HOMEBREW Digest #4911 Thu 15 December 2005


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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
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Contents:
  Teff (cereal grain) (leavitdg)
  Re:freezer not freezing (Nathaniel Lansing)
  Re: Freezer not freezing (Paul Waters)
  Freezer not freezing ("Spencer W. Thomas")
  Re: High Gravity Beers (Dylan Tack)
  RE: High Gravity Beers (Steven Parfitt)
  Pam Day (Scott Kaczorowski)
  Brew Pot as Fermenter (Stuart Lay)
  Wort chillers: Shirron vs. Therminator? ("Mark Mierzejewski")
  re: Clinitest ("steve.alexander")
  more (was re: Clinitest) ("steve.alexander")
  freezer not freezing ("eric")

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---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2005 06:59:27 -0500 From: leavitdg at plattsburgh.edu Subject: Teff (cereal grain) I just ran across an article in USA Today about Ethiopian Teff, a cereal grain that is being grown by Kansas farmers. The article says that it is low in glutens. Has anyone used this for brewing? Darrell Plattsburgh,NY 44 41 58 N Latitude 73 27 12 W Longitude [544.9 miles, 68.9]Apparent Rennerian Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2005 08:55:59 -0500 From: Nathaniel Lansing <delbrew at compuserve.com> Subject: Re:freezer not freezing le man asks: >>Just >>checked the freezer temperature and it 4.9C. How can this happen? The >>freezer is working as I've turned it down and the walls where the coils >>are get cold, turn it back to Zero and leave it and the temperature >>stabilises around 5C. Two distinct possibilities; 1)The indicator on the external thermostat is whack and is 5 degrees off. Observe the true temperature with a thermometer inside the freezer, not the numbers on the dial. 2) The thermostat has a rather large hysteresis; zone that no action is taken, it must fall lower than x degrees to turn off, must rise to x+y to turn on. If the environment doesn't allow the inside to rise y degrees, it doesn't turn on. Maybe yours needs to rise to 5.5 degrees to turn on. Some thermostats have a variable hysteresis, make it minimum. Otherwise, remedy is the same as number 1) observe the actual internal temperature with a thermometer, adjust accordingly. be lucky Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2005 06:38:18 -0800 (PST) From: Paul Waters <pwaters3 at yahoo.com> Subject: Re: Freezer not freezing Le man Wrote >I have a chest freezer with a converted thermostat that allows me >to set >a temperature between +35 and -35C. Temperature has been set to >zero C >for a period of lagering. . . However we have had a cold spell >here >and >the ambient temperature where the freezer is located is around 4C. >Just >checked the freezer temperature and it 4.9C. How can this happen? >The >freezer is working as I've turned it down and the walls where the >coils >are get cold, turn it back to Zero and leave it and the temperature >stabilises around 5C. My 2 cents on the subject, I think it just the sensitivty of the extrenal temp. controller. My guess is that you have an analog controler you compensate you may need to turn down a touch. The other problem maybe is that you need a freon charge I had that problem with mine and now its as good as new it will go down to keep meat for long term storage Paul W Mad Cow Brewing Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2005 10:32:48 -0500 From: "Spencer W. Thomas" <hbd at spencerwthomas.com> Subject: Freezer not freezing My 2c: The freezer is "refusing" to work because there is too small a temperature differential between the outside temperature and the desired temperature. I'm hoping one of the HBD fridge experts will chime in here. (Forrest, where are you!?) =Spencer in Ann Arbor close enough to 0,0 it's pointless to calculate it. Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2005 09:58:31 -0600 From: Dylan Tack <dylan at io.com> Subject: Re: High Gravity Beers > From: stewart.pounds at gm.com > > started telling of brewery's that have been brewing beers in mid 20% > alcohol range. I then asked how this was possible WLP099 Super High Gravity Yeast is reported to tolerate 25%, with proper feeding. http://www.whitelabs.com/gravity.html Sam Adams Utopias falls in this range. -Dylan Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2005 13:55:15 -0800 (PST) From: Steven Parfitt <thegimp98 at yahoo.com> Subject: RE: High Gravity Beers Stewart Ponders high gravity beer... ...snip... During the discussion Rex started telling of brewery's that have been brewing beers in mid 20% alcohol range. I then asked how this was possible since I was always told that even Champaign yeast was only alcohol tolerant to about 15%. ...snip... There is a process called incremental feeding that allows normal yeast to be pushed to making very high gravity beer without selective genetic breeding. World Wide Stout is currently listed at 18% and if memory serves it has been as high as 21% in the past. I don'tthink they even used incremental feeding. They have all been dumbed down though. 