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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
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Contents:
  Re: BTU output appropriate for brewing ("Craig S. Cottingham")
  German terms (Uerige Sticke Alt) ("Peter A. Ensminger")
  RE:Uerige Sticke Alt ("Sasha von_Rottweil")
  Steam INjection ("Dan Listermann")
  Re: Spruce Beers (grayling)
  Uerige Sticke Alt ("Landsberg, Kerry")
  Wine Country Trip Report (long) ("Dave Larsen")
  Re: Rapadura (Derric)
  RE:I want more Malt Flavor! (pacman)
  Big Bend Brew Off - Competition Announcement (John Larsen)


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JANITORs on duty: Pat Babcock (pbabcock at hbd dot org), Jason Henning,
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Date: Wed, 9 Feb 2005 23:13:06 -0600
From: "Craig S. Cottingham" <craig at cottingham.net>
Subject: Re: BTU output appropriate for brewing

On Feb 9, 2005, at 10:55, "Ken Taborek" <Ken.Taborek at verizon.net> 
wrote:

> So now I'm looking for an appropriate grill to install at my new home.
> There are a lot of models with a side burner, and typically this side 
> burner
> has a higher BTU rating than any of the individual internal burners, 
> in the
> range of 12,000 - 16,000 BTUs.  This side burner seems like it might be
> appropriate for boiling wort.

Our latest gas grill has a side burner, but the platform it's built 
into is pretty flimsy. The owner's manual states rather clearly that 
you're not supposed to put more than 5 or 10 pounds on it -- that's 
only about a gallon of water.

Besides, there's no way it puts out as many BTUs as my turkey fryer 
burner. :-) If you look around, you may still be able to find some on 
closeout, but the best time for that was shortly after Christmas, if I 
remember correctly.

- --
Craig S. Cottingham
craig at cottingham.net
OpenPGP key available from:
http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x7977F79C



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Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2005 00:41:57 -0500
From: "Peter A. Ensminger" <ensmingr at twcny.rr.com>
Subject: German terms (Uerige Sticke Alt)

Randy asked about some German terms in  < 
http://www.hbd.org/hbd/archive/4719.html#4719-14 >.

"Gerstenmalz" is simply "barley malt". Gersten=barley. Malz=malt.
"Doldenhopfen" could be translated as "whole leaf hops". Dolden=umbel 
(botanical term for "inflorescence in which all flowers arise from the 
same terminal point"). Hopfen=hops.

Cheerio!
Peter A. Ensminger
Syracuse, NY
hbd.org/ensmingr




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Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2005 09:45:43 +0000
From: "Sasha von_Rottweil" <sasharina at hotmail.com>
Subject: RE:Uerige Sticke Alt

>love to make this beer but at only 25% German heritage I may not be 
>qualified :^)
Dude, as a homebrewer you are qualified to make anything you want, even it 
it is a Botswanan Bananapeel Beer ;-)

>Anywho, on the label it lists the ingredients: wasser (I know what that 
>is), Gerstenmalz (never heard that term; what type of malt is that?), 
>Caramelmalz, Rostmalz, Doldenhopfen, Uerige-hefe.

Gerstenmalz : literally Barley malt, I bet you could use any good pils malt
Caramelmalz : Caramel Malt
Rostmalz : Roasted Malt
Doldenhopfen : Whole Hops, I'm betting Spalt
Uerige-hefe : (I may be wrong so somebody please verify) I believe that 
Whitelabs' American Hefeweizen (WLP-320) is the original Uerige strain that 
Widmers somehow got and began using in their America Hefeweizen.

I sure everybody has their favorite Alt yeasts but I have had good results 
with Whitelabs European Ale (WLP-011) and the German Ale/Koelsch (WLP-029). 
My buddy swears by Wyeast 1338 for his Alt.

Hubert Hanghofer has a Sticke recipe in his book "Bierbrauen Nach Eigenem 
Geschmack", but I don't have the book here.

A HBD post from 6 Jan 2005
http://hbd.org/hbd/archive/4691.html#4691-2
mentions this recipe.

