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


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Contents:
  Stuck Fermentation ("Lewis, Timothy M          HS")
  Re: Stuck Fermentation ("Spencer W. Thomas")
  Re: Sea Water? ("Martin Brungard")
  Re: Beer and Pretzels (Jeff Renner)
  RE: Vote for the HBD! ("Brian Lundeen")
  RE: Beer and Pretzels ("Doug Hurst")
  Shapes, viability and other staining tests? ("Fredrik")
  answer about WLP005, question about yeast ("Chad Stevens")


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JANITORs on duty: Pat Babcock (pbabcock at hbd dot org), Jason Henning,
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Date: Wed, 5 Jan 2005 07:38:30 -0500 
From: "Lewis, Timothy M HS" <tim.lewis at hs.utc.com>
Subject: Stuck Fermentation

I know this subject has many threads on it but I want to get some fresh
opinions anyway...I've got a partial-mash Belgian Strong Dark Ale in the
primary for just over a week now that started at 1.080 has been stuck at
1.030 for the last 3 days.  Yeast was Wyeast 1388 Belgian Strong with a 0.5
liter starter. I know, I should have used a bigger starter for such a high
OG, but anyway...I'm thinking that since it is almost there I can get it to
finish by just rousing the yeast over the next few days before racking to
the secondary, rather than adding a fresh starter or yeast nutrient ya think
that'll do it? I've already got it sitting in a 70F space in my basement so
it should be warm enough.  I just did a Belgian Strong Golden Ale with
Wyeast 1214 that seemed to finish fine from 1.080 to 1.015 perhaps the 1388
is not quite as alcohol tolerant? Thanks.   


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Date: Wed, 05 Jan 2005 09:03:19 -0500
From: "Spencer W. Thomas" <hbd at spencerwthomas.com>
Subject: Re: Stuck Fermentation

Tim Lewis asks about his Belgian Strong Dark that went from 1.080 to
1.030 and "stuck" there.  I can think of several possible reasons for
this.  In no particular order, they are:

1. The recipe ended up with lots of unfermentables in the wort, and
fermentation is really finished.  This seems unlikely, but could account
for at least part of the problem.  You say "partial mash" but don't give
any further details.  Is there sugar?  What kind of extract did you use?
  What was your mash regimen?  If you added any sugar, then 1.030 seems
quite unlikely as a true final gravity.

2. The yeast is too cold.  You say the space is at 70F.  Is that 70F
where the fermenter is sitting (on the floor?)  Or is that 70F at "torso
level" where your thermometer is sitting?  Particularly in a basement,
you may find 10-15 degrees difference between head level and floor
level.  Many Belgian yeasts are extremely temperature sensitive, and
will just stop working below, say, 70F.  If this is your problem,
getting the fermenter off the floor into a warmer place may restart the
fermentation (or it may not, depending on the yeast).

3. The yeast wasn't healthy enough at the start of fermentation.  How
did you prepare the starter?  Did it get lots of aeration to encourage
lots of strong yeast?  If this is your problem, all the rousing in the
world might not do the trick, and you'll have to add more yeast to
finish the job.  A neutral dry yeast would probably work well for that
purpose.

=Spencer in Ann Arbor, MI



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Date: Wed, 05 Jan 2005 05:32:59 -0900
From: "Martin Brungard" <mabrungard at hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: Sea Water?


Alex posted an interesting link to a French brewery that uses seawater in 
its brewing process.  I see that Alex is from Montreal, so he probably had 
no problem reading the site.  I had the use Babelfish to translate.

I did not find any description of what their water process was, but knowing 
the limits for ion concentrations in brewing and the composition of 
seawater, I can make the following observations.

Seawater is composed of many ionic species.  The major species are Chloride 
(19,400 ppm), Sodium (10,800 ppm), Sulfate (2,700 ppm), Magnesium (1,300 
ppm), and Calcium (400 ppm).

Given the taste-based concentration limits for chloride (~350 ppm) and 
sodium (~150 ppm) in high gravity beers, you can see that the brewers are 
probably using only a fraction of seawater in their brewing.  The limits 
above suggest that no more than about 1.5 percent of their brewing water is 
seawater.  I'd say this addition is really nothing more than a 'flavor ion' 
addition with the main components being table salt.

This is obviously just hype, but sometimes you need something to set you 
apart from the pack.  This French beer could still be a very enjoyable brew.