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 Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2005 13:42:30 -0800 From: Scott Kaczorowski <sk at xb-70.com> Subject: Pam Day Looking for Pam Day/Oakman. And, yes, I realize this isn't a personals forum... Scott Kaczorowski Long Beach, CA Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 15 Dec 2005 07:01:46 -0600 From: Stuart Lay <zzlay at yahoo.com> Subject: Brew Pot as Fermenter A question for the crowd: Does anyone use a brew pot as their primary fermenter? What would be the disadvantages compared to traditional fermenters? I want to convert my current brew-fridge into a draft dispenser, and using a boil pot would allow me to use a small chest freezer (vice a large upright model) to control fermentation temps. Thanks, stuart Royal, AR Apparent Rennerian 741.2,226.9 Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 15 Dec 2005 18:45:18 GMT From: "Mark Mierzejewski" <markmier at netzero.com> Subject: Wort chillers: Shirron vs. Therminator? I'm interested in getting a new wort chiller, I'm looking at the brazed plate chillers that have recently become available. Specifically, the Shirron and the Therminator. They appear to be fairly similar (but of course different). The shirron is longer and thinner, as well as less than half the price of the therminator (which everybody seems to think is awesome). The Shirron probably has about the same surface area, though less efficiently-arranged than the Therminator. So... how do the two different heat exchangers differ in their practical aspects? Cleanability, quickness of chilling with cold tap water, gravity feed ability? Does anyone have experience with both of these plate chillers that can offer an opinion? Mark Mierzejewski Kirkland, WA Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 15 Dec 2005 14:26:18 -0500 From: "steve.alexander" <-s at adelphia.net> Subject: re: Clinitest Re Clinitest ... Dave Burley states ... >Your eye is able to distinguish thousands of shades so it is very >accurate at estimating the amount of sugar in the sample The FDA states that Clinitest is NON-QUANTITATIVE, meaning the limited stability and *accuracy* of Clinitest only affords a "detection vs no-detection" determination. The eye can distinguish millions (not thousands) of colors, but this is not a limiting factor in Clinitest *resolution* and has nothing to do with *accuracy*. In fact a single Clinitest vial displays numerous color shades within a flurry of particulate and then rapidly settles into a supernatant and sediment of different colors. This explains why there is a 15 second 'eval window' before sedimentation. The colors, even in control glucose solutions, never precisely match the (6 or 7) color comparison panels. Perhaps because of color components outside the printed panels and differences in luminance it seems difficult to accurately match the Clinitest vial to any one of the panels much less interpolate between. This problem is compounded by beer pigmentation. IMO Clinitest has about "3 bits" (~8 distinguishable states) of useful resolution and very dubious accuracy. Accuracy: DaveB (above) states, "accurate at estimating the amount of sugar", but Clinitest doesn't measure the amount of sugar at all. Clinitest literally detects the concentration of reducing substances that are capable of reducing copperII sulfate to cuprous oxide - that's it ! Some non-fermentables are detected by Clinitest, while some fermentables are not. Clinitest generally detects aldehydes and a few ketones, and some other reducing substances. Clinitest is calibrated to measure glucose in urine. There is no accepted relationship between the "measure" of other reducing sugars in non-urine media, and the relationship is well known to be non-linear wrt the type of "sugar". 