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


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Contents:
  Carbonation puzzle ("Stephen Cavan")
  Re: Distilling barley wine. ("Alan & Ondina Colton")
  Gump on Vanilla Beans ("Rob Moline")
  Re: Pumps and genealogy ("Gary Smith")
  Roasting Barley in the Weber?! ("Rowan Williams")
  Green Bananas and pH ("Dave Burley")
  5.2 pH Stabilizer (wesolomon)
  International Luv Jeff Day .... it has begun... (Scott Morgan)
  Re: pumps (Mike_Andrews)
  re: Heritage (Steven Parfitt)
  pumps ("Marc Sedam")
  Pumps / Geneology (David Harsh)
  Quadrotriticale, yeast aneuploidy and stability (ALAN K MEEKER)
  non priming pump (Kevin Jongsma)
  Re: CFC, pump, and cavitation (Kent Fletcher)


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Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 21:59:59 -0600
From: "Stephen Cavan" <scavan at sprint.ca>
Subject: Carbonation puzzle

There is probably a simple explanation for this puzzle, and I have my
theories but would like other ideas.  I run a very small brewery, and sent
out three kegs of Hefeweizen. I had sampled the kegs for CO2 levels before
delivery, and all were OK.  Two places, both small, connected the kegs and
served the beer without trouble. The third place, a large bar, held the keg
for more than a week before connecting a line. It seemed to be OK at first,
but the carbonation level fell rapidly until it was non-existent. They never
made it through the keg.  The two places that had no problem were small and
just used plain CO2 for dispensing. The large bar used 'beer gas'.  My first
thought was that they had not turned on the gas line to the keg, but they
insist they did.

So where did the CO2 pressure go? Does beer that will be pushed with beer
gas need higher CO2 levels before tapping?

Steve




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Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 21:51:27 -0600
From: "Alan & Ondina Colton" <coltonhse at btl.net>
Subject: Re: Distilling barley wine.

I would like to thank everyone replied to my recent post especially Pat,
Jim, Jerry, Mike, Jeff and Gary [Gary I found your website very interesting
and helpful - thanks for the tips]. I have taken the majority suggestion and
am presently freeze distilling a batch, I am down to about a quarter volume
now and it looks and tastes good. One strange note is that I am storing it
in a screw top bottle after removing the ice and yesterday when I removed
the cap to top up there was a slight hiss, a hint of pressure? and maybe
fermentation?? I am going to add some more champagne yeast and recap some of
the bottles with known good caps and see what happens. Once again everybody
thanks for the info.

Alan Colton
Swamp Water Brewery of Belize
www.coltonhouse.com



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Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 23:20:15 -0600
From: "Rob Moline" <jethrogump at mchsi.com>
Subject: Gump on Vanilla Beans

		Gump on Vanilla Beans

     Bob Devine speaks knowledgeably about the different varieties of
vanilla....but, no one has discussed utilzation.....
     5 g batch....acquire vanilla beans, of whatever origin you
prefer....cut one-half bean lentghwise and add it to the boil 10/60 before
end of boil....
     Do the same again as one would in dry-hopping.......
     Adjust for taste in the next batch, which should be perfect!
(percentages!-adjust up/down)
     Back to Bill Velek...extracts lose out to beans,  everytime....
     The best source, IMHO, is the most basic herbal/veg/organic shop. If
they're worthy, they have a line on the good stuff.....
Gump
"The More I Know About Beer, The More I Realize I Need To Know More About
Beer!"

Bill Velek asks about vanilla.
> Bottom line: does anyone know if there is a difference in the quality of
> beer made with vanilla extract vs. beans?  And if there is no
> difference, what is the equivalency of one to the other, for purposes of
> making conversions when a recipe calls for one and you have the other.


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Date: Thu, 02 Dec 2004 23:39:37 -0600
From: "Gary Smith" <Gary at doctorgary.net>
Subject: Re: Pumps and genealogy

Chad asks...

 
> I'm a wonderin' what is the preferred type of pump out there
> in HBD land: Impeller or Peristaltic?  

It will be interesting to me to see what kind of 
answers this brings. 

I have a pretty decent peristaltic which came from 
Los Alamos and although it does move the liquid 
fairly quickly (several gallons/min) it does so as all 
peristaltics do & that's in spurts. I tried it in my 
RIMS but quickly gave up that's idea as it made the 
Noprene hoses flap like a fledgling readying itself 
for it's first flight. In addition, it was not a smooth 
and steady trickle re-entering the grain bed. I 
immediately retired it from RIMS usage and went to 
magnetic pumps (two of them so my RIMS is truly a 
one tier Rims for easy access to everything and a 
low center of gravity in-case I somehow bump the 
thing).