Martin Brungard
Tallahassee, FL




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Date: Wed, 5 Jan 2005 09:58:21 -0500
From: Jeff Renner <jeffrenner at comcast.net>
Subject: Re: Beer and Pretzels

  "Chris \"Pacman\" Ingermann" <maltmasher at yahoo.com> writes from Muncie, IN:

>I came across Jeff Renner's pretzel recipe I had printed out a
>long time ago and decided to finally give them a try tonight.
>Man o man are they good. I've got a little work to do on making
>them look a little better but the taste is phenomenal.
>
>Have a look at them:
>
>http://www.ingermann.com/images/food/Pretzels-1.jpg

They look pretty good to me!

>Thanks Jeff!

You are welcome.  Always glad to share things.  Knowledge is meant to 
be shared, I think.

For others who want to try baking these, see the original post at 
http://hbd.org/hbd/archive/3747.html#3747-11.

There was a follow-up discussion about simmering them in a weak lye 
solution, which is necessary for that 'pretzelly" taste.  There 
really isn't any source that I know of for food grade lye, but my 
investigations suggest that Red Devil and the like are probably quite 
free of nasty heavy metals, etc.  Any you use very little.

If you don't like the idea of using lye, or want to make these with 
children (as participants, not ingredients!), you could substitute a 
whole bunch of baking soda (sodium bicarbonate).  Probably something 
like 1/2 - 3/4 cup.

Cheers

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: Wed, 5 Jan 2005 09:53:26 -0600
From: "Brian Lundeen" <BLundeen at rrc.mb.ca>
Subject: RE: Vote for the HBD!

> 
> Date: Tue, 04 Jan 2005 17:24:22 +0000
> From: "Bill Smith" <billsmith11 at hotmail.com>
> Subject: Vote for the HBD!
> 
> 
> You can go to http://chef2chef.net/rank/beersites.shtml and 
> vote. You probably won't find HBD on the first page right 
> away so click on the "[26-50] [51-75] [76-100]" links to find 
> it. You can only vote once a day so be sure to come back everyday!
> 

But... but... that's cheating, Bill. Shirley, you don't want the HBD to
win by ballot stuffing or some other disreputable means. And with 31
votes when I checked, I'm afraid we'd be stuffing like Phil Yates stuffs
his pants on Ladies Drink for Free night at the the town bar.

Let it go, Bill. Embrace the fact that we are a small, elite group, not
the hordes of belching, beer guzzling minions those Brew Rats have
accumulated over the years. 

Cheers
Brian, in -35C Winterpeg



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Date: Wed, 05 Jan 2005 10:48:05 -0600
From: "Doug Hurst" <dougbeer2000 at hotmail.com>
Subject: RE: Beer and Pretzels


I agree that Rennner's recipe is fabulous.  I made five batches to hand out 
as gifts around Christmas.  They were delicious.  It was hard not to eat 
them all myself.  They definitely get easier to make as you repeat the 
process.  You eventually learn the secret of the twist and flip.  I can say 
that this recipe makes pretzels as good or better than the ones I was eating 
in Germany.

An awesome treat is to cover the top of a pretzel with sliced cheese then 
put it in the toaster oven or broiler for a couple minutes until the cheese 
starts to brown.   (insert Homer Simpson drooling sounds here)


Thanks Jeff.

Doug Hurst
Chicago, IL




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Date: Wed, 5 Jan 2005 19:47:22 +0100
From: "Fredrik" <carlsbergerensis at hotmail.com>
Subject: Shapes, viability and other staining tests?

(2nd try)

Thanks alot Kurt for your response!

1. Shapes--------

Here are some pictures of the yeast 
(WY2565 kolsh strain). 
http://hem.bredband.net/frerad/beer/modelling/pictures/activated2565.jpg

If I compare with nottingham and windsor these 
seem to have a very stable morphology (and much 
less confusing to me). Could it be that the koelsh 
strain is simply a bit more unstable in this respect?

I should add that the rod frequency increase upon 
activation with wort. I have exercised sanitation
and I think there is no likely way any contamination 
can have grown this frequent at this point anyway,
unless it was already present in the yeast bag?

Any idea if there is any specific differences in 
metabolic regulations that you can expect from a 
rod like cell as compared to a spherical one. This 
is interesting. I was mostly confused from what I saw. 

If unstable morhphology on this strain is a likely 
explanation to the observrations(?) I would be 
satisfied with this explanation!

2. Viability------

I followed the link you posted and looked up some 
other sources and it seems some of those fluorescent 
dyes are better, more exact and less ambigous stain 
detection, but unfortunately I don't have a flourscent 
microscope :( I am using pretty basic hobby equipment. 
I have a decent hobby microscope, cell counting 
chambers, plates, pipettes and non-expensive standard dyes.

