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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
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Contents:
  Corny keg lids ("Ronald La Borde")
  Best of Philly 2005 competition results (Joe Uknalis)
  Local Competition Press Releases? ("David Houseman")
  strange fermentation - HELP ("Sean McCabe")
  personal notes (leavitdg)
  Thanks for ideas.. will impliment. ("Mike Eyre")
  Great Decoction Experiment up date (Denny Conn)
  God Bless the Janitor's! ("Michel J. Brown")
  Some questions ("Peed, John")
  re: Gravity Feed brew problem, looking for help? ("Michel J. Brown")
  Kettle Braid ("Williams, Rowan")
  Where to cut kegs for kettles? ("Mike Westcott")


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Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2005 17:35:35 -0500
From: "Ronald La Borde" <pivoron at cox.net>
Subject: Corny keg lids

About a couple years ago I questioned the HBD about cleaning Corny
kegs. I wondered how does Coke clean the kegs. I know, the industry is
moving to disposable bag-in-box, but still, in Cajun land, at
festivals, the corny is still king. Hopefully the kegs experience a
commercial cleaning protocol.

Still waiting to find out just how does Coke, (or, "Is Pepsi OK"),
clean their kegs.

I hear people talking about marking and keeping the lid with each keg.
Hmm, do you think Coke keeps a database on each lid??? It would seem
that the lids should be able to migrate at will to any compatible keg.
Would anyone in their right mind design anything differently?

With soda, the pressure is certainly more than the 10-12 PSI we use
for beer, so I think that would cause the large lid seal O-ring to
seal nicely. Perhaps the answer is the larger, softer O-ring available
from certain sources.

Ron
=====
Ronald J. La Borde -- Metairie, LA
New Orleans is the suburb of Metairie, LA
www.hbd.org/rlaborde




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Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2005 20:49:54 -0400
From: Joe Uknalis <birman at netaxs.com>
Subject: Best of Philly 2005 competition results

Dear Homebrewers-
   HOPS is pleased to announce the results of our annual competition.
Congratulations to Al Folsom for his Best of Show Flanders Red!

All results can be found at:

http://www.hopsclub.org/archives/hops-bops_2005/results.html

  Joe



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Date: Tue, 19 Apr 2005 08:03:10 -0400
From: "David Houseman" <david.houseman at verizon.net>
Subject: Local Competition Press Releases?

If any one has written a press release for a local competition I'd
appreciate a copy to use as straw men in writing our own for our local
competition.   Just email these directly to me.

Thanks in advance,

David Houseman
david dot houseman at verizon dot net



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Date: Tue, 19 Apr 2005 13:17:24 -0400
From: "Sean McCabe" <greenfieldmills at hotmail.com>
Subject: strange fermentation - HELP

so I brewed up my standard partial grain and extract IPA for about the 10+ 
time and I have had a strange or unresponsive initial fermentation that I 
was looking for some insight on.

I use:

1 lbs 20 L Crystal grain
6 lbs light or pale extract
6 oz hop pellets (3 fuggle and 3 centennial  at  1 oz each 10 min of boil)
Irish Moss

1 hour+ boil after grain for 15 mins...

pretty simple... but then I get lazy. I don't have a wort chiller yet and 
just usually let the wort cool in the 6 gal carboy (sealed) till the next 
day when I pitch the yeast... Well this time I waited 2+ days... I also 
switched from store bought "spring" water to well water run through a new 
whole house filter (in-line on the hose outside... its a rental house).

Well the fermentation did a very little, no active blow off as before on day 
2 or 3... After 5 days I again pitched more yeast (thinking I had killed or 
weakened somehow the initial batch) and after 12+ hours just a little bit 
more activity than before.

Any ideas?

Thanks,

Sean McCabe
Greenfield Mills, Maryland

"'Cause, remember, no matter where you go..... there you are."
Buckaroo Banzai

http://groups.msn.com/GreenfieldMillsMaryland/




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Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2005 08:39:21 -0400
From: leavitdg at plattsburgh.edu
Subject: personal notes

Michel;

 Your notes were very interesting, and close to my own.  I boil for 90-120 
minutes as well, usually 120,  I have a long conversion (although I do step-
mash by applying heat).

