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


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Contents:
  Re: Wet Hopping? ("Greg 'groggy' Lehey")
  Re: Bernzomatic cylinder - Portable CO2 (John Schnupp)
  RE: Wet Hopping ("Jodie")
  Re: Compact C02 cylinder ("Meyer, Aaron D.")
  Bottle Conditioning and Storage Temps... ("Michael Eyre")
  Re: Bernzomatic cylinder - Portable CO2 (Danny WIlliams)
  Help with Harshness (Matt)
  Re: Re: Co2 Injector ("Meyer, Aaron D.")
  cleaning barrels (Marc Sedam)


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Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 12:44:22 +0930
From: "Greg 'groggy' Lehey" <grog at lemis.com>
Subject: Re: Wet Hopping?

On Monday, 20 June 2005 at  8:20:54 -0800, Denny Conn wrote:
> At 11:50 PM 6/19/05 -0400, you wrote:
>
>> There's mention of "wet hopping" in the March/April 2005 Zymurgy, page
>> 36, that I found intriguing. It appears to mean using hops off the vine,
>> not dried, in the kettle. Has anyone tried this?
>
> You bet, Jodie!  It's one of the main activities at Hop Madness
> (www.hopmadness.com), a festival held yearly in the hop growing regions of
> the Willamette Valley.  Piles of hops right out of the field are piled up
> for the attendees to use.  I've seen a 5 gal. batch of beer in a 15 gal.
> kettle full to the brim with hops that were picked an hour before.

And how does the beer compare to beer hopped with dried hops?

Greg
- --
The virus contained in this message was not detected.

Finger grog at lemis.com for PGP public key.
See complete headers for address and phone numbers.


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Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 23:56:04 -0700 (PDT)
From: John Schnupp <johnschnupp at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Bernzomatic cylinder - Portable CO2

Richard Sloan writes:
>If you are looking for a portable way of dispensing beer, get yourself one
>of these - http://www.morebeer.com/product.html?product_id=18301

Finally, someone came up with something that makes sense.  I use a similar home
made set-up.  Heck, I was at a motorcycle rally the other week.  Seems the keg
ran out of beer and enough numb-skulls tried to pour beer that all the CO2 got
pissed out the tap too.  By the time the new keg arrived there was no CO2 for
dispensing.  I dug into my saddle bag and pulled out my CO2 tire inflation kit.
 It was a kludge job but it worked well enough to get cold beer until the new
CO2 tank arrive.

Spencer W. Thomas asks
>It also appears that you don't get any control over the 
>pressure -- it just shoots the contents of the cartridge into the keg?

Observe the picture closely in the link supplied by Richard.  There is a small
lever that control the CO2.  Granted, there is no pressure regulation per se,
but do you really need it if you are only *dispensing* the beer?  Especially
true if you're at a party.  The beer will be long gone before it ever has a
chance to loose (or gain) carbonation due to no pressure control.  Just add a
little squirt of CO2 when the dispensing pressure drops.  Those little hand
pumps that get used offer no sort of pressure regulation either.



John Schnupp, N3CNL
Blue Moon Hombrewery
[560.2, 68.6] Rennerian
Georgia, VT
95 XLH 1200


		


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Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 08:10:29 -0400
From: "Jodie" <jodiedavis at adelphia.net>
Subject: RE: Wet Hopping

Oh what fun! I can almost smell them!

Did a little Google search and came up with some suggestions ranging
from 3- to 6-ounces/5 gallons in the secondary, so I'll split up my next
batch and experiment. That is, once we get the exhaust hooked up
(hopefully tonight) so I can fire up my new 3B system!

Thanks Denny,

Jodie

>You bet, Jodie!  It's one of the main activities at Hop Madness 
>(www.hopmadness.com), a festival held yearly in the hop growing regions
of 
>the Willamette Valley.  Piles of hops right out of the field are piled
up 
>for the attendees to use.  I've seen a 5 gal. batch of beer in a 15
gal. 
>kettle full to the brim with hops that were picked an hour before.

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

At 11:50 PM 6/19/05 -0400, you wrote:

>There's mention of "wet hopping" in the March/April 2005 Zymurgy, page 
>36, that I found intriguing. It appears to mean using hops off the 
>vine, not dried, in the kettle. Has anyone tried this?
>
>Jodie Davis

Jodie
The Rubber Duckie Brewery
www.ccarhomebrewclub.com
www.jodieandcompany.com
www.rubberduckie.net
www.quiltersnewsnetwork.com






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Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 08:59:47 -0500
From: "Meyer, Aaron D." <Aaron.Meyer at oneok.com>
Subject: Re: Compact C02 cylinder

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<---Start Previous Posting--->>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Steve recommends using paintball cylinders for portable CO2.  I've been
eying these for a while, but haven't worked out the regulator yet.  They
use the same sort of automatic shut-off valve that propane cylinders
use.  Most of the regulators on paintguns are delivering gas in the
100-300 psi range and aren't adjustable.  I have found one adjustable
reg made by a specialty paintball company, but it is ~$125
(http://www.palmer-pursuit.com/online-catalog/stabilizer.htm)... I could
buy a lot of disposable cartridges for that.