> In general, it's not clear to me why a two-fold difference 
> in cell counting is going to matter much in brewing.

>From a practical point of view I think that under or 
over pitching within a factor 2 relative to your target 
isn't going to "ruin any beer". Perhaps it might have 
some slight measurable flavour impacts though, I don't
know. I guess that is one of the interesting things 
remaining to find out and part of why I bother with 
this :)

But now I am at least aware of this(most important 
thing) and so far I guess I will have to continue 
to double check viability with plating and staining 
and see if it's possible to find any useful correction 
terms once I get enough data. The optimum outcome that 
I hope for is if one could use methylene blue + find 
a mathematical correction term that could be applied 
to correct for possible overestimates. But chances 
are that there are non constant factors that would 
change this correction. Perhaps the glycogen level 
could be such a factor? that's at least roughly 
measureable. Right now I am assuming that the correct
value is somewhere in between the staining reading
and the (flocc-size corrected) plating reading. But
the interval left is still too big to make me happy.
I certainly have some slight volume and dilution 
errors but I think they can't explain the entire deviation.

I'll see what future data tells me.

3. UFA, sterol, trehalose estimation --------------

Does anyone know of a practical way to at least 
determine UFA, sterol and trehalose levels at home 
without hard to get or expensive equipment? I have 
some performance based ideas based on the CO2 
profiles, but I was thinking of something more 
direct that could serve as a double check? Any staining 
procedures? I read about a procedure to measure the 
shift in reducing (sugar) power in the slurry after 
a trehalose hydrolysing enzyme but where the heck 
does a homebrewer get hold of such an enzyme that 
isn't horribly expensive? It would be really cool 
if one could probe for this.

 /Fredrik



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Date: Wed, 5 Jan 2005 10:57:37 -0800
From: "Chad Stevens" <zuvaruvi at cox.net>
Subject: answer about WLP005, question about yeast

Kurt asks about WLP005:

http://www.whitelabs.com/search.asp

Is a good link to search for White Labs yeast characteristics.  Apart from
that, these are my personal notes on White's yeast:

WLP 023 Burton - Fruity, plum, raison
WLP 006 Bedford - Clean, accentuates malt slightly
WLP 022 Essex - Dry, clean, non-descript, boring (most judges will probably
love it)
WLP 002 English - Fuller's?
WLP 005 British - Accentuates malt, pruney ester
WLP 004 Irish - Clean, crisp, Guinness?
WLP 028 Edinburgh - Malty, clean, soft, round, full

I realize this is a bit sparse, but it's enough for me to remember what
yeast gave what quality and which one to pick for my next brew.  FWIW.

______________________________

I've got a question.  I got into a friendly discussion about pitching yeast.
The question is, "must yeast go through a full life cycle to get a clean
result?"  In other words, one school of thought is that you must aerate
wort, pitch a given quantity which will undergo aerobic growth, then at some
point, when the o2 is used up and we have arrived at the appropriate number
of cells, the yeast shift to anaerobic metabolism and do there stuff.

To play devils advocate, what if, you went through this process with a five
gallon batch of wort at 1.050, then pitch an identical quantity of 1.050
un-aerated wort on the entire yeast cake.  No aerobic growth occurs, and we
go as straight to fermentation as yeastily possible.  We are already at the
optimum yeast count and no growth is necessary.

So assuming no funk was developed in the previous batch, and assuming the
previous batch was racked off right at the end of fermentation so the yeast
have just flocced and aren't too far into lala land, we arrive at the real
question, "is there any reason to assume that one method would result in any
different flavor profile from the other?"  Has anyone done a side by side
comparison of these two methods and noted the differences?

http://plantbio.berkeley.edu/~taylor/pmb290/genomics.pdfs/terLinde.JBact.
1999.pdf

Studies such as the above demonstrate marked differences in metabolic
function in aerobic vs. anaerobic growth conditions.  Additionally, glycogen
stores are not increased at as great a rate under anaerobic conditions so
fermenting batch after batch under anaerobic conditions may be detrimental
to long term yeast viability.  That having been said, I do a lot of
repitching and haven't noticed a great deal of flavor profile difference in
first pitch batches vs. subsequent re-pitch batches.

Any comments are appreciated.

Chad Stevens
QUAFF
San Diego
http://www.quaff.org/AFC2005/AFCHBC.html
Accepting your brew entries now for America's Finest City Homebrew
Competition! 



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