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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
		Rob Gardner, Digest Coordinator


Contents:
  bad head (jay s hersh)
  Homebrew Digest #491 (September 07, 1990) (Stephen Saroff--Applications Scientist at NCSA for TMC)
  Meads and such... (Gary Heston (sci34hub!gary))
  Sanitation Problems/Sodium Bisulphate (Mike Fertsch)
  Re: Head Retention (Mike Charlton)
  Hunter...the sequel (GARY  07-Sep-1990 1659)
  Speed your bottle washing with vortices! (Forrest Cook)
  San Francisco Brewpubs? (Jake Turin)
  Re: Belgium tour (Chuck Cox)
  Beer Tax (Chuck Cox)


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Date: 06 Sep 90 23:55:05 EDT
From: jay s hersh <75140.350 at compuserve.com>
Subject: bad head

Humans, even squeaky clean ones, have enough oils on their lips to kill a weak 
head, though strong ones can hold up a little longer. What makes weak/strong 
heads you ask. Trace minerals in the grains which are metabolized by the yeast 
yield the necessary substances (a type of protein I believe) which is needed for
good head retention. What can you do?? Well while I'm not an all grain expert I 
know that there are good & bad things that are done during mashing that effect 
the yield of these trace elements. See Greg Noonans book for more detailed all 
grain info. As an extract brewer there are 2 things you can use both roughly 
equivalent. One is called heading agent, the other yeast nutrient. These are 
trace elements that allow the yeast to build good cell walls and stay very 
healthy and to make the most of the nutrient reduction cycles that allow them to
do whatever exactly it is they do to the proteins present in the mash to convert
them to the form necessary for creating good head retention. 

Sorry if all this doesn't sound incredibly scientific. I've read lots of papers 
on yeast metabolism and from what I can tell while there are a lot of cause 
effect realtions that are known a lot of what yeast actually does on an organic 
chemistry level is still a bit o mystery. In any case the link between good 
mashing, and trace elements that build healthy yeast, and the resulting good 
head is known.

 - Jay H

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Date: Fri, 7 Sep 90 09:31:24 CDT
From: tmc at ncsa.uiuc.edu (Stephen Saroff--Applications Scientist at NCSA for TMC)
Subject: Homebrew Digest #491 (September 07, 1990)

Hi--

	Don't know if this is the right way to do this, but does anyone
know about brewing shops in the Champagne-Urbana IL area (which I extend
all the way to Springfield).  I need to get equipment and supplies.  

	Also I need a recipe for ginger beer and root beer.


      SzS

- ---------------
Stephen Saroff (Thinking Machines)             o o   
TMC Application Scientist for NCSA             (_)_____o
405 N  Matthews Ave                     ~~~~~~~~~(_____)~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
5215 Beckman Institute                            oo oo  The Bear who Swims 
(217) 244 5556  <tmc at ncsa.uiuc.edu> <saroff at think.com>




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Date: Fri, 7 Sep 90 09:09 CDT
From: gary at sci34hub.sci.com (Gary Heston (sci34hub!gary))
Subject: Meads and such...

Greetings. Been reading a lot, but not contributing much. I'm a winemaker,
which overlaps with brewing in some areas. There has been a great deal of
useful info posted, though, which I appreciate.

I'm posting about meads, since I just started two batches (having 5 or 6
carboys is handy :-) ), and I though I'd pass on what I'm up to. In the
past, I've made two or three batches of it, without any added spices, etc.,
so I decided to try that this time.

Batch 32: Started 8/30 with one gallon of honey, mixed about 50-50 with
water, heated to 170F, allowed to steep for 5 minutes, and cooled. Once all
this was in the carboy and cooled to about 90F, I topped it up to the
shoulder with water (making the water-honey ratio about 3.75-1 (5 gallon
carboys), added yeast nutrient, four sticks of cinnamon, one teaspoon of
ground nutmeg, and pitched the yeast. The airlock received a capfull of 10%
bleach solution. Fermentation was very active in less than 12 hours (with dry
yeast). Since I'd had one prior batch of mead bubble thru the airlock, I let
it (as well as #33) sit in the sink overnight to let fermentation stabilize.

Batch 33: Started 9/1 with one gallon of honey, mixed about 50-50 with water,
heated to 170F, allowed to steep for 5 minutes, and cooled. Due to having a
relatively small pot to heat this in, I do this in about three batches. In
the first batch, I added four cinnamon sticks, as an experiment to see if
heat would extract more flavor. The sticks were broken up before adding. Once
all this was in the carboy and cooled to about 90F, I topped it up to the
shoulder with water (making the water-honey ratio about 3.75-1 (5 gallon
carboys), added yeast nutrient, and pitched the yeast. The airlock received a
capfull of 10% bleach solution. Fermentation was very active in less than 12
hours (with dry yeast, again). This batch surged higher than #32, based on
the high foam mark.