Have any of your club members come up with an inexpensive way to
regulate the pressure out of these little cylinders?

cheers,
mike
Monterey, CA
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<---End Previous Posting--->>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Yes and it's pretty easy. I have an article on the process on my
website: http://www.beertech.net.
The device sold by Palmer Pursuit is merely a secondary single gauge
beverage regulator on a modified low pressure paintball regulator. My
design uses a singe or dual gauge primary regulator on the paintball
tank and can be done for about half the cost.

Aaron M.



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Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 10:10:40 -0700
From: "Michael Eyre" <meyre at sbcglobal.net>
Subject: Bottle Conditioning and Storage Temps...

Hey all. Did a bit of a search on the web as well as the HBD archives,
but couldn't seem to find what I was looking for. It's that time of the
year again, and this time around I'm actually caring about the heat. so,
my question is this; I just packed up my brews into some Grolsh bottles
and they're carbonating now, and during the winter and cooler months, I
keep them in an upstairs spare bedroom on shelves, covered up from the
light. And that's all good. as it's hot outside now; it's also darned
hot in that room, with days approaching the mid 90's lately. What
effects, if any, does this kind of temp have on bottled beer? I know
it's no good for an active fermentation to get that hot, but what about
bottles? Should I move 'em all downstairs into the basement where's its
70 degrees? I know that would probably be ideal, but that upstairs room
is perfect because of all the shelves and stuff I have... so I'd rather
not move 'em if I don't have to. I didn't seem to have any problems last
year with weird flavors, but I just had to ask the collective about it.
what do you think?

 

Mike



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Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 10:05:50 -0400
From: Danny WIlliams <dbwill at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Bernzomatic cylinder - Portable CO2

>>If you are looking for a portable way of dispensing beer, get yourself one
>>of these - http://www.morebeer.com/product.html?product_id=18301
>>It fits in your pocket and works like a champ.

> From your last sentence, I assume that you have one. I'd be interested
> in hearing more about your experience with it.

I am not the OP but I do use the device mentioned, both for pushing
beer from 5 gallon cornies and, more often, from a 3L minikeg similar
to this:

http://home.swbell.net/bufkin/cheap_3_liter_kegs.htm

You are correct that it just blasts CO2 into the keg when you pull the
trigger. In practice, we pour until the flow just about stops, then
hit it with a 1/2sec shot and pour a couple more pints. As long as
whoever is running the keg has this modicum of training, it works
well.

As for yield, I get between 4L and 5L per cartridge on the 3L mini keg. 

Only problems I've had with them is that I had to buy two of them
because the threads are different on the corny fitting vs the schrader
valve used on the 3L keg. The problem other is that they don't really
seem built for repeated use. The seal at the top of the cartridge has
worn out on one of my dispensers and I've not found a suitable
replacement material, so perhaps they should be considered
life-limited products that have to be replaced from time to time.



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Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 08:32:55 -0700 (PDT)
From: Matt <baumssl27 at yahoo.com>
Subject: Help with Harshness

Brewers,

I could really use some help figuring out the cause of a harsh taste
that is making a lot (at least 4 recent batches) of my beers less
enjoyable.  I'm having a hard time solving the problem myself, since I
I can not identify the taste as, say, fusels or chlorophenols (or other
compounds I've read about but don't _know_ the taste of).  I've listed
some guesses at the problem below, and would really appreciate any
comments or ideas.

The harshness is not evident immediately.  In one such beer, a pale
ale, you take a sip and the initial malt taste is good, but then as you
expect the hop bitterness to come in you instead get a harsh aftertaste
that covers everything else.

Here is a clue that I can't decipher.  The harshness seems to vary with
the time the beer is in the bottle, possibly getting worse over time. 
It also seems to vary with how long the bottle is kept at room temp to
condition, possibly worse when kept warm longer.  But the patterns are
not solid enough to say for sure.  It could also just be
bottle-to-bottle variation.

1. Infection: SEEMS unlikely because there is zero haze, ring-around
the collar, or gushing in the affected beers.  Also some some are 8%
ABV.