 I do wonder how you could sparge for 2 hours?  I find that 45 minutes to one 
hour (for 5.2 gallon batch) is about right.

 Happy Brewing!

Darrell




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Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2005 07:48:04 -0700
From: "Mike Eyre" <meyre at sbcglobal.net>
Subject: Thanks for ideas.. will impliment.



Thanks to all those that responded for my request for help in regards to
my three teir grav setup jamming up in the boil kettle. I got a lot of
off-list replies with a good bunch of imformation. I think I have a
grasp on whereto go now, and I'll be making some changes to the setup.
I'll report back on what fixed what, and maybe that'll help the next guy
in my position out. Again, thanks to all!

Mike



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Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2005 10:49:53 -0800
From: Denny Conn <denny at projectoneaudio.com>
Subject: Great Decoction Experiment up date

We're down to the last month of the Great Decoction Experiment.  If you're 
participating, I need to have your results by the end of May.  If you 
haven't already done so, please go to www.hbd.org/cascade/decoction and 
grab the Brewers Report Form, Tasting Report Form and Tasting Report Cover 
Sheet.  If you have any questions, please let me know.  I've already 
received results from a couple of you and we're doing a tasting of Dort, 
pils, and dunkel here in Eugene tonight.

Thanks for your participation in the experiment!

	---------------->Denny



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Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2005 11:49:48 -0700
From: "Michel J. Brown" <zymurgyst at comcast.net>
Subject: God Bless the Janitor's!

When I was very young, my family was moving to west Texas (El Paso), where 
my Father was posted.  Along the way to El Paso, we stopped at a greasy 
spoon along the side of Route 66 and had lunch.  The waitress was an old 
woman that looked a lot like Tammy Faye, but her name was not known to me 
since she didn't wear a name badge, but everyone in the diner called her 
Lady.  About halfway through our meal, a slop jockey came in and sat down at 
the counter and ordered lunch.  Within five minutes or so, several people 
loudly protested this man's disheveled look, and aroma.  He looked sad, and 
was about to leave when my Father stood up and boldly told the man to sit 
back down, and keep his seat.  Then Dad looked at all the people who 
complained and said that when he was in foxholes all over the world (he was 
in all three theaters),  he didn't care how people looked or smelled, just 
as long as they were doing their duty.  He further said that he has the most 
respect for this man because he did the work they shunned, and he did it 
quietly, and without anyone else even knowing.  All he wanted to do was sit 
and rest peacefully with his lunch.  Then he turned back to the man and 
said, "God Bless the men who do the jobs the rest of us don't have the 
courage, conviction, or cajones (ok, he actually said balls) to do."  He 
glared disapprovingly at the rest of the people, and paid the waitress our 
tab and tip, then left saying he didn't notice the stench till someone 
complained about this working man.  Thank you Pat, Jason, and Spencer -- you 
perform a vital service that is IMHO, a little too transparent.  Keep up the 
good work, and I raise my glass to you all!

Prost!

Michel 



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Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2005 12:08:40 -0700
From: "Peed, John" <jpeed at elotouch.com>
Subject: Some questions



Michael Brown, I have some questions.  

When you say diacetyl is produced by delayed cooling, do you mean
dimethylsulphide?  I've never heard of diacetyl being caused by delayed
chilling.  I've also not found DMS to be a problem when I steep my hops
for half an hour or so in a covered kettle, as long as the boil is
sufficiently active, and un-covered.

Air in system - I'm afraid I'm ignorant - can you explain breakout and
its effects further?

Mashing - What do you gain from hours of mashing and sparging?  Do you
really notice much difference compared to an hour of mashing and half an
hour to an hour of sparging?  If so, what are the differences?

I think maybe you're not noticing ill effects of counter-pressure
filling because of the kind of beer you're bottling.  It appears to me
that beers with lots of hop flavor and aroma are the ones that suffer
the most damage.  Diacetyl-related flavors and oxidized flavors can
definitely arise in very hoppy beers that are CP bottled.  Massively
malty beers have massive flavors (and, generally, not a lot of hop
subtlety) and I doubt that they would suffer as much as the more
delicate styles.

John Peed
Oak Ridge, TN



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Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2005 12:33:13 -0700
From: "Michel J. Brown" <zymurgyst at comcast.net>
Subject: re: Gravity Feed brew problem, looking for help?