1P of glucose sol'n and 1P of maltotriose(M3) sol'n have the same amount of sugar and almost the same concentration of fermentables, but the glucose sol'n will read 1% by Clinitest and the M3 sol'n reads only 0.25% (see Andy Walsh test in HBD circa 1999). Even in "sugars only" solutions there is no invertible relationship between the amount of sugars and Clinitest readings, so the reading can never tell you the amount of sugar. Let's examine some specifics of wort/beer and some adjuncts .... >Clinitest is not responsive to Lactose commonly used in making Milk >Stout, This is false. Clinitest *does* measure non-fermentable lactose. The original manufacturer, Miles Labs states Clinitest detects sugars which include a free aldehyde group in their linear form "and include glucose, galactose, fructose and LACTOSE (but not sucrose)". Lactose in urine of lactating women is a known source of Clinitest error. Clinitest certainly *detects* the major wort fermentables, glucose, maltose and maltotriose, and there is every expectation that Clinitest also detects all sorts of non-fermentable wort dextrins. The Clinitest reading is NOT proportional to the amounts of these sugars as already noted but roughly to their sum molar concentration - which is useless in evaluating fermentation progress. Clinitest detects iso-maltose, a non-fermentable which appears in all-malt wort in considerable quantity. Clinitest will detect pentose sugars as well. Clinitest ignores sucrose, however this is the only common adjunct sugar likely to give a "false negative". Of great concern we know that Clinitest detects a wide range of aldehydes and not merely sugars. Clinitest can detect ascorbic acid which is present in fresh wort and may appear in yeast nutrients. Clinitest will detect glyceraldehyde, which is a precursor to glycerol that can appear at several thousand ppm (perhaps ~0.4% Clinitest worst possible case). Most alarming is acetaldehyde ! Every ethanol molecule in beer was once acetaldehyde (say 50,000 ppm) and I see no reason to think that Clinitest won't detect acetaldehyde. In addition to aldehydes Clinitest will detect *some* ketones and also other reducing substances. Fructose, in it's linear form is a ketone (keto sugar) yet is is detectable by Clinitest. Anything capable of reducing copperII sulfate ions to copper oxide in a high pH environment should be detectable w/ Clinitest. One must wonder about the impact of phenolics and other wort anti-oxidants on Clinitest readings. >and best of all you are not imputing anything Just the opposite - you are imputing something about wort fermentables from a non-linear measure of a subset of fermentables plus non-fermentables. If a hydrometer reading is "line of sight" indirect measure of fermentation, then Clinitest is "over the river, through the woods, up the witches chimney, and a few orbits on Santa's sleigh" type indirect when applied to wort/beer. I defy anyone to accurately measure OG from unfermented wort with Clinitest. The Clinitest %reading will probably not reach even 1/2 of the correct Plato value and no one can construct a conversion method of any accuracy. Note that this is a very simple case where fermentation aldehydes are absent, yet even then Clinitest fails. >[undiluted clinitest samples] This >will double your ability to read these lower values. The higher resolution "5 drop method" uses a 3X dilution rate. So it's TRIPLE the absolute resolution, not "double". >[...] the hydrometer can not even come close to this accuracy. That's wrong on several counts. Clinitest doesn't *accurately* measure a mixture of fermentables at all. What Dave seems to mean instead is that Clinitest has superior *resolution* to a hydrometer, and even that is wrong for wort/beer. When measuring an undiluted glucose solution Clinitest has a resolution of triple 1/4% = 1/12th% ~= 0.083 Plato. Unfortunately the only case where Clinitest has such resolution is with a no-dilution reading below 1%. This means near 'end of fermentation' and this normally means that maltotriose(M3) is the primary fermentable. Andy Walsh demonstrated that M3 has only about 1/4th the measure on Clinitest as glucose, so a change of Clinitest reading of 1/12th% as glucose means a change of perhaps 0.33P as M3. Also note that Clinitest should measure the loss of real M3 fermentables while the hydrometer has about a 25% advantage in resolution since it measures the *apparent* fermentation. IOW the fermentation of 0.33P of sugars causes about