However... I found a home for the peristaltic. I use 
it for many things. But first a warning! do not 
restrict the output of the peristaltic, only control 
the flow from the input. If you restrict or plug the 
output, it will definitely blow your tubing because it 
generates a tremendous pressure. If you restrict 
the input this will not happen. It will try to suck the 
liquid though as a peristaltic needs no priming.
 
I placed polysulfone quick disconnects on both the 
I/O of ole' Peri. I have adapted several hoses and 
fittings so I can use the peristaltic from the boil 
kettle to the fermenter. and placed it after the CF 
chiller. 

 - The advantage is it does not appreciably increase 
the flow from the kettle but it does keep it steady 
and this speeds up the transfer time. 

 - it pulses the chilled wort and this splashes as it 
enters the fermenter which helps to oxygenate the 
wort.   

 - It allows me to move the wort to any height I 
choose, even if it were 30 feet above me. This one 
feature is a lifesaver.

Aside from it's advantages during transfer from 
the boilkettle to the fermenter I found other great 
uses for it as well;

I mentioned it's quick disconnects... I have several 
hoses set up with different attachments. Some have 
the usual Corny keg QDs and one has a polysulfone 
QD from the peristaltic output to dip tube input QD 
to fit a corny keg. I have a hose with a corny QD 
for the gas tube which runs to the  input polysulfone 
QD for the peristaltic. 

When I get ready to clean & sanitize these cornys... 
I first wash them out after use to remove sediment. 
I remove the poppets and connectors and wash them 
out as well. Then I fill the corny with hot PBW 
solution and piggyback as many cornys as I wish to 
clean at the same time and run through the Peri 
output -> dip tube in -> gas out -> tube in (ad 
nauseum) -> peri input. By doing this, there is that 
pulsing action which I believe helps in the cleaning 
process of the cornys & tubes. 

When the cleaning is done, I empty the cornys and 
then rinse with water & then do the same was I did 
before with star san and the end result is 
everything gets cleaned & sanitized at one time, 
very quickly and there is little effort expended. I 
have never had an infection doing it this way.

 - I use that same arrangement to clean all hose or 
tubing be it ones used with my conicals or any other 
fermenters. As Peri's are self starting, it makes 
starting a flow from a carboy simple. I have an 
adapter to a Phil's philler and a footswitch to run 
the peristaltic when I am ready to bottle. (place the 
philler in the bottle, push down as always on the 
philler, step on the footswitch & release the 
footswitch & pull out the philler when the bottle is 
full).

I am a couch potato brewer... The less work the 
better.

genealogy: Mum was born in England 95 years ago 
come Dec 24 this year. She still drives tho she's a 
teetotaller. Dad's ancestors were mostly from 
Scotland, one from Germany, one was American 
Indian & one.... well no one knows where that one 
was from so I say anything is possible... Oh ya, 
Mum's Mom & Dad were minor rivals of Joe Kennedy 
during his rum running days... Great stories of family 
happenings back in prohibition. 

I do come by all this honest :)

Gary



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Date: Thu,  2 Dec 2004 21:48:04 -0800
From: "Rowan Williams" <rowan at canberrabrewers.org>
Subject: Roasting Barley in the Weber?!

Hi all,
I want to roast some unmalted barley for my stouts and we just bought
a Weber compact barbie last weekend.  
Why not use it to roast the barley so I don't flood the house with
smoke and incur SWMBO's wrath!??

So, have any of you done this in the past?  Perhaps I could add the
barley after I've finished cooking a roast and keep a close eye on
the progress of the barley since there is no temp gauge on the bbq..
Is it simply a matter of spreading out the barley on a lined tray and
calling it done when the barley is black (and preferably not turned
to a carbonised cinder)! ;-)

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





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Date: Fri, 3 Dec 2004 06:12:26 -0500
From: "Dave Burley" <Dave_Burley at charter.net>
Subject: Green Bananas and pH

Brewsters:

Gary Smith, decrying his older age ( but a better altenative),  sought to buy 
a pH meter that would outlast him, so he bought an ISFET pH meter. Please let 
us know how it works in a typical Homebrew environment.

I only have one question. Do you buy green bananas anymore?  {8^)

Keep on Brewin'

Dave Burley 




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Date: Fri, 3 Dec 2004 06:43:52 -0500
From: <wesolomon at comcast.net>
Subject: 5.2 pH Stabilizer

Asked Charlie Talley at Five Star some similar questions about 5.2pH:

*****
The 5.2 is a buffering salt designed to lock in the pH of the mash to a
pH of 5.2. It is based on phosphate buffering slat. It replaces say
phosphoric acid which is normally used. Its benefit is that it is safer and 
will not
produce an acid mash if over used.
If your sparge water is 6 you are probably hitting the correct pH in your
mash already. This product is to help people that have either very hard
water or water that chances as the seasons change.

