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


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Contents:
  harshness and hop polyphenols (Analysis Laboratory)
  RE: Help with Harshness ("May, Jeff")
  Re: Bottle Conditioning and Storage Temps... (Greg Smith)
  RE: Bernzomatic Cylinder (Steven Parfitt)
  Re: Cleaning Oak Barrels (Jeff Renner)
  Steeping of Briess Carapils ("John Palmer")
  Re: Harshness (Jeremy Hansen)


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Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 21:57:05 -0700
From: Analysis Laboratory <analabor at peak.org>
Subject: harshness and hop polyphenols

Just wanted to follow up on Matt's harshness question and Fred 
Johnston's post regarding hops and harshness. On 6/12/05 (ASBC Annual 
Meeting, Savannah, GA)  Tom Shellhammer (Oregon State U. Corvallis, OR) 
presented Ian McLaughlin's work on the effects of hop polyphenols 
augmenting  bitterness and lending 'harsh', 'medicinal' and 'metallic' 
mouthfeel to treated beers.  The base beer was Michelob Ultra,  and the 
resulting treatments (0,100,200 ppm polyphenol additions from spent 
Galena hops and 0, 10ppm preisomerized Galena hop extract) were 
significantly different in bitterness and the above three descriptors.
I didn't catch whether there was an aging effect, but it's a good 
question for Ian to work on.  Tom and Ian can be reached at Oregon State 
for further questions.  The Abstract from the Oral Presentation is 
available on the ASBC's website: www.ASBCnet.org.
Best,
Scott Bruslind
Lacomb , OR


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Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 07:36:45 -0400
From: "May, Jeff" <Jeff.May at uscellular.com>
Subject: RE: Help with Harshness

I was experiencing the same problem as Matt last year.  I had 9 batches in a
row that had kind of a 'bite' in the aftertaste.  I cleaned and cleaned,
replaced my fermenter bucket, switched to glass, tried rinsing and not
rinsing, etc. I even replaced my garden hose in case I had something funky
there.  Then I suspected my local water source.  I'm on a community well and
I hadn't brewed a decent batch since I lived in this house. However, the
water tasted fine out of the tap.  So I did two identical 6lb batches
side-by-side, one with tap water, the other with bottled spring water.
Actually the spring water batch came out uninteresting.  The tap water batch
was much more flavorful, however, there still was that little nagging bite
in the background of both beers.  Then I replaced all my tubing.  THAT WAS
IT!  I have brewed many batches since then without a single off flavor. I
guess no matter how much you wash, rinse, repeat, soak, pulse, etc, you can
never really clean your tubing. I will now replace my tubing every year.

Jeff May
Wilmington, NC
AR[649.7,148.6]





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Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 08:37:12 -0400 (GMT-04:00)
From: Greg Smith <barnbrew at earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: Bottle Conditioning and Storage Temps...

Jeff Renner <jsrenner at umich.edu> wrote

<All the staling reactions are going to proceed faster at that  
<temperature, including non-light stimulated skunking (it can happen)  
<and oxidation, as well as any biological deterioration from micro- 
<organisms.  I vote for moving them, even though it's a bother.  Even  
<70 degrees (21C) is not all that cool.  I'd prefer 55F for ales, or,  
<for lagers, 40F.

Follow-up question... how about storing ingredients?  I have a big
electric wine cellar that I'm going to use as a "beer cellar" - for 
my kegs and bottles to stay at 55F.  I'd like to put my ingredients 
in there as well.  But, unlike refrigerators, electric wine cellars do 
not remove moisture (preventing the wine corks from drying).  
So the humidity level would remain high (I do not have an exact 
percentage though).  Will the humidity adversely affect my 
ingredients - am I going to start seeing molds growing?

I'd like to use the cellar for just about all of my ingredients - LME, 
DME, grains, adjunct.  I'll probably keep my yeasts in the fridge 
so they're even colder.  But I don't have enough room in my fridge 
for all the ingredients.


Thanks,
Greg







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Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 06:54:40 -0700 (PDT)
From: Steven Parfitt <thegimp98 at yahoo.com>
Subject:  RE: Bernzomatic Cylinder

Mark Prior says..

> Right now I use a Bernzomatic O2 cylinders to
> oxegenate my wort post  boil.  
 ...snip...
> I envision salvaging one of the old cylinders and 
> filling them with up to 25 psi of CO2.  I then could

> use the small regulator to add enough pressure to 
> the beer to push it out as needed.
 ....Snip...