Prost,
Marty




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Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2005 08:48:48 -0500
From: "Dan Listermann" <dan at listermann.com>
Subject: Steam INjection

From: Bart Thielges <bart at landport.net>
Subject: Steam injection

Dan Listermann writes on steam injection to the mash :

<>I tried it back in the late 80's.
>It worked but I didn't feel it made my beer any better and, while fun, I
>decided that it was not worth the bother.>
>
>
<Dan - what kind of mash schedule were you comparing with while
you were experimenting with steam ?   I'm hoping to improve upon
a single infusion schedule.  If its not worth the bother over single
infusion, then skipping the protein rest would speed up my brew
day.>

It has been so long ago it is hard to say.  I suppose I did a 126F protein 
rest, ramped it up to 150 and finished with a mash out.  Frankly a protein 
rest is primarily for clarity and is not necessary for almost all malts 
produced today.  I almost always now do single infusions without a mash out 
getting 30 points per pound per gallon and adequate clarity.


<>... The
>connection between the boiler ( a pressure cooker ) was made with the metal
>corrugated flexible gas hoses you see of gas stoves and such...>
>
<Did you feel that the corrugated flexible gas hose suffered
any metal fatigue from flexing during the stirring motion ?>

I didn't use it long enough to have to think about worrying about it.

<I'm thinking of trying a preassembled length of SS mesh jacketed
hot water hose : the kind are used to connect between the sink's
faucet and the stopcock to the house plumbing in the wall.  I know
that they can handle 150F water at 80PSI.  I am hoping that the
hose doesn't fail at 220F and 15PSI.>

15 psi is more like 250 F IIRC.  I would not use it.

Dan Listermann







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Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2005 08:31:14 -0600
From: grayling at wideopenwest.com
Subject: Re: Spruce Beers

Here in the icy north of Mee-Chee-Gun (well, not quite as icy or north as 
Alaska!) a member of our club (Mike O'Brien) makes some fine spruce beers 
using blue spruce.  

New growth does not appear to be necessary unless you want to throw the tips 
in the boil.  I would however recommend mash "sprucing" as it provides a much 
better spruce flavor in the finished product.  Mike uses about a paper 
grocery bag full of spruce for a 10 gallon batch (just toss them in the 
mash).  I have helped Mike brew a batch or two on his historical system (big 
copper pot, wood fire, wooden barrel mash/lauter tun) using spruce in the 
mash and they came out wonderful.

Cheers!

Jim Suchy
Westland, MI
(I will be at {0,0} Rennerian this Friday night!!) 



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Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2005 09:55:17 -0700
From: "Landsberg, Kerry" <Kerry.Landsberg at qwest.com>
Subject:  Uerige Sticke Alt



>  -----Original Message-----
> From: 	Landsberg, Kerry  
> Sent:	Thursday, February 10, 2005 9:54 AM
> To:	'post at hbd.org'
> Subject:	Uerige Sticke Alt
> 
> 
> Gerstenmalz = barley malt
> 
> Doldenhopfen = umbel hops.
> Have no idea what this means exactly in translation. 
	Hop flowers might be pretty close.




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Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2005 20:13:11 +0000
From: "Dave Larsen" <hunahpumonkey at hotmail.com>
Subject: Wine Country Trip Report (long)

My wife Julie and I are pretty big wine buffs. That is not to say that we 
are experts.  However, we have certain styles and brands we like.  As a 
result, we decided to take a weekend trip to wine country, USA: Napa and 
Sonoma.

Julie and I have not been to Northern California wine country for about 5 
years, and when we were there last, it was for a couple of hours and only 
went to Robert Mondavi vineyard/winery.  This time, we decided to spend 
three days and hit as many wineries as we could.

We figured out that we could probably hit three or four wineries/vineyards 
per day and still have time to relax at the Bed and Breakfast we were 
staying at.  That worked out to about 10 wineries/vineyards total. It broke 
down like this:

Friday (Napa)
- --------
Cuvaisan
Cake Bread
Truchard

Saturday (Sonoma)
- --------
Ferrari-Carano
Rochioli
Battaglini
Coturri

Sunday (Napa)
- --------
Barnett
Rombauer
Folie a Deux

What was interesting is that we have been drinking certain brands of wine 
for years, but you have no idea what the size of the vineyard/winery or 
complexity of the production by looking at the bottle.

