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


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Contents:
  London water, London beer and missing HBDs (David Edge)
  RE: Finishing Hops (Steve Jones)
  Renewed ferment/Duvel clone/standard rate and esters (Matt)
  MCAB VIII Update ("Stock, Curtis")


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Date: Tue, 27 Dec 2005 11:47:39 +0000
From: David Edge <david.j.edge at ntlworld.com>
Subject: London water, London beer and missing HBDs

AJ says:

<snip>
Fred asked a bunch of questions about tweaking one's own water to
resemble that of the city whose beer you are trying to replicate in this
case London. He right away hit on one of the problems in doing this:
there are several published profiles which claim to represent London
water and they vary appreciably.
<-snip>

The other problem is that even if you do succeed you'll only have liquor
to brew a beer like that brewed in London before they started
Burtonising 150+ years ago. It'd better be an IPA or a porter. I don't think
it'll get you any closer to anything emerging today from the
hallowed portals of Fuller, Smith and Turner or Young's for that matter.

So a question - do you US chappies regard Fuller's and Young's as
having a family resemblance? And if so what?  I regard them almost as
opposites on the sweet/dry scale although admittedly the commercial
beers to which I am exposed are largely UK bitter. I'm no great fan of
Young's (though their bottled beers are good) so it's just as well I have
a Fuller's house under my desk.

Someone mentioned missing HBDs; my spam filter killed one a day
or two ago, perhaps that happened before, I only spotted it because I
saw it arrive but not appear in the in box.

David Edge, Derby



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Date: Tue, 27 Dec 2005 10:14:26 -0500
From: Steve Jones <stjones1 at chartertn.net>
Subject: RE: Finishing Hops

Fred is busy with the questions this holiday season. You must be
ending the year in a brew frenzy, or preparing to begin the new
year with one. 
 
Fred, I noticed the same thing when I started using a cf chiller
several years ago. I tried several things, but none of them
worked like I had hoped. I just wasn't happy with the finish hop
profile of my beers after switching to the cf chiller. I figured that
a hop back might solve the problem, but I never tried one. 
 
My solution was to go back to an immersion chiller, but I built a 
new one based on a 'planispiral' design. Think electric stove
element - a flat pancake spiral that sets just below the level of
the wort. The theory is that the top layer of wort chills rapidly,
causing it to fall and the hotter wort to rise, setting up a
convection current to increase the efficiency of the chilling
process. 
 
I went a step further, and created a second pancake about 3"
below the first. I have chilled 10 gallons down to 70F in 20
minutes using about 30 gallons of water with this, and this has
solved the finishing hop problem for me. 

- --
Steve Jones, Johnson City, TN
State of Franklin Homebrewers (http://hbd.org/franklin)
[421.8 mi, 168.5 deg] AR


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Date: Tue, 27 Dec 2005 08:48:39 -0800 (PST)
From: Matt <baumssl27 at yahoo.com>
Subject: Renewed ferment/Duvel clone/standard rate and esters

Michael is concerned because when he added champagne yeast to his
formerly 1.099, then 1.012 barley wine, some renewed fermentation was
evident, with a drop to at least 1.010.  So he put it in the cold to
halt fermentation and is considering his options.  One concern is that
if he bottles it now he may get bottle bombs--I agree.  His other
concern is that the champagne yeast is going to "dry out" the beer by
fermenting it too much--and this is not a concern I share.  In my
opinion, a couple of SG points of complex sugars are not going to have
a significant impact.  I am not even sure that maltotriose or other
higher-order sugars even taste "sweet" to the human palate, especially
at those levels.  And there is probably plenty of protein in that beer
to provide "body" (whatever that really means).  At this point I'd let
the champagne yeast finish, bottle, wait, and enjoy.

- ---

Paul, why are you planning on using Carapils for 15% of your Duvel
clone fermentables?  My guess is it would taste more like Duvel if you
replaced some (probably all) of it with pilsner malt.

A lot is known about Duvel's process, and much of it is in S.
Heironymous's (sp?) "Brew Like a Monk," including new (at least new to
me) and really interesting tidbits about pitching rate, ester levels,
ferment temps, etc.  I hesitate to post all the details here out of
respect for the author's hard work.  Definitely read this book (with
which I have no affiliation) if these kind of details interest you.

- ---

We often see a standard pitching rate quoted as 1 million
cells/ml/plato.  I think this standard rate is meaningless unless we
know a lot of other things.  Fortunately we do: I think this number is
an American microbrewery industry rule of thumb, and so we can probably
assume it was developed for very highly oxygenated all-malt wort, and
yeast with less than perfect health (repitched slurry), using WY1056 or
a similar strain.

This rate is known to provide good performance under these
circumstances.  FROM THIS STANDARD STARTING POINT, any one change that
will reduce the total reproductive capacity of the pitched yeast (less
aeration, lower pitch rate, etc) is likely to lead to increased levels
of esters.

The point of this is that if you want to start making, say, a Duvel
clone with the correct ester levels, your best bet may be to try to
replicate Duvel's recipe and process as closely as you can the first
time (with Duvel's yeast--debatable whether this is really available),
and then in later batches use all of this ester "theory" to try to
fine-tune things.

Matt




		


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Date: Tue, 27 Dec 2005 14:15:38 -0600
From: "Stock, Curtis" <Curtis.Stock at state.mn.us>
Subject: MCAB VIII Update

This is and update for MCAB VIII.

What is MCAB VIII?????  Masters Championship of Amateur Brewing VIII.
Brewers qualify for the competition in a series of Qualifying Events.
Only brewers who have qualified are eligible to enter the competition.
Anyone may participate in the judging and event.

MCAB VIII will be held on March 11, 2005 at the Happy Gnome in St. Paul,
Minnesota. MCAB qualifying brewers will be contacted via email (or US
Mail) by January 6, 2006, provided all of the Qualifying Events (QE's)
report to me by that time.  All the requests have been sent to the QE's
as of 12/9/05.  I sent the information to the most recent contacts I had
for those competitions.  Those contacts may be out of date.  Anyone with
current contact information can forward it to me at
curtis.stock at state.mn.us.  Any help I can get will be greatly
appreciated.

The QE's that have not yet reported are:
Boston Homebrew Competition
Reggale and Dreadhop Homebrew Competition
Bluebonnet Brew Off
World Cup of Beer
Heart of the Valley
Sunshine Challenge
Happy Holidays Homebrew Competition

Entries (from qualified brewers) will be accepted February 22, 2006 to
March 4, 2006.  Judging will take place on March 11, 2006.  Event plans
are being finalized so check the website often if you are interested in
judging or attending the event.

Entries must be shipped to:
Northern Brewer
c/o MCAB VIII
1945 W. Co Rd C2
Roseville, MN 55113

The MCAB website has been updated but is not totally complete.  Updates
will be made regularly.

Go to the link below for more information.

http://hbd.org/mcab/

The Qualifying Events for MCAB IX begin in January 2006.  So visit the
website for the list of QE's now if you are interested in a chance to
participate in MCAB IX.

Curt Stock
MCAB Organizer



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