We ran test on our tap water which is pH 8 (hardness of 200 ppms) and a
variety of synthetic waters ranging in pH from 7 (anything lower is
meaningless) to a pH of 9 (there are some waters that are higher but they
are rare) and hardness that range from 120 to 300. In all of these
conditions the mash water locks in at a pH of 5.2.

If the product 5.2 is added to the mash bed it is not necessary to add it
to the sparge. If you do not want or can not add it to the bed then yes
add it through your sparge.

*****
Bill Solomon
Gales Ferry, CT



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Date: Sat, 04 Dec 2004 22:58:52 +1100
From: Scott Morgan <scotty at onlinebrewing.com>
Subject: International Luv Jeff Day .... it has begun...

As some may or may not realized, those of us whose station in life is 
the in the great Southern Hemisphere slipped into Summer and have had 
crappie rainy 23c weather ever since.... and some suffer worse with the 
northern summer swell yet to arrive...

But as a dry run for our northern cousins (not to be confused with a 
'dry root' if you are *The Guru* - don't believe the hype it has been a 
few years - must be that mustache...) we quickly celebrated the arrival 
of summer with Luv Jeff Day, the time of year that CAP comes to town. It 
was sure some celebration at a few digs and as luck my have it a few 
little Jeffies will be running round in 9 months time if all the moaning 
and carries on did eventuate as reported on the Oz-CB.... your hand does 
not count GLS... you'll go blind ...

So as a challenge to our neighbors in the North, as the toes begin to 
thaw it will be time to pay homage to a fantastic beer and its 
inspirational leader (remember Jeff only 'comes in peace'...) on the 1st 
day if Summer. The swine at the Oz-Cb challenge all in the northern 
suburbs to cast a glass and a misty eye to the setting sun on that day 
and bless all those Kit Brewers who are yet to take the plunge to 
all-grain and come to the dark side of the force... or those 
all-grainers who have yet to throw a little rice or corn into their 
mash... but most importantly all must praise the mash which is a scaled 
down version of GOD! (am not sure why Bwain must be mentioned here but 
what the heck... hi Bwian....)

What is nice is that you have nearly 6 months to prepare for ILJD (I is 
for International), or get it right... perspective depending....

Scotty









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Date: Fri, 3 Dec 2004 07:53:30 -0500
From: Mike_Andrews at vfc.com
Subject: Re: pumps

Put a tick mark on the centrifugal pump side for me Chad.  I've been using
a mag drive centrifugal pump for a few years now, for moving everything
from cold water to boiling wort.  I may be wrong, but it seems I remember
peristaltic pumps were more expensive than centrifugal for an equivalent
flow rate pump.




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Date: Fri, 3 Dec 2004 06:35:39 -0800 (PST)
From: Steven Parfitt <thegimp98 at yahoo.com>
Subject: re: Heritage

English-Scots-Irish with a French name. Both sides of
my family have been traced back only to the early
1800s in England.

Not much French influence in the family, but I suppose
it is why I like MFB malt so well...



=====
Steven, -75 XLCH- Ironhead Nano-Brewery  http://thegimp.8k.com
Johnson City, TN [422.7, 169.2] Rennerian 

"There is no such thing as gravity, the earth sucks." Wings Whiplash - 1968


		


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Date: Fri, 3 Dec 2004 09:39:05 -0500
From: "Marc Sedam" <alechemist at bellsouth.net>
Subject: pumps

I use an impeller-based pump and hook it up after the chiller, so the pump 
never sees hot wort.  Been using the same pump for five years and system 
works like a champ. 



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Date: Fri, 3 Dec 2004 09:41:24 -0500
From: David Harsh <dharsh at fuse.net>
Subject: Pumps / Geneology

