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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
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Contents:
  Re: Fwd: Quality malt guide? (Jeff Renner)
  Re: hydrometer/refractometer fermentation prediction, hops scale (Jeff Renner)
  Fermenator question... ("Sean Harper")
  Re: hydrometer/refractometer fermentation prediction, hops scale (Scott Alfter)
  Where's the JudgeNet archive? (Jim Wilson)
  Re: Say What? ("Greg 'groggy' Lehey")
  help with beer (brown ale) ("Anna R. Dunster")
  Where to start? (Adam Wilkins)


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Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2004 23:07:52 -0400
From: Jeff Renner <jeffrenner at comcast.net>
Subject: Re: Fwd: Quality malt guide?

Joe Gibbens <jgibbens at gmail.com> asks

>I'd like to try brewing a Vienna this year, but don't have a lot of
>experience with judging high-quality malts.  The beer series guide for
>Vienna advises caution when looking for base and specialty malts, so
>I'm interested in some brand and vendor-specific advice on where to
>find the best of the best.
>
>Specifically..
>German light/dark crystal malt, and 2 vs. 6 row.
>Munich malt
>Vienna malt
>Aromatic malt
>Pilsner malt

Joe

When George Fix wrote the book on Vienna etc, there was no good 
source of good quality Vienna and Munich malt in this country.  He 
later agreed that the situation had changed.  You can feel confident 
in using any of the German malts that are imported now.

You can make a fine Vienna with something like 1/2 Vienna and 1/2 
Munich, and if you want a bit of residual sweetness, some carapils. 
Or you could use some caravienna and reduce the Munich percentage. 
Don't overhop!

I made a nice Oktoberfest in August for an Oktoberfest party 
tomorrow.  It's really tasty, although it finished a little too 
sweet.  Maybe should have left out the caravienna.

Jeff
- -- 
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: Fri, 24 Sep 2004 23:16:56 -0400
From: Jeff Renner <jeffrenner at comcast.net>
Subject: Re: hydrometer/refractometer fermentation prediction, hops scale

  "Dave Burley" <Dave_Burley at charter.net> wrote:

>I don't know if this is the reason for the discrepancy with Promash, but
>hydrometers and refractometers are of no use once fermentation has started in
>predicting the <exact> progress of the fermentation, even assuming you have no
>CO2 giving you a false high SG reading. A mixture of alcohol and water has a
>different density than you might predict from a simple arithmetic addition.
>This will affect both the SG reading and the refractive index reading.

Dave, you might not have been reading HBD (I know you took some time 
out) back in the mid to late 90s when we had a big discussion about 
this.  I can't remember exactly who all did what, but the end result 
was that Louis Bonham, assisted by others (maybe AJ deLange, George 
Fix?).  Anyway, Louis ended up with what I think was described as a 
third degree polynomial that was supposed to take care of all these 
variables.  (Remember I flunked calculus and now don't do math).

Jeff Donovan, alleged owner of ProMash, then incorporated this into 
ProMash, which allows you to plug in the SG and the apparent OG based 
on the refractive index of the beer, and it computes the actual SG. 
I love it.

Jeff
- -- 
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: Sat, 25 Sep 2004 13:40:55 -0400
From: "Sean Harper" <seanjharper at hotmail.com>
Subject: Fermenator question...

Greatings fellow brewers from Brewer Maine,

     I'm interested in upgrading my glass carboy to one of those 
space-age-looking fermenators. You have to admit, they do look pretty darn 
good... I understand that the tapered shape allows for a syphon-free 
secondary fermentation...That is, one simply drains the trub from the 
primary fermentation and viola, you have a secondary without the fuss... 
However, I understand that part of the reason for a secondary is to (in a 
manner of speaking) agitate the present yeast into action via the act of 
racking from one carboy to the other... Would this rather non-action 
oriented fermenator still provide an acceptable and efficient finishing 
stage? Is there anyone that can vouch for good results? Is owning a 
fermenator worth the price? I would love some good constructive 
feedback...Thanks in advance for your assistance!

yourse in brew,
Sean Harper
Brewer, Me



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Date: Sat, 25 Sep 2004 11:37:03 -0700
From: Scott Alfter <scott at alfter.us>
Subject: Re: hydrometer/refractometer fermentation prediction, hops scale

On Fri, 24 Sep 2004 at 14:32:22 -0700, Moses Rocket wrote:
> No need to commit much of anything to memory Dave. Even with the most
> fermented brain cells, anyone can remember that 5 US cents = 5 grams.  Who
> says the US doesn't use the metric system!!!

By "5 US cents," do you mean five pennies or a nickel?  If pennies, do you
mean the older ones made entirely of copper (up to some time in the early
'80s) or the newer ones that are copper-plated zinc?  The copper and
copper/zinc pennies have slightly different weights; it's why you can count
nickels, dimes, and quarters by weight, but you can't do the same with
pennies anymore.

