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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
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Contents:
  sour (Darrell.Leavitt)
  RE: Sourness in saison (Steven Parfitt)
  Oxygenation, hot-side aeration, and other topics ("Christian Layke")
  Brewmaster Needed in Hagerstown, MD (Chip Stewart)
  RE: nasty old air ("Brian Lundeen")
  Judges - NHC Eastern Regionals ("Dave Wohlfeil")
  March pump 809 issues (jeff)
  R.E. Pumping sparge water ("Dave Humes")


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JANITORs on duty: Pat Babcock (pbabcock at hbd dot org), Jason Henning,
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Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 07:15:30 -0500
From: Darrell.Leavitt at esc.edu
Subject: sour





Perhaps a safe way would be to use saueracid malt?

Darrell



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Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 05:47:52 -0800 (PST)
From: Steven Parfitt <thegimp98 at yahoo.com>
Subject: RE: Sourness in saison

Brian Schar Queries about Saison:

>I am brewing a saison in a week or two.
 ....snip.... 
>Imagine my surprise to find that saison yeast likes
>high temperatures (up to 90 degrees!) for
>fermentation.  
 ...snip...
>"Farmhouse Ales" also notes that saison, particularly
>historical examples thereof, has some degree of
>sourness, possibly Brett.  
 ....SNIP...

I need to brew another Saison as well, but am not
waiting on warm weather. Just wrap a towel around the
fermenter and keep it warm with a heat lamp. Check it
at least every six hours to adjust the position of the
heat lamm to control your temp.

I used WLP Saison for my last two batches. It turned
out nice and 'tart' fermenting at 76f (thermostrip on
the cargirl. I dont' think 80s or 90 is necessary.

I would describe the flavor of Fantom and the rest of
the commercial Saisons I have tried as tart rather
than sour. I believe the tartness can be achieved
solely by selecting the proper yeast and fermenting
slightly warm (relative to english and american ales).



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, 18 Mar 2005 09:21:31 -0500
From: "Christian Layke" <clayke at wri.org>
Subject: Oxygenation, hot-side aeration, and other topics

I'm enjoyed the thread on oxygenation and oxidation and appreciate the
great posts.  It seems that home-brewing texts emphasize wort
aeration/oxygenation because they anticipate that homebrewers will be
pitching unhealthy yeast and underpitching at that.  If we have found a
way around these problems, then perhaps we run the risk of
over-oxygenating and therefore oxidizing our finished beer.  I'll going
to experiment with not oxygenating my next two batches, a hefeweizen and
a weizenbock.  I'm going to just pitch a well-aerated starter with the
hefe.  For the weizenbock, I'll do the same and then repitch after 4 or
5 days with another starter.  I'll post my results. 

On the other hand (there is always another hand in this hobby, isn't
there?) In flipping through some brewing books recently, I've noted
these lauter tuns with 10 to 20 tall spigots each producing a steady
stream of hot wort that falls a good foot into a trough (see for example
page 91 of the Classic Beer Styles Bock edition or the discussion of
DeKonick in Michael Jackson's book on Belgian beers).  Some of the pics
show large amounts of foam from the active mixing.  The argument that
the scale of commercial equipment usually reduces the ratio of surface
area to total volume and thereby minimizes the risk of hot-side aeration
makes sense in general, but wouldn't this method of monitoring the
lauter run a great risk of incorporating a lot of air into virtually the
entire volume of run-off?  Wouldn't it seem that this might run the risk
of hot-side aeration?  Do they mitigate this risk somehow that isn't
evident from pictures?  Or, is the threat to our finished beer from
aeration prior to fermentation not so serious as to get bent out of
shape?  

For my stir-plate starters I use a set-up that emulates what biologists
use.  I read it here on HBD, but can't remember whom to thank.  I slit
three short pieces of gas line tubing and pop them over the lip of my
Erlenmeyer flask.  I then invert a wide-mouthed canning jar over the
flask so the inside bottom of the jar rests on the pieces of tubing. 
Voila!  A 1/8 inch gap for easy gas exchange, but a pretty arduous route
for any nasties to navigate. My experience would indicate that a gap
this size allows enough oxygen to get in to meet the yeasts'
reproduction needs--can any cellular biologists confirm this for the
digest?  Best of all, I can boil the starter in the flask and the steam
will sanitize the whole set up.  