Greetings-

Comments on pump usage-
1.  Put the pump *before* your chiller, although it is less of an issue 
with a peristaltic pump.  Pumps are designed to push things through 
pipes, not pull them.
2.  I use an impeller pump.  Peristaltic pumps generally don't have the 
capacity you need.  In my brewery, my chiller hooks up directly to the 
house water line.  I run my March pump full bore and it chills down to 
near the inlet water temperature with no problem (my chiller is a 
garden hose & 3/8" copper device similar to what you would have if you 
used Listermann's fittings and built your own, NAYDYD)   Its probably 
worth noting that I brew more in the winter when the cold water temp is 
a lot colder - I have to be more careful about the outlet temp during 
warm weather.
3.  Cavitation can be a concern under these circumstances.  I always 
start the pump with the valve on the outlet closed, then open gradually 
as far as feasible.  As long as your connections are tight, the bubbles 
you see will be wort vaporizing, not air entrained.  The former is no 
big deal, the latter is to be avoided.
4.  No one has mentioned sanitation!  At the beginning of every brew 
session (ok, typically after mash in), I set up a circulation loop with 
the pump, chiller and a large tank of iodophor and run it for 10 
minutes or so, then let it soak.  Then I drain everything out and cap 
things until I'm ready to chill.  Never had any problems, but I'd be 
interested in other ideas...
5.  Don't forget to use clamps or secure fittings with this system, 
unless you want a wort shower.
6.  The easiest way to control your pump switch is a foot switch sold 
for use on Christmas trees - this is a good time of year to get them, 
especially when they go on clearance.
7.  MoreBeer (NAYDYD) pushes the use of gravity instead of pumps - 
having moved my brewery inside, everything is now on the same level.  
The outside brewery had a 10 foot drop from the deck (boiling kettle) 
to the chiller (at basement grade level below) and I never considered a 
pump until I had to.  All I'm saying is you may not *need* a pump.  I'm 
not going to get judgmental on you if you just like gadgets!

If you are pumping wort for the first time, it wouldn't be a bad idea 
to set everything up with just water so you can make your mistakes when 
it doesn't matter.

- -------
Geneology FWIW (not much, IMO)

The paternal side is German, although the immigrant ancestor of the 
Harsh line came over in 1739 (can you say "peasant"?).  The maternal 
side also came over pre-revolution, but from England and Ireland.  Of 
course, the Irish were from Donegal and Antrim, which means they could 
have been descendants of invaders from Scotland (their name was 
Patterson, which ain't Irish!)   Personally, I'm a big fan of Belgians, 
and anything that's a bit over the top.  I consider Bigfoot a session 
beer  ;)

So I don't think country of origin means a whole lot unless you've come 
across the pond more recently.

Dave Harsh									Cincinnati, OH
Bloatarian Brewing League



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Date: Fri, 03 Dec 2004 10:29:30 -0500
From: ALAN K MEEKER <ameeker at mail.jhmi.edu>
Subject: Quadrotriticale, yeast aneuploidy and stability

Greetings,

The relationship between a particular yeast strain's chromosome
number and "stability" could be potentially confusing. Having an abnormal
chromosome number does not mean that a particular yeast will necessarily
be unstable in either a genotypic (number of chromosomes) or phenotypic
(observable traits) sense. Deviations from the normal or "wild type"
number of chromosomes are quite common in agriculture. For example, the
most commonly grown type of wheat is hexaploid (6 chromosome complements)
but there are also diploid and tetraploid strains as well. Selection for
larger numbers of chromosomes is often found because such plants tend to
have larger structures and, therefore, increased yields. Although they
have more chromosomes than normal, this increased number can stil be
stably propagated. The same is probably true for brewer's yeast as well.
However, abnormal chromosome numbers do pose a problem when it comes to
yeast mating which is nigh on impossible to do with brewing yeast. In
terms of improving brewer's yeast this presents a serious barrier since
usefull traits cannot simply be combined by yeast breeding. 

Alan
Meeker
Lazy Eight Nanobrewery 
"Where the possibilities are limitless"
Baltimore, MD




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Date: Fri, 3 Dec 2004 09:40:33 -0800 (PST)
From: Kevin Jongsma <k_jongsma at yahoo.com>
Subject: non priming pump

Hello all i am a lurker in need of some help.
I bought a non priming  magnetic pump for transfering
my sparge water and wort and need to find a method to
prime it.
I am thinking of using a inline priming bulb from a
outboard motor gas tank setup (new of course) but it
only has 5/16" in and outs and my pump is 1/2"
Any recomendations??

Thanks
Kevin


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Date: Fri, 3 Dec 2004 15:52:46 -0800 (PST)
From: Kent Fletcher <fletcherhomebrew at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: CFC, pump, and cavitation

Pacman is concerned:
> So I am theorizing and a concern comes up.  If I 
> hook my pump to the outlet on my kettle, turn it on
> and pump my wort through the CFC, when I get 
> toward theend, if I let the pump run the kettle
> dry, I risk running the pump dry, and cavitating
> it.  How do I prevent this?  slow the flow rate
> down toward the end,shut it off and gravity drain
> the rest of the wort into the fermenter? 

You just have to watch the kettle and the hose from
kettle drain to pump inlet.  DO NOT run the pump dry. 
Running the pump dry is the surest and quickest way to
kill it.

Kent Fletcher
Brewing in So Cal





		


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