For instance, we've been drinking Truchard, a wonderful wine, for a long 
time, so when we drove up, we expected a huge company.  Not so. It was 
basically someone's house with a couple of goats tied up front.  When we 
showed up, even though we had an appointment, we found ourselves wandering 
around their yard calling out, "hello?"

When someone finally appeared, we went into what looked like a guest house 
and found a small room full of cases of wines.  There we tried a few wines 
until we were quite happy.

At one point, Mr. Truchard came out with a rubber ball, and tossed it at one 
goat.  The goat happily butted it back.  This game continued for some time.

After a while, they took us into their "wine cave," a series of artificial, 
dimly lit tunnels full of casks of wine, being aged.  That was way cool.

Another small winery we visited was Coturri.  These guys make incredible 
Zinfandels.  They are also a bunch of hippies from the 60s.

They tout the fact that they use no additives like sulfites or even yeast.  
They use yeast naturally occurring on the grapes.  Also, they do the process 
completely by hand, including bottling.

What really struck me was that they had no tasting room per se.  We sat in 
their garage as they opened up bottle after bottle, surrounded by pet dogs 
and cats.  The bar, if you want to call it that, was a piece of plywood 
casually placed upon some unused barrels.

What was very interesting about their production is that they do very small 
amounts, about 300 cases at a time, which comes out to 3600 bottles. I do 
not know how many barrels that is, but I only noticed two rows of barrels 
half covered by their garage, with the same "S" shaped airlock that you 
would find in on one of my carboys back home.

I asked them how they did primary fermentation, to which the bearded 
ex-hippie vintner responded that they had a big wooden fermenter that looked 
like a giant oak barrel in one of their sheds.

This operation did not look any more professional than a basic homebrew 
setup, just larger in size.  What was great about it is that, like I said, 
they produce some of the best Zinfandels I've ever tasted.  In fact, they 
just had a write-up in the Wall Street Journal.

After we finished tasting, they gave us all the open bottles we tasted out 
of, saying, "We can't drink all of this. You take it."  We ending up 
bringing the bottles back to the Bed and Breakfast and passing them out to 
people we met.

In general, the thing that stands out at the smaller wineries is that they 
seem so glad to see you.  I imagine that they rarely get visitors.

This differed so vastly from the larger wineries, such as Ferrari-Carano.  
At that winery there are signs telling you where the winery is, where to 
park, how to get to the tasting room and so on.

The tasting room was an elaborate shop, full of after-market items like 
refrigerator magnets and bubble bath.  The bar was elegant, packed with 
people, and came with slick wine salesmen.

We took a tour of another larger winery called Cake Bread.  This differed so 
vastly from Coturri in that they had large stainless steel fermenters, 
jacketed so that they carry coolant to control temperature.

At the time we were in there, the fermenters were covered in ice.  The 
internal temps were about 35 degrees F.  This was to cause the tartaric acid 
to precipitate out of the wine, which can lead to sediment in the bottle.  
Obviously, their production was way more complicated and professional 
looking than Coturri.

To be honest, often times in the larger wineries, we were in and out in 10 
minutes.  We would taste want we wanted, buy what we wanted, and were out of 
there.  We enjoyed the smaller ones so much more, because you could actually 
talk to the people involved in the process.

Another winery that stood out was Barnett.  Barnett has wines that are quite 
costy, up to 100 dollars a bottle, but is quite worth it.  As you can guess, 
though, it is not casual drinking.

Barnett was at the end of our tour.  We had Map Quest directions that said 
it was 5 miles up Spring Mountain Road.  Little did we know that it was also 
2000 feet in altitude as well, up at the top if Spring Mountain (hence the 
name of the road).   It was very steep, twisty and turny, and grown over.

Julie and I had already been to several small and large wineries.  In our 
head we thought that this was another dinky operation run by hippies, 
because there was no way a semi-truck was getting up that road.   However, 
when it ended, we stopped at large wooden gates with a callbox next to it.

