed for brewhouse variables. I have found the default correction to work for me. My refractometer results agree with my hydrometer. >BTW, you don't need to spend lots of money to find this stuff. Well, of course, ProMash is pretty cheap. Less than US $25, and it has a whole lot of other neat, useful stuff. >I have >it on my web site (http://www.lemis.com/grog/brewing/Brix-to-SG.html), The Brix vs. R.I. columns are what I had been using from the CRC Handbook before I got ProMash, although yours has an extra decimal place. But your chart does not have the correction for R.I. vs Brix or Plato after fermentation has begun. That is the key to the discussion for determining the OG of an unknown beer using actual FG and apparent FG as determined by a refractometer. That is apparently what you are referring to >and there's free software which calculates it too Back before I had ProMash, I was looking for a two axis chart that would give the actual SG for the apparent SG vs. OG. Such a chart could be developed from the formula. I never found one, and producing it was beyond me. I don't need it now, of course. >(thanks, BTW, to >Domenick Venezia, the author of ProMash). Jeff Donovan is the author of ProMash. Domenick is is the PrimeTabs guy. I think he may have been involved in the discussions on HBD back in the 90s with Louis Bonham and others which led to the refinement of the corrections formulae for the R.I. of beer, and which Jeff Donovan incorporated into ProMash. Jeff - -- Jeff Renner in Ann Arbor, Michigan USA, JeffRenner at comcast.net "One never knows, do one?" Fats Waller, American Musician, 1904-1943 Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 18:16:18 -0400 From: "Dave Burley" <Dave_Burley at charter.net> Subject: Fishing and beer,Candi sugar,Rowan's stuck Fermentation, tod's hops Brewsters: Been busy picking and fermenting my grapes, so just catching up. - --------------- John Palmer laments that his wife's attitude towards fishing changed when she discovered no fish were caught. John, tell her tha's why they call it "fishing" and not "catching". Many years ago a beloved midwestern boss of mine was about to get married to an Alabaman. After a full day of fishing and drinking two cases of beer, and catching nothing, he suggested to his future father in law that it was time to quit. His father in law said."Whatsamatter? We're fishin' ain't we?" - --------------- I had the same thought and I agree with raj, candi sugar was likely used since it was purer at time. Sucrose is in beet sugar as in cane sugar. I suggest light brown sugar as a starting point versus caramelizing your own sugar as far as reproducibility goes. - ------------------ Rowan the only way I know to properly determine if a fermentation is finished is to determine if there is any more fermentable sugar left. Refractometers ain't no good. Hydrometers ain't no good. I have two words to help you "Clinitest" and "Archives." If that doesn't do it send me a note Dave_Burley at charter.net - -------------------- Tod in Idaho To prevent oxidation and other bad stuff see if you can figure out a way to treat your hops with some burning sulfur fumes outside your house. This will help them keep color and prevent mildew. Sulfur matxhes are available from the wine hobby store. Sulfur usually from the pharmacy. Keep on Brewin' Dave Burley Return to table of contents
[Prev HBD] [Index] [Next HBD] [Back]
HTML-ized on 09/22/04, by HBD2HTML v1.2 by KFL
webmaster@hbd.org, KFL, 10/9/96