a 0.41P(1.6SG degree) drop in the hydrometer reading. You can get better resolution & accuracy from a cheap hydrometer at 1SG degree than from this "best case" Clinitest measure in wort {wine is a different case}. If my goal was to give up the ~6 or 7 bit resolution of a hydrometer for the ~ 3 bit resolution of Clinitest, and also to give of the comparable (~1apparent SG degree) accuracy of the density measure for some uncharacterized measure of a mix of reducing chemicals tenuously related to fermentation progress and then Clinitest would be a "marvel". As it stands it's just a marvelously crude test. This probably explains why the current manufacturer, Bayer, is not even citing the product on their website. I would agree that a lab using quantitative Benedict reagent and modern colorimetic measure could probably match the 1-2% type resolution of a hydrometer, perhaps even better, but then the result is still just as tenuously related to fermentables as before, and the convenience and timeliness is completely lost. - --more Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 15 Dec 2005 15:55:02 -0500 From: "steve.alexander" <-s at adelphia.net> Subject: more (was re: Clinitest) (continued ...) ]If my goal was to give up the ~6 or 7 bit resolution of a hydrometer My actual goal is the opposite - I'm looking for better resolution and accuracy of a quantity directly relatable to fermentation progress with reasonable convenience. Let me flog the nearly dead horse one more time: Fermentation: (for glucose) 1 mole glucose -> 2 mole EtOH + 2 mole CO2 + (-118.4kJ) ... and so on for other sugars ... This immediately explicates the possible *direct* measures of fermentation. 1/ We could measure the sugar uptake. The are difficulties since there are other destination for sugar besides fermentation. I've read that figures as high as 12% of consumed wort sugars can end up as yeast structure and other non-ethanol&CO2 carbon sinks. I've also read that about 3% of consumed sugar carbons appear normally as yeast mannose cell walls. In any case sugar uptake is not a direct proxy for fermentation progress and estimates (like Balling's famous formula) must be used. 2/ We could measure ethanol, and this would indeed be a direct measure of fermentation progress. I'm not aware of any chemical assay for ethanol in a mixed media that would give, 2 decimal places of accuracy and still be convenient for HB use. There *may* be some way to measure ethanol indirectly but specifically, but I'm at a loss there too. 3/ Measuring CO2 is a direct measure of fermentation. Ken has the beginnings of a great system in his CO2 flow meter. Simple gas flow meters are quite insensitive to the gas temp/volume relationship which is great, but have a hydrometer-like 2% (or even 5%) low-end accuracy. Still I think it's the beginning of a great system. One confounding factor is that all head gas (not just CO2) is expelled past the meter. Another than some CO2 stays in solution - this is a manageable issue. I've been playing with ultrasonic transducer degassing and CO2 measurement is possible. Another CO2 method would be to the fermenter mass ! The fermenter of course becomes lighter as CO2 is removed and the amount is non-trivial. 20L of 12P wort will lose something like 0.8kg or 1.75lbs of CO2. Still a scale that measures ~25kg to within 8gm is pricey. 4/ Energy - we expect that the energy produced from fermentation represents substantially all of the energy produced and that most is released as "heat of fermentation". Still there are confounding factors here. Yeast retain some of this chemical energy and use some you build lipids & others. Yeast also release a bit of energy from non-fermentation processes too. I suspect this is a better parameter to measure than sugar uptake, but it would require some estimations to relate this to fermentation progress. -S Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 15 Dec 2005 17:59:33 -0700 From: "eric" <zeee1 at nebonet.com> Subject: freezer not freezing Hello A refrigerator/freezer is designed to remove heat from inside the fridge, and get rid of it outside, usually coils on the back. If it is colder outside the fridge than inside, it wants to become a heater, but it wont work that way. Here is one link where you can check out the refrigeration cycle http://home.howstuffworks.com/refrigerator.htm Eric Deweyville, UT Return to table of contents
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