Why this won't (safely) work.

If the cylinder is 1L (I believe they are less) and
your keg it 20L (5 gallon) then you need 

25L * 25psi at 1L = 625psi

In order to push out the beer and still have that
pressure available. 

I wouldn't want to have that much pressure in the
tank.

Furtheremore, the tanks are not designed for
refilling. Standard refillable tanks are made much
stronger to take the stresses of expansion and
contraction as they are filled and emptied over and
over again.

Steven


		


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Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 11:13:56 -0400
From: Jeff Renner <jsrenner at umich.edu>
Subject: Re: Cleaning Oak Barrels

"Eric R. Theiner" <rickdude at tds.net> wrote:
> I don't know much about barrels, but I do know that in many (all?)  
> cases, the barrels are charred.  I'm thinking someone else can  
> chime in on this...

The only barrels that are charred are whiskey barrels.  American  
straight bourbon, rye and Tennessee whiskeys must be aged in new,  
charred oak barrels.  After they have been used, many are  
disassembled, the char is scraped off, and they are shipped to  
Scotland for reassembly for aging Scotch whisky.  Some are also used  
for aging Irish and Canadian whisky, as well as for tequila and rum.   
And, of course, many end up as planters or trash barrels.  They cost  
about $140 new and far more are emptied each year than can be reused.

Wine barrels are toasted to a greater or lesser extent.  I think that  
originally this was simply a byproduct of heating the staves over  
flame to make them flexible.  Nowadays, they are steamed to achieve  
the same thing, but toasting caramelizes sugars and develops other  
flavors that add to the character of the wine.

You can see a photo of the toasting of oak barrels over oak ship  
fires at http://www.cantoncooperage.com/production.html.  I can't  
seem to find the image of charring of barrels I downloaded for my  
bourbon seminar at last week's NHC, but it is similar but with a  
fiercer, gas fired flame.

Jeff

- ---
Jeff Renner in Ann Arbor, Michigan USA, jsrenner at umich.edu
"One never knows, do one?"  Fats Waller, American Musician, 1904-1943
***Please note new address***



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Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 08:57:30 -0700
From: "John Palmer" <jjpalmer at altrionet.com>
Subject: Steeping of Briess Carapils

Hi Everyone,
I saw the good discussion of Briess Carapils last week before Baltimore, but
decided to wait until after the conference to respond, since I knew I would
see Bob Hansen from Briess there.

Yes, I did tour Briess last year in January and we had addressed this
question. Briess Carapils is fully converted during malting, but other types
of "dextrin malts" are often not. When I wrote my book, I did not know this,
and had lumped them all together. I had intended to change this in the next
edition, and had meant to change it on the howtobrew website, but apparently
I didn't. oops.

Other dextrin malts are often made by not fully converting and/or modifying
them during malting so that they will contribute more long chain sugars and
starches to mash. I don't have data on other brands or I would be more
specific, but Briess is fully converted and can be steeped.

Btw, awesome conference!

John Palmer
john at howtobrew.com
www.realbeer.com/jjpalmer
www.howtobrew.com - the free online book of homebrewing




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Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 11:27:44 -0500
From: Jeremy Hansen <cfjh at eiu.edu>
Subject: Re: Harshness

Matt is attempting to diagnose his harsh flavors.

Matt, I dealt with this for quite a while, and was quite frustrated until
recently. I conjecture that you are dealing with a harsh hop flavor. I tried
to eliminate tannins as a source of perceived bitterness (is your mash pH
low enough?) and looked into high sulphate content of my water as a
bitterness intensifier. While it improved, none of my higher-hopped beers
seemed "nice" and bitter like some others (i.e. Snake Dog IPA). My wife was
even more sensitive to it than I was. One thing to try is to greatly reduce
your first hop addition, and make sure that you are tasting an overly-harsh
by making hoppy but gently-bittered beers. I just did an APA with 100%
Simcoe hops, with a low cohumulone content. Bingo! Its not done conditioning
yet, but it is bitter but smooth. It seems to have passed the acid test as
well (my wife's particular tastes). I'm going to try glacier and horizon
hops as well. Why don't you try splitting a mash four ways, and try
different low cohumulone hops, and see if that helps?

Cheers!
Jeremy



- -----------
Jeremy C. Hansen
Assistant Professor of Horn and Theory
Eastern Illinois University
600 Lincoln Ave.
Charleston, Illinois 61944



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