"Hi, this is Dave and Julie.  We have an appointment."

There was a click and the gates slowly opened to reveal the most beautiful 
view we saw since we got there.  You could see all the way down Spring 
Mountain into Napa Valley, and there were vines clinging to the side.   The 
grounds were beautiful and manicured.

We met Hal and Fiona Barnett inside, along with our guide Tyson.  They were 
extraordinarily friendly and definitely not hippies.  We did find out, 
thought, that it was a small family operation.  You could not tell that by 
looking, because it looked professional in every way.  In addition, they 
definitely knew the business end of wine, understanding the value of their 
product.

My favorite part of that visit was talking about diacetyl and its role in 
wine vs. beer.  In fact, that was kind of the theme at all the small 
wineries.  Since my background was homebrewing beer, I would often talk 
about production of beer while they would talk from the wine end, meeting 
somewhere in the middle.  It was very fascinating.

That is basically it.  I hope you enjoyed the report.

Dave
Tucson, AZ




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Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2005 14:40:03 -0800 (PST)
From: Derric <derric1961 at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Rapadura


> I've recently been able to locate authentic rapadura
> on the internet. I googled rapadura, and it can be
> purchased through Amazon at a ridiculously high
> price.  The ones I brought back from Brazil cost
> less than a dollar for 400g.

The Mexican raw sugar cones are probably the same
thing.  Look at:
     http://www.mexgrocer.com/9696.html

They say:
      "Panela is a pure, wholesome, traditional,
unrefined, non-centrifugal whole sugar. It contains
the natural goodness of minerals and vitamins
inherently present in sugarcane juice. Panela is known
by many names such as- turbinado sugar, Jaggery, Gur,
Raspadura, Piloncillo, Panocha or Penuche."

It is $1.75 for 12 oz.

Disclaimer:
I know nothing about the company above... I found
it from searching amazon for "piloncillo" ...






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Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2005 18:15:25 -0700
From: pacman at edwardwadsworth.com
Subject: RE:I want more Malt Flavor!

Reading your post I would recommend two things.  Use liquid yeast intead of dry
(make a starter, too).  You'll have more options and in MY experience liquid
yeasts made into a starter, pitched into a beer give superior flavor results. 
Again, in MY experience.  The second thing would be to use more extract/
specialty malts than the recipe calls for.  I started all-grain brewing in the
first year, after four progressively better, yet lacking, partial mash batches.
 Upping the "grainbill" and extract amounts a touch helped boost the flavor. 
The real secret is the yeast.  They take what you make and create all the
flavor profiles.  Plenty of healthy yeast and a good mash are necessary to make
good beer.  The extract method potentially lacks some of the nutrients and
enzymes needed for yeast to do a complete job, resulting in more "malty" flavor
and an overall fuller, more satisfying taste.  Of course, all grain brewing
presents more potential to screw up, and ultimately you are fully responsible
for the quality of your extract.  But when done well, it's a no brainer.


Parker



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Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2005 21:59:57 -0500
From: John Larsen <jlarsen at nettally.com>
Subject: Big Bend Brew Off - Competition Announcement

The North Florida Brewers League of Tallahassee is proud to announce the 
9th annual competition, the Big Bend Brew Off 2005. The competition is 
registered with both the AHA and the BJCP and will accept entries in all 
categories in the 2004 BJCP guidelines (see www.bjcp.org ) .  Judging 
will be held on Saturday, March 12 and entries will be accepted from 
February 18 to March 4.  An entry cost $6 and consists of three bottles. 
 Complete rules and entry forms may be downloaded from our website at 
www.nfbl.org.

Send all entries to:
    Big Bend Brew Off,
    c/o The Homebrew Den,
    1350 E. Tennessee ST, #B-3,
    Tallahassee, FL 32308

If you have any questions, please contact the competition organizers,  
Joel Tedder and Wendy Gregory , jandw1112 at aol.com

Of course, we can always use judges.  Please contact the Judge Director, 
John Larsen, if you are interested jlarsen at nettally.com




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