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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
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Contents:
  Re: Home Brewery Pictures, peristaltic pumps (Scott Alfter)
  Hops and anticancer ("Dave Burley")
  Lager darkened  in keg ("parkwebonly")
  Blogging Homebrewers ("Dave Larsen")
  7th Annual Palmetto State Brewers Open (Gerald Jowers)


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Date: Fri, 18 Nov 2005 22:04:54 -0800
From: Scott Alfter <scott at alfter.us>
Subject: Re: Home Brewery Pictures, peristaltic pumps

Dylan Tack wrote:
> On to the burner - I wanted to boil in the kitchen, but our wimpy
> Magic-Chef stove was no way up to the task. I decided to go with the
> Superb burner. At 35,000 BTU/hr, it is comparable to a household oven,
> and appeared to be an efficient design, so I figured (hoped) that the
> carbon monoxide would be manageable indoors.
> I plumbed it into the propane line that feeds our stove - and it works
> great! It ran for nearly two hours, with only an open window for
> ventilation, and the CO meter stayed at zero. I had been a little
> worried, because others on HBD had reported CO problems with the Superb
> burner.

I would think that carbon monoxide wouldn't be a problem as long as the burner 
is properly adjusted.  After all, running your kitchen stove for hours at a 
time won't kill you.  Large stores and warehouses frequently power their 
forklifts, floor-cleaning equipment, etc. with propane when they're operated 
indoors.

My understanding of the matter is that you don't want yellow flame.  That 
indicates a too-rich fuel/air mixture, which produces soot and carbon monoxide. 
  If you lean out the mixture so that you get a consistent blue flame, you 
should get little or no carbon monoxide.

I made a couple or three batches indoors with a turkey fryer, and I'm still 
here. :-) It sent the indoor temperature skyrocketing into the low to mid-80s, 
though, and I get piss-poor ventilation when I open the one window that I have 
here.

I ended up going electric with my brewing:

http://alfter.us/heatstick/heatstick/

I get a shorter warmup time and a stronger boil than I ever did with gas, which 
leads to a better hot break.  Between that and a better cold break from an 
improved cooling setup after the boil (circulating tap water through an 
immersion chiller to drop the temperature down to 100-110, then switching to 
ice water recirculated with a swamp-cooler pump to drop it the rest of the 
way), I'm making better beer than before.  Because I'm dumping heat directly 
into the wort (instead of onto a pot and then into the wort), heating 
efficiency is greatly improved, as indicated by the indoor temperature barely 
nudging upward from its usual setting in the mid-70s.

This also ends up being a safer setup for indoor use.  It does away with the 
potential open-flame and indoor-propane-tank hazards, and stopping a potential 
boilover is as easy as flipping a switch.

There's usually more than one way to flay a feline in this hobby, but after 
using the heatsticks, I don't think I'd want to go back to using gas unless I 
had no other choice.

   _/_  Scott Alfter
  / v \ Visit the SNAFU website today!
(IIGS( http://snafu.alfter.us/      Top-posting!
  \_^_/ rm -rf /bin/laden            >What's the most annoying thing on Usenet?



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Date: Sat, 19 Nov 2005 11:40:48 -0500
From: "Dave Burley" <Dave_Burley at charter.net>
Subject: Hops and anticancer


Brewsters:

An interesting bit of health news from Food Navigator - USA
- ---------------------------
Hops rich in anti-cancer compounds
 
11/18/2005- New research into a flavonoid compound found only in hops shows
that it may help prevent cancer if a method to improve its absorption in the
body can be found. 

The anti-cancer activity of xanthohumol was first discovered around 10 years
ago by a team at Oregon State University in the US. 
But although some brewers are now marketing products enriched in the
compound, such as Germany's Xam, the US researchers say beer is unlikely to
offer any anti-cancer benefits. 

Fred Stevens, based at Oregon's Linus Pauling Institute, told
NutraIngredients.com: "Even with higher levels of xanthuomol in beer it is
very hard to get the levels we tested in cell cultures into the
bloodstream." 

"Absorption is very limited and even if it was all absorbed, there is very
active metabolism. The xanthuomol is mostly glucaronated." 

Nevertheless, Stevens believes the findings are promising enough to merit
further research, and also to look at different methods of consumption. 

"If you put the compound in a capsule, that's a whole different story," he
said. 

A number of studies in cell culture and in animal models have demonstrated
the flavonoid's ability to kill cancer cells, including a recent study
presented at the AACR meeting in Baltimore earlier this month. 

The poster presentation described how xanthohumol killed prostate cancer in
cells and animal models through apoptosis. 

In previous work looking at breast, ovarian and colon cancer cells, the
researchers have also identified other mechanisms of anti-cancer action.
Xanthohumol, and other related flavonoids in hops, appear to inhibit the
family of enzymes commonly called cytochromes P450 that can activate the
cancer process. 

It also induces activity in a 'quinone reductase' process that helps the
body detoxify carcinogens. 

