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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
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Contents:
  Re.:  cereal mash/retrogradation ("Sean Richens")
  Do Aroma Hops Add Bitterness? (Dennis Collins)
  re: restarting Barley wine; rehydrating (Greg Brewer)
  Lookin' for yeast advise for Imperial Stout... ("Michael Eyre")
  More Water Questions (CO3) ("Darren")
  What's this infection? ("Greg 'groggy' Lehey")
  Cold conditioning: when, how cool, how long? ("Greg 'groggy' Lehey")
  Re: New HERMS brewing system ("Greg 'groggy' Lehey")
  More HERMS stuff.... (Mark Nesdoly)
  Continuous Culture Methods to Produce Alcohol Tolerant Yeast (Doug Renfrew)
  Re: Questions for a stuck fermentation on a Barley Wine (Terry Felton)
  Water Ph. And citric acid. ("Tony Wilkinson")
  lager yeast starters ("John Bryce")
  Stonefruit Ale (stencil)
  converting a keg to a secondary fermenter ("James Payne")


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Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2006 19:42:15 -0600
From: "Sean Richens" <srichens at mts.net>
Subject: Re.:  cereal mash/retrogradation

Steve Alexander writes:

>Malt isn't used to achieve Gelatinization, but to
>avoid it's evil doppelganger, Retrogradation....

That's very interesting, I didn't know that.

But the reason I add malt to a cereal mash is to decompose the loose starch 
before I reach boil.  If it thickens, I spend 20 minutes dodging boiling 
polenta bombs.

A bit of malt keeps the cereal mash nice and loose right up to the point 
where gelatinization has obviously been completed.

Sean 



Return to table of contents


Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2006 14:54:47 -0500 (EST)
From: Dennis Collins <dcollins at springmail.com>
Subject: Do Aroma Hops Add Bitterness?

I've been fiddling with Promash and have found that the
Genericsetting for hop bitterness actually adds bitterness
for additions made at0 minutes. The others (Tinseth,
Rager, Garetz) do not. Interesting.......

As I play with this concept in my mind, it would seem
logical that near boiling wort (like you would get when
you first turn off the burner at 0 minutes) would extract
some (albeit a small amount) bitterness from hops added
right at flame out depending on how long you steeped them.
Certainly not as much bitternessas hops churned in a rolling
boil for 20 or 60 minutes, but certainly some bitterness.

It stands to reason that this would only apply to styles or
recipes that have large additions of hops at 0 minutes.
So, for big late aroma additions like in an IPA, or Imperial IPA,
are you actually adding perceptible bitterness as well? Which IBU
bitterness scale should be used? How would you quantify the
bitterness imparted by 0 minute additions?

Just a question to ponder......

Dennis Collins
Knoxville, TN
www.ihomebrewsolutions.com





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Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2006 08:25:53 -0600
From: Greg Brewer <gbrewer1 at gmail.com>
Subject: re: restarting Barley wine; rehydrating

Randy Ricchi suggested racking onto a fresh primary slurry to get your
barley wine to finish, and I can second that advice.  I did the same
thing with a stuck imperial IPA I brewed, although I was fairly close
to my target FG.  After two weeks stuck at 1.030 I racked it onto a
fresh slurry and got it down to 1.017 within a week.  Still not sure
why it stuck, I had repitched the yeast I collected from a previous
primary, probably not enough aeration for a high OG recipe.

Denny Conn says he doesn't bother with rehydrating US56, which he uses
frequently.  I'll keep that in mind but I'm going the belt and
suspenders route and will rehydrate per the manufacturer's
instructions for my first time using US56 (with 81F water, thanks for
the correction).

Greg Brewer
Chicago



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Date: Sat, 14 Jan 2006 09:08:52 -0800
From: "Michael Eyre" <meyre at sbcglobal.net>
Subject: Lookin' for yeast advise for Imperial Stout...

Hey all,

Going to be doing up an Imperial Stout in a few weeks with my partner
here, and we're looking for help with the yeast selection. It's going to
be targeting a 1.085 O.G. and we'd like to end up near 1.028, so about
67% attenuation or so. Looking for thoughts and experiences from the
masses with their luck of yeast on Imp. Stouts in the past and present.
We're not too picky on dry or liquid yeasts, but might find the more
well-know and used ones of either type easier to obtain. But it's all
do-able, so I'd love to hear from your collective wisdom. Thanks!