Souring a Saison:  Most modern Saisons aren't noticeably sour in my
experience, but if you want to go for it, I would think you are looking
more for lactic sourness than brett funk.  Some of the aged bottles of
Saison Pipaix are quite sour and austere, but they have been using a CC
fermenter since the late 1990s, so I have a feeling that any bottles
produced since that time will only get dryer with age instead of sour
and dryer.  I have heard that Wyeasts Dutch Castle Yeast gives a
tartness, but in my experience the White Labs yeast does not.  Adding
some food-grade lactic acid may prove to be the easiest easy experiment
(wouldn't live up to the Reinheitsgebot, but then this is a Belgian
beer), although I would love to hear the results of your mini-batch.  

Have a great weekend, 

Christian Layke
Takoma Park, MD


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Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 08:08:57 -0700
From: Chip Stewart <Chip at stewartsplace.com>
Subject: Brewmaster Needed in Hagerstown, MD

I've been gone for a while due to the purchase and setting up of a
house, studying and taking of the MD bar exam, opening of SWMBO's
business and job search.  Well, I've settled, passed the bar (exam,
that is), been sworn in, and SWMBO is almost ready to open her antique
store.  Still working on the job search.  Time to start brewing again.

Anyhow, a friend of ours is planning on opening a brew pub in
Hagerstown, Maryland (about 75 minutes Northwest of Washington, DC). 
He has the building.  He has someone to run the food side.  What he
doesn't have is a brewmaster.  He said if the right person comes along,
he may be willing to put them through Siebel Institute training.  If
anyone here is interested or knows someone who might be, please have
them contact me at the e-mail address below.

Thanks,

Chip Stewart
Hagerstown, Maryland
Chip at StewartsPlace dot com
http://www.StewartsPlace.com

"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never
stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and
neither do we."
 - George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., Aug. 5, 2004
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/graphics/movies/0805041bush.mov



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Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 09:20:35 -0600
From: "Brian Lundeen" <BLundeen at rrc.mb.ca>
Subject: RE: nasty old air

> Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 11:37:02 -0800
> From: "Peed, John" <jpeed at elotouch.com>
> Subject: Bottling
> 
>I don't understand why you would filter 
> your starter
> air but aerate the wort with whatever air happens to be in your little
> corner of the world at the time.  

Those of us who use a stir plate bring plain old air into our starters.
Methinks Jeff is just a little overprotective of his babies, and we
shall just quietly snicker at his paranoia. ;-)

> Nor do I understand why 
> people talk about
> splash-stirring their wort, or pumping vigorously to mix with 
> ambient air,
> then going to the trouble to use a fermentation lock to 
> prevent contact with
> ambient air, which is supposed to be fraught with bacteria 
> and nasty wild
> yeasts.  Is this not a contradiction?  
> 
I guess it's a contradiction if you accept that is why you are using a
fermentation lock. The lock is designed to provide a barrier that
permits an exchange of gases so that pressure doesn't build up in your
fermenter. Under most conditions, that does involve letting gas out.
However, air can also be admitted. For example, when activity stops and
the contents cool, there will be a slight volume reduction that can
cause the dreaded suckback and admission of air. For that reason, many
people like to use vodka as a liquid, although I find it evaporates too
quickly. I use metabisulfite solution. 

The lock is preferable to just leaving the neck open because nasty
bacteria bearing things like fruit flies will be attracted to your beer
or wine, and can fly in. They are also better than a solid bung, even if
you are certain your activity is completely stopped. I've seen bungs
popped from carboy volume fluctuations due to ambient temperature
variation.

Cheers
Brian, in Winnipeg



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Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 11:19:40 -0500
From: "Dave Wohlfeil" <wohlfeil at apk.net>
Subject: Judges - NHC Eastern Regionals

We are looking for beer judges for the American Homebrewer's Assoc. NHC
Eastern Regionals. They will be held Friday April 22, 2005 (evening
session), and Saturday April 23, 2005 (morning and afternoon sessions) at
J.W. Dover in Westlake, Ohio. Lunch and Dinner will be provided on Saturday.
If you are interested please contact Dave Wohlfeil - wohlfeil at apk.net. For
more information on the NHC's please see www.jwdover.com or
www.beertown.org/events/nhc/index.html




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Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 08:09:48 -0800 (PST)
From: jeff at henze.us
Subject: March pump 809 issues

While we are on the subject of pumps...
I recently got a March model 809 (1600RPM, 1/100HP, 3.1GPM/1.8PSI Max) and
although the LHBS says everyone else loves this pump, I find I'm not
having much success. I realize that there are not many things that could
be wrong with the pump itself and that the most likely cause of the
problem is how I have it hooked up (or it's the wrong model for this
application), so here's a description of how I'm using it and the problem.