Other research groups have picked up on the research and are looking further
at the compound. 

"The published literature and research on its properties are just exploding
at this point, and there's a great deal of interest," added Stevens. 

It is thought that hops might be produced or genetically engineered to have
higher levels of xanthohumol, specifically to take advantage of its
anti-cancer properties. 

Some beers already have higher levels of these compounds than others. Lager
and pilsner beers have fairly low levels of these compounds, but some
porter, stout and ale brews have much higher levels. 

Ideally, researchers say, cancer chemoprevention is targeted at the early
stages of cancer development and prevented by long-term exposure to
non-toxic nutrients, food supplements or drugs that prevent the formation of
cancers. 

With its broad spectrum activity, presence in food products, and ability to
inhibit cancer at low concentrations, xanthohumol might be a good candidate
for that list. 

Meanwhile the US government's National Institutes of Health is funding a
study to test the potential for another hops compound, structurally very
similar but with oestrogenic properties, to help menopause symptoms. 

- --------------------------
And in this last statement I am reminded of the joke about the effect of too
many beers on a bunch of guys and them becoming more feminine and now we
have scientific evidence - it must be the hops.  {8^)


Keep on Brewin'

Dave Burley

  



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Date: Sat, 19 Nov 2005 21:27:14 -0600
From: "parkwebonly" <parkwebonly at austin.rr.com>
Subject: Lager darkened  in keg

Brewed a basic BudMillerCoors American Lager that I've done a few times
before. Everything was fine going into the keg - golden color and the taste
I expected. After 3 weeks lagering in my kegerator I sampled it this evening
and the beer has noticeably darkened and tastes very different. Hard to
describe - bitterness going down but with a sickly sweet aftertaste.

Any ideas on what could have happened?




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Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2005 18:36:45 +0000
From: "Dave Larsen" <hunahpumonkey at hotmail.com>
Subject: Blogging Homebrewers

Some people have mentioned that the number of posts on HBD has diminished 
over the years, though readership, I imagine, is still pretty high.  One of 
the reasons for this, I think, is that the Internet is a bigger place, and 
there are more places now where people talk about brewing.   Discussions are 
somewhat scattered.

I know for me that I tend to write stuff in my brewing blog and I also read 
a lot of brewing blogs.  Since HBD, in my opinion, is still the center of 
the brewing universe, I thought I'd post about some of the blogs I read.

John, of The Musings of Fish, is a new homebrewer who has brewed with his 
friend Matt of The Prancing Tarantula. He is working on building his brewery 
at home, but wonders if his kitchen is big enough.  John's blog is not 
strictly about brewing; it is about his life, which includes occasional 
posts about brewing.
http://fishmuse.blogspot.com/

Matt, on the other hand, of the afore mentioned The Prancing Tarantula, is 
an experienced brewer, who also makes wine and other things. He is toying 
with the idea of going all-grain.  Matt's blog has a high percentage of 
posts about brewing.
http://prantran.blogspot.com/

The Marcobrau Brew Journal is a very tight blog where the writer sticks to 
his guns, blogging about batches he's done, his process, tasting notes, and 
so on. Like clockwork, you know where he is in the process of doing each 
batch.   Most of the posts on this blog are about brewing.
http://marcobrau.blogspot.com/

SudsPundit is a group of blogging brewers, all writing about brewing on one 
site. One of them in particular, Brian, is from Tucson, just like me. Like 
the Marcobrau Brew Journal, mentioned above, it is a very tight blog. They 
rarely deviate from the subject of brewing.
http://sudspundit.blogspot.com/

The last one listed here is Bad Ben's Ramblings. Ben is a very experienced 
homebrewer who has done strictly all-grain brewing for 18 years. I was very 
impressed by his massive, home built, conical fermenter, which he has 
pictured on his site.  Ben's blog, like John's above, is not just about 
brewing; it is about his life, which includes posts about brewing, and other 
things, like running.
http://badbenkc.blogspot.com/

I am curious as to how many other HBD readers also have blogs where they 
post brewing discussions.

Dave, the all-grain evangelist
Tucson, AZ
http://hunahpu.blogspot.com/




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Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2005 18:01:18 -0800 (PST)
From: Gerald Jowers <sumter1802 at yahoo.com>
Subject: 7th Annual Palmetto State Brewers Open

Wednesday, November 23, 2005 is the deadline for
registering for the Palmetto State Brewers Open
homebrew competition.  Registration may be made
online.  Check the competition website for details and
registration:http://www.sagecat.com/psb/psbo7.htm.

Entries should be shipped for delivery by November 28
or personally delivered to the registrar on Friday
December 2.  Judges and stewards may bring
preregistered entries on the day of the competition,
December 3.

This is the last qualifying event for the 2005
Carolinas Brewer of the Year competition.  Entries are
welcomed from anyone and we especially want entries
from other regions.  

We will award spectacular ribbons and prizes.

Gerald Jowers
Organizer and Judge Director
Columbia, South Carolina
(a long way from Jeff Renner)



	
		


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