On 9/6, since the fermentation rate of both batches had dropped about 50%, I
topped up both batches to the base of the neck with water. This caused the
predictable surge of CO2 from turbulence, however the rate settled out again
quite a bit higher than it had been. I'm not concerned at all about it
coming out too thin, I had one batch that was too thick, when I used too
much honey, and it wasn't that enjoyable. Too sweet.

Odd notes: The honey used in #32 was a few years old; that in #33 was
extracted less than a month ago. The old stuff is MUCH darker, almost
chocolate. The new stuff is about the color of a natural manila folder. I
lost the habit of taking gravities a long time ago, since I don't try for
carbonated beverages; I just let it ferment out an extra month or two. Now,
about that yeast.....

First, don't bother flaming, because I won't change my mind--others have
tried and failed (in rec.food.drink). For all my winemaking since a couple
of early batches (which I had problems with, where I'd used real wine
yeast), I use Fleishmanns Rapid-Rise baking yeast. It works fine; and at
$0.69 for 3 packets, the price is right. You may use whatever you like. Your
mileage may vary. Past results do not guarantee future returns. Etc....
I will say that I have a number of friends who can't get enough of what I
make, but perhaps I have wierd friends.... :-)

I'll let you know, as time passes, how it progresses. Might even track down
a few of the people over at InteGraph (ingr.com) and let them review it...

Relax. Have a glass of this wine.... now, don't stand up too quickly....

Gary Heston

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Date: Fri, 7 Sep 90 12:14 EDT
From: Mike Fertsch <FERTSCH at adc1.adc.ray.com>
Subject: Sanitation Problems/Sodium Bisulphate

Steve no-last-name (sandven at hooey.unm.edu) reports a contamination problem 
with his brown ale:

> The beer is now 5 weeks old and is developing a cloudy "growth" over the
> sediments on the bottom of the glasses. [text deleted] I fermented in a
> plastic food grade pail with an air lock ( I have since replaced this with
> two glass carbouys) and did the entire fermentation in that bucket.  My
> house has no a/c or cooler and the closet in which the beer was brewed
> stayed a fairly constant 83-85 degrees.  I used sodium bisulfate (?) to
> clean the plastic stuff, and bleached the bottles to clean them. 

My guess is the sodium bisulfate cleaning didn't sanitize your fermenter
sufficiently.  I believe sodium bisulfate is used by winemakers to sanitize
their equipment and stop fermentation when the wine is "ready".  Beer,
being not as acidic as wine, is more favorable to microbe growth, and
beermaking equipment needs stronger sterilants.

I (usually) use non-scented bleach to sanitize all my equipment -
fermenters, hoses, bottles, caps, etc.  I may be just lucky, but I've had
few contamination problems using bleach.  When my wallet is full of cash, I
use B-Brite, a commercial sterilant.  B-Brite is easier to rinse than 
bleach.

I don't want to start any flames, but I think discarding the plastic 
equipment will improve your beer quality significantly.

Mike Fertsch

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Date: Fri, 7 Sep 90 15:54:45 CDT
From: Mike Charlton <umcharl3 at ccu.UManitoba.CA>
Subject: Re: Head Retention

  Regarding the request for added information about my head retention problem:
     I primed the beer with light powdered malt extract.  I have to admit that
this particular beer is only about a month old.  I used it because it was the
beer that I had on hand that was likely to have the biggest head.  The bubbles
in the head were quite small (not as small as draught Guinness, but comparible
to the bottled (Dublin) version).  It was quite a sight to see.  As soon as
I'd touched it, the bubbles started popping like mad.  The beer residue from
the bubbles initially stayed on top of the rest of the head so that the head
started turning dark brown where I'd touched it.  The brown patch grew quickly
as it engulfed the rest of the head.  What was left over was a small ring of
bubbles (one bubble thick) clinging to the edge of the glass :-(.  All this
took about 2 seconds.
              Thanks,
                Mike


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Date: Fri, 7 Sep 90 14:10:05 PDT
From: GARY 07-Sep-1990 1659 <mason at habs11.enet.dec.com>
Subject: Hunter...the sequel

After searching half of New England, I finally got Hunter to answer their 
phone, and found a unit just up the street (one of Murphy's laws, I guess - 
calling the last number on the list...).  It is $47 at Highland Super Stores 
in New England.