I have a 5 gallon Igloo round cooler for a mash tun. It has a full
diameter false bottom (SS with holes all over it - Phil's?) that has
worked very well for batch sparges in the past. This feeds into a standard
bottling bucket spigot attached to the cooler (wide open), which goes to a
3/8" line to the pump. The pump has 1/2" fittings and a ball valve on the
out side. This then goes to another 3/8" line through the heater and on up
to the sparge arm, which is 1/2" copper tubing in the usual "H" pattern.

Here's the problem - this pump has a heck of a time getting to the point
where it can actually pump liquid (even after filling the line up-to and
after the pump with water), and when it finally does pump, it does so very
slowly. To get it to the point where it'll pump, I have to un-mount it,
move it around to get rid of all the unseen air inside the impeller cavity
(for some reason, gravity flow alone doesn't work), stop it, start it,
stop it, move around some more, stop, start etc. for about 5 minutes
before I can get the thing running. The pump is mounted per instructions
below the level of the tun, and I've tried it with the output pointing
both up and sideways with the same results. Total height the water has to
be pumped is only about 4-5 feet up from the pump (the pump is about 1
foot below the mash tun). I won't even begin to try getting it going with
just mash runnings, so I get it running with water and leave it in the
pump and line while I dough-in.

I was told that my problem is that I'm sucking air into the pump on the
low pressure side and that my hose size was too large, so I dropped down
from 1/2" hose to the 3/8" line I'm using now, and using the same 1/2"
barbs which are now extremely tight (and clamped). I can't manually pull
air into the line if I tried (I have) and no air is visible in the clear
hoses. I get the same problems. I can rule out the water starting to boil
under low pressure - I have the same problem with cold water as with
warm/hot. I'm also not trying to pull the water at all, and pumping it out
slower than I am able to let it free-flow out of the mash tun.

Once the pump is fully primed and running, the flow is (barely) adequate
but my main problem is how hard it is to get going.

I'm not trying to pump too fast - I'm closing down the output to just a
fraction of what it's capable of. I've done this test with just hoses
to/from the pump and to/from a bucket of water with the same results -
hard to start and .5GPM maximum flow through 1/2" lines at 1 foot of head.

My questions are: is this the wrong pump for this application? The pump
morebeer.com sells is a 1/25HP model with higher specs all around. Jeff
Renner speaks of sucking air on the low side in order to oxygenate the
wort while recirculating to cool it - no way this pump would handle that!
Jeff - what kind of pump do you use? Does everyone have this problem
getting their pump going? Could this pump have a problem in the machining
of its (bronze) pump head that is causing it to cavitate? The impeller and
magnet turn freely without a problem.

Sorry for the long post...
Thanks for any insight you can give,
- --Jeff



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Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 16:31:09 -0500
From: "Dave Humes" <dhumes001 at comcast.net>
Subject: R.E. Pumping sparge water

I've been pumping sparge water with my system for several years now and 
believe that the problem really is dissolved air that's breaking out of 
solution in the pump.  Here's why.  My mash tun and HLT are on the same 
level.  So, I pump out of the bottom of the HLT into the top of the mash 
tun.  When I first started brewing on this system, I preboiled all of my 
brewing water the night before I brewed to remove the chlorine.  And I never 
had a problem with air getting entrapped in the pump.  But, later I 
purchased a filter for my brew water and no longer had a need to preboil. 
That's when I started having problems with air collecting in the body of the 
pump.  So now the pump will run OK for a few minutes, but the output 
gradually slows down to a trickle.  I just stop the pump for a few seconds, 
and a large air bubble will slowly come out of the pump and go up the sparge 
line.  Then I restart the sparge and it's OK for another few minutes.  It's 
a pain, but I'm always there during the sparge, so it's not that bad.  I use 
a March 1/25 HP pump.   So, you may want to try preboiling just to see if it 
solves your problem.  If it does, then you know it's not a leak.

- --Dave 



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