2. Hot or unhealthy fermentation leading to fusels or ethyl acetate:
SEEMS unlikely because one of the affected beers is an all-grain,
all-malt pale ale brewed to 1050 and pitched with a very well-aerated 1
qt starter of Wyeast 1332 at 66 degrees F, with the ferment temp slowly
rising to a high of 71--the carboy was only aerated by shaking though. 
All affected beers had fast and complete ferments.

3. Chlorine residue: I sanitize with bleach (1/4 C per 5 G for
cleaning, 2 tsp per 5 G for sanitizing) and rigorously rinse.  BUT, I
do leave vinyl hoses, acrylic racking canes, glass carboys, etc soaking
in bleach for hours, even days sometimes.  The racking canes don't fit
completely in the sanitizing bucket and when I flip them the part that
now sticks out of the bucket has some bleach on it that of course air
dries.  I do rinse these items well before use.  Bottles are sanitized
in the dishwasher with no soap.

4. Water: I use Denver water that has a published average of 1.53
(ppm?) chloramine OR 1.44 (ppm?) chlorine, depending on the source that
day, and I do nothing to account for it.  Other metals and minerals are
well below the off-taste threshholds in Miller's book.

5. Mashing: can be ruled out because one beer was an extract beer.

So there you have it.  Any help or hints would be appreciated.  Please
bear in mind this is a pretty obvious and strong flaw.

Thanks,

Matt









		


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Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 11:09:44 -0500
From: "Meyer, Aaron D." <Aaron.Meyer at oneok.com>
Subject: Re: Re: Co2 Injector

<<<<<<<<<<---Start Previous Email--->>>>>>>>>>> Richard Sloan writes:

>If you are looking for a portable way of dispensing beer, get yourself 
>one of these - http://www.morebeer.com/product.html?product_id=18301
>It fits in your pocket and works like a champ.
>
 From your last sentence, I assume that you have one. I'd be interested
in hearing more about your experience with it.

The catalog claims that it takes 2 - 5 cartridges (12g) to dispense 5
gallons of beer.  At atmospheric pressure, a liter of CO2 masses 2g.  At
15lbs, a liter of CO2 is 4g.  So each cartridge will push out somewhere
between 3 and 6 liters of beer, depending on the dispensing pressure.  A
keg holds 19 liters, so by my calculation, it will take 3-6 cartridges
to blow the keg.  Might be worth it for the occasional "traveling keg" 
situation.  It also appears that you don't get any control over the
pressure -- it just shoots the contents of the cartridge into the keg?
<<<<<<<<<<---End Previous Email--->>>>>>>>>>>

Yes they just shoot out gas at a high pressure, but the pressure of the
keg can be kept somewhat where you want it. I used one until I put
together a paintball Co2 tank setup, also the injector should not be
left on the keg long term as it is prone to leaking around the flare
fitting. This isn't a problem when at a party or event, but will result
in flat beer if you leave it on for a couple days.

When I used this gadget I used a 1/8" T fitting, two 1/8"NPT-1/4"Flare
nipples, 1/4" female flare union, and a 1-30psi tire pressure gauge with
1/8"NPT threads. Install the 1/4" female flare union to the Cornelius
tank connector, take T fitting and install the two flare nipples and
pressure gauge. Add T fitting assembly to the tank connector / female
union assembly, then put injector on other flare nipple on T
fitting..... See
http://www.beertech.net/articles/images/injector_gauge.pdf for a
low-brow drawing...

Be careful with this gauge rig, if you just inject the co2 too fast you
can damage the gauge...
BTW: The pipe / flare fittings can be purchased at a local Ace Hardware,
the tire gauge I used I picked up at Wal-Mart, they are branded C&H are
about 2-3$. They have an aluminum sleeve to fit a tire valve stem. The
sleeve can be unthreaded and the brass rod cut off if it is too long for
your T fitting. Total cost is about 10$, most expensive piece is the
female flare union at around  5-6$.



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Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 16:35:02 -0400
From: Marc Sedam <alechemist at bellsouth.net>
Subject: cleaning barrels

Hey all,

I have a french oak barrel that I intend to use to age mead, 
beer, and wine (not at the same time).  I've swollen the 
barrel and it currently sits with metabsulfite solution in it.

My question is in regards to cleaning the initial "oak" out. 
  My instructions say to use sodium carbonate (soda ash) for 
chemical cleaning, or steam.  I tried steam and got a lot of 
steam but could never get the water to run clear.  I noticed 
that OxyClean has sodium percarbonate and sodium carbonate 
as ingredients.

Would it be safe to clean the cask with OxyClean?  Anyone 
know if this is a good or bad idea?  I know that some stores 
sell "Barokleen", but was wondering if I could use what I 
already have.

 -Marc


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