>Hello all!

Prost, Mike!

>I've got your standard issue home build gravity feed three tier converted
>keg brewery.

Are the bottoms of the superior tuns above or equal to the inferior ones? 
I've found that a distance of a few inches makes a huge difference in 
performance in this particular area.

>I've used it a about 5 times now, with mixed success.

By this I assume you mean that you achieved some brews as planed, while 
others didn't pan out so well?

>The first couple times it worked relatively well, but the last two times 
>it's really jammed up on me... once while sparging, and a couple >times 
>while draining the cooled wort into the fermenter. I've got the Chore Boy 
>scrubber on the boil kettle and I've got a copper tube >with a lot of holes 
>drilled into it in the mashtun.

I can see why your boiling tun might have been plugged up by either hot 
break material,  or hop residue but why the hot liquor tank (HLT)?  It's 
just hot liquor, right?  Or do you have water sediment problems too?

>I think the mashtun was a freak accident on my part after trying to 
>motorize the grainmill and I justpulverized the grain too much.. so I 
> >think I'll be OK with that, but the boiler is killing me. I use whole leaf 
>hops, BTW.

Small grit size can contribute to stuck sparges, but it sounds more like 
compression of the chore boy by the weight of the grain on top.  If you are 
using a lot of grain, say 20# or so in a 10 gallon batch size, with 13 
gallons in the boiling tun after sparging, that's a lot of superimposed 
weight on a chore boy.  I use a modified version of the EZ Masher in both my 
mash tun, and boiling tun, never had a problem thus far, even with as much 
as 20# of grain, and 25 quarts of hot liquor on top of a basically 6 inch SS 
mesh tube 3/8" diameter.

>I'm using 3/8th's fitting and hose barbs on the outside and a 3/8ths dip 
>tune in the interior of the keg.. do you think I should go up to a >1/2 on 
>both sides, cause the hole is too small, leading to clogging?

While 1/2 inch is almost 50% bigger than 3/8 inch tubing, the difference in 
flow rate for drainage is marginal from the mash/boiling tun(s) IMHO, based 
upon personal experience.  In the HLT, unless you have some form of filter, 
or other restriction on the output orifice, it should flow much faster with 
a larger diameter than with a smaller one.  You'd think the same would apply 
to other tanks as well, but I believe that there are other factors to 
consider, like hop mass and size, grain mass and size, break material 
position and placement in relation to drainage grant(s).

>What's the solution here? Anyone have a setup similar to this having good 
>luck that can point me in a good direction?

Well, fwiw, I'd try three things in this order. Firstly, change out the 
chore boy for a tube screen, and see if that helps.  Second, have a look 
around the HLT and see why its not flowing right, that sounds like a 
restriction in the coupling somewhere to me.  Thirdly, I would setup your 
mill to grind so that you get 1/3 cracked grains, 1/3 particulate, and 1/3 
coarse flour -- this is what I use, and it works well for me, yielding about 
83% efficiency, and about 30pts/pound/gallon.  That works out to about 
0.024" on the Valley mill roller width FYI.

Good luck, God Bless, and Prost!

Michel

>Mike



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Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2005 09:13:31 +1000
From: "Williams, Rowan" <Rowan.Williams at ag.gov.au>
Subject: Kettle Braid

G'day all,
Speaking of kettle screens...

I'm putting together a sankey shaped kettle and I've got some braided hose
that I want to use as a giant bazooka for screening out break and pellet mud
prior to racking through my CFWC and on to the fermenter.  Has anyone had
any problems with simply laying the braided hose (called a "happy hooker"
here in Oz) around the inner circumference of the keg, er, kettle?  If I
whirlpool the boiled wort and let it sit for 30 mins and then transfer, I'm
hoping to minimise the goo in the brew.

My only concern is the boil...Will the hose present a risk of trapping and
burning grain particles or pellet matter under it during the boil or am I
being overly concerned?

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


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Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2005 16:23:32 -0700
From: "Mike Westcott" <mwesty at cableone.net>
Subject: Where to cut kegs for kettles?

Getting ready to have kegs cut for use as brew kettles.  Is there any 
consensus on what size opening to cut?
Should we find lids first and cut after measuring for lids? Any info or 
suggestions would be appreciated. Mike. 



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