(Before sending this message on its way, I decided to do a little searching
and came up with this page:

http://www.usmint.gov/about_the_mint/index.cfm?action=coin_specifications

They say nickels weigh 5.000 grams each, while copper/zinc pennies weigh
2.500 grams each.  There's nothing on there about the weight of the older
all-copper pennies, probably because they haven't been made in 20+ years and
aren't considered current coinage anymore (though they're still legal
tender).  As a result, it looks like you could get to 5 grams with either a
nickel or two copper/zinc pennies.)

  _/_  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: Sat, 25 Sep 2004 13:09:31 -0700
From: Jim Wilson <jgwilson at adelphia.net>
Subject: Where's the JudgeNet archive?

I'm studying to take the BJCP exam in January and would like to read the
JudgeNet archives.  All the links I've found to JudgeNet or "Beer Judge
Digest" and archive are doa.  Anyone know of a working URL?  TIA

Jim Wilson

                  o          \o
   __o         /\          /
  `\ <>       `\ `>       `\  >
(*)/ (*)    (*)/ (*)    (*)/ (*)

I ride my bicycle to ride my bicycle.




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Date: Sun, 26 Sep 2004 09:32:18 +0930
From: "Greg 'groggy' Lehey" <grog at lemis.com>
Subject: Re: Say What?

On Friday, 24 September 2004 at  5:32:07 -0800, Jeffrey Donovan wrote:
>> From: "Greg 'groggy' Lehey" <grog at lemis.com>
>> <SNIP>
>> 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).
>
> Say what? Domenick wrote ProMash? I must be living in the twilight zone. Is
> this not my beautiful house? Is this not my beautiful wife? While Domenick
> has made some very substantial contributions to the homebrew community I'm
> afraid ProMash was not one of them.
>
>  - Jeffrey Donovan (author of ProMash)

My apologies.  It seems that I misunderstood something he said; to
make it absolutely clear, he never made any pretensions to being the
author.  I apologize to Jeffrey for any anguish this may have caused.

Greg
- --
Finger grog at lemis.com for PGP public key.
See complete headers for address and phone numbers.


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Date: Sun, 26 Sep 2004 00:13:04 -0700
From: "Anna R. Dunster" <azzacanth at livejournal.com>
Subject: help with beer (brown ale)

hey all,
I am a newbie to home brewing.
I started my 2nd batch of beer (ever) and it started up great the
first day. But then after that no bubbles in the airlock! my
hydrometer reading: 1.022 SG.
 after a few days of giving up repeatedly after finding nothing useful
on google I hit on a search term that lead me to this site:
http://www.howtobrew.com/section4/chapter21-1.html

I realized that my closet must've gotten too cold overnight and
probably killed or put into dormancy my yeast. I tried 1 suggestion
which was to stir it up, next day no change, so I pitched some yeast
that I wasn't sure if it was "good" - it was still before the use by
date but hadn't been refrigerated (got it with a can of malt extract
and the store recommended I buy refrigerated yeast and not count on
that stuff).  the day after that I *thought* my hydrometer reading was
1.018 and I don't think it was wishful thinking. then two days later
(today) I took another reading and now it seems to be 1.020!
Whatever is happening its obviously not finishing the fermenting cycle
if it's hovering around 1.020.  (the only thing I can think of to make
my readings that weird is temperature differences or maybe I am just
retarded ;) 

Anyway is there any chance for this stuff?  It's been sitting in the
primary fermenter for 2 weeks now with no signs of me being able to
make it go down to 1.012.   It was my impression that all beers had to
go down to 1.012 or so: is that correct?   if so is there anything I
can do to save this stuff? I don't have any yeast - well I have wine
yeast but I don't think that will work too well...   and I live 90
miles from the home brew store so no chance of getting more yeast.
(although I do have the bottles from batch #1 that have been bottled 3
weeks now) 

Oh yeah and I did move it to a warmer, more temperature stable
location when I realized that the cold was likely a problem, except
now it may be too warm - but my first batch brewed on the warm side,
too.  (I have a stick on thermometer that reads high 70's for its
current location) 


Any help you guys can give me would be GREATLY appreciated, I'm at the
end of my ability to figure it out myself. 

Thanks,

~Anna

ps - if you have an answer feel free to email me privately and not
just on the list, azzacanth at livejournal.com




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Date: Sun, 26 Sep 2004 18:42:29 -0500
From: Adam Wilkins <awilkins at advantexmail.net>
Subject: Where to start?

There is so much information out there for home brewing.  What do you all
recommend as a good starting point?  I'm so lost on even where to begin
doing this?

I know this is probably a little vague, but I don't even know what to 
ask.  LOL!


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