While on the phone with Hunter, we got to chatting about what I was using it
for.  The result is that their product manager now knows about the AHA, and 
may contact them about editorial mention, etc.  They may also buy a Zymurgy, 
and contact major homebrew suppliers advertising therein regarding selling 
the product.

BTW - the model number is 42205, and the name has been changed from "Energy 
Monitor AC" to "AirStat" (they are repositioning some products).

Cheers...Gary

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Date: Fri, 07 Sep 90 15:22:46 -0600
From: cook at stout.atd.ucar.EDU (Forrest Cook)
Subject: Speed your bottle washing with vortices!

A friend of mine who works with fluid dynamics showed
me an interesting trick that speeds up the draining
of bottles considerably.  When draining the soap or
chlorine out of a bottle, make a few rotary motions
with your hand, causing the water to spin inside of the
stationary bottle.  A nice vortex will form and the air
will move up the center as the water moves down the sides.
The bottle will drain about twice as fast as it would
if it were going glug-glug-glug.  I haven't tried the trick
with a carboy full of chlorine water,  it might be a bit
dangerous.

P.S.  speaking of dangerous,  I had a friend who made a giant
glass-grenade out of a carboy.  He filled the carboy too
full and did not strain out the pellet-hops residue.  He
used a rubber plug with a 5/8" blowoff tube.  Apparently, the
tube got plugged up with hops residue and the plug was too
tight to pop out.  The result:  his basement was spray-painted
with sticky malt solution.  Luckily, the only thing hurt was
his ego.

Forrest Cook
cook at stout.atd.ucar.edu WB0RIO
{husc6|rutgers|ames|gatech}!ncar!stout!cook

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Date: Fri, 7 Sep 90 15:49:54 MDT
From: turin at jupiter.nmt.edu (Jake Turin)
Subject: San Francisco Brewpubs?

Anyone care to recommend a brewpub right in San Franciso?  I will be
in the city next weekend without wheels, so am looking for a place
either right in SF or easily accessible via public transport.  I'll be
leaving NM next Wednesday (9/12), so a speedy reponse directly to my
e-mail address would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

 - Jake Turin                                           New Mexico Tech
  turin at jupiter.nmt.edu                                Socorro, NM

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Date: Fri, 7 Sep 90 14:57:04 EDT
From: harley!chuck at uunet.UU.NET (Chuck Cox)
Subject: Re: Belgium tour

Todd Koumrian asks about organized beer tours of Belgium...

I seem to recall such a tour advertised in Zymurgy a year or so ago.
I don't remember many details, but I think Michael Jackson may have
been involved.

As far as touring Belgium on your own, just do it!
Belgium has 3 languages (Flemish, French, & German) so many Belgians
have to use English just to communicate with each other.
We stayed in Brussels and found a French phrase book plus a little
practice was all that was necessary for the few days we were there.
Next time I go, I will stay in Brussels for a week and study conversational
French before I go.

Maybe it's just me, but trying to speak and listen to French while intoxicated
is funny as hell (probably due to too much Monty Python as a youth).

Opinion: Brussels is what Paris is supposed to be, but without the French.
(I have never been to France and am simply showing my ignorance and prejudice)

Jackson's Pocket guide lists many pubs & breweries worth visiting,
and the locals can help you find more.

My partners-in-crime and I are compiling our notes and photos into
a slide show about drinking ales and visiting ale breweries in Europe.
This may be shown at various club functions, conferences, tastings, etc.
If your club asks nicely (and provides a suitable bribe) we could show
it to you too.
If there is sufficient interest, I could even post some of our notes to
the net, but be forewarned: we have notes on over 100 beers, 50 pubs,
6 brewpubs, 5 breweries, plus over 400 slides.

If you are willing to pay airfare & room, I will personally conduct a
tour any time.

All of the above is also true for the UK, the Netherlands and Germany.

 - Chuck Cox (uunet!bose!synchro!chuck) - Hopped/Up Racing Team -

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Date: Fri, 7 Sep 90 17:49:51 EDT
From: harley!chuck at uunet.UU.NET (Chuck Cox)
Subject: Beer Tax

In the latest issue of 'Brewprint' (the Wort Processor's newsletter),
an article about 'no-new-taxes' Bush's new beer tax lists
a number you can call to get a free anti-beer-tax telegram sent
to your representative.  The number is 800-321-9035, simply give your
name, address & phone number.

Don't delay, call now.

 - Chuck Cox (uunet!bose!synchro!chuck) - Hopped/Up Racing Team -


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End of HOMEBREW Digest #492, 09/10/90
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