Mike



Return to table of contents


Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2006 14:40:15 -0500
From: "Darren" <swamp at phlo.net>
Subject: More Water Questions (CO3)

I have read the recent post on water chemistry in earnest. For it has been my
endeavor to gain a better understanding (been all-grain for a few years now).

Here in the Bay Area we get a pretty good water quality analysis right in the
mail. Though I take to heart the suggestion on home testing, I'd like to frame
my question on the reported data.

Chlorine                  1.97 ppm
Chloride                 10    ppm
Sulfate                  23    ppm
Alkalinity (CaCO3)       59    ppm
Calcium                  14    ppm
Hardness (CaCO3)         62    ppm
Magnesium                 5.4  ppm
Potassium                 1.0  ppm
Sodium                   12    ppm

Total Dissolved Solids  101    ppm

pH                        8.8 


Can (how would) I calculate a carbonate CO3(-2) value (in ppm) for the water
based on this profile? 

(If you have one) What would be a suggestion for additions (assuming general
pale ales)? And, note that I'd wish to see my mash efficiency increase if
possible (seems to hover around high 60's to very low 70's).

Thanks,
 -Darren

- -- 
+---------------------------------------------+



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Date: Sun, 15 Jan 2006 11:59:24 +1030
From: "Greg 'groggy' Lehey" <grog at lemis.com>
Subject: What's this infection?

A couple of weeks I took a jar of saved yeast slurry out of the fridge
to pitch a new brew, and I noticed what looked like a slimy white
flake on the surface.  I made a new starter and left the slurry on the
kitchen windowsill for a couple of weeks, during which time the flakes
grew.  The yeast also emitted a vaguely unpleasant odour, possibly
sulphurous, but nothing so bad that you would automatically think that
the resultant beer would be bad.

I've got some photos up on the web: the originals are at
http://www.lemis.com/grog/Thumbnails-20060102.html.  The last two
photos on that page are not a result of the infection.  The way it
looks two weeks later are at
http://www.lemis.com/grog/Thumbnails-20060115.html.  Any ideas what it
is?

Greg
- --
Finger grog at lemis.com for PGP public key.
See complete headers for address and phone numbers.


Return to table of contents


Date: Sun, 15 Jan 2006 15:12:47 +1030
From: "Greg 'groggy' Lehey" <grog at lemis.com>
Subject: Cold conditioning: when, how cool, how long?

[second attempt, without identification]

I've tried cold conditioning ales a couple of times, and the results
suggest that I should continue.  So I went out and looked for guidance
on the web, and found precious little.  It seems that the Germans cold
condition all beers, not just bottom fermenters; but even here, apart
from the traditional 3 months at 1<insert degree Celsius symbol here>
for bottom ferementers, I've found precious little.  Hubert Hanghofer
showed me round a Wei<insert German double S symbol here>bier brewery
in Salzburg a little over a year ago, and IIRC they conditioned in a
very similar way to bottom fermenting beers; but my memory may be
incorrect, and in any case it's only a single example.  So:

1.  When do you cold condition bottled beers?  Before or after warm
    conditioning (i.e. bottle fermentation for the carbon dioxide)?

2.  What temperature?

3.  How long?

Greg
- --
Finger grog at lemis.com for PGP public key.
See complete headers for address and phone numbers.


Return to table of contents


Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2006 08:50:02 +1030
From: "Greg 'groggy' Lehey" <grog at lemis.com>
Subject: Re: New HERMS brewing system

On Thursday, 12 January 2006 at 11:10:55 -0700, Mark Nesdoly wrote:
>
> I finally have my HERMS complete ...
>
> Anyway, if you're interested, I can email pictures of the system and
> my homemade controller.  I can also offer tips for doing the PID -
> the coefficients, etc.  Let me know via email.

Yes, please!

Greg
- --
Finger grog at lemis.com for PGP public key.
See complete headers for address and phone numbers.


Return to table of contents


Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2006 10:24:23 -0700
From: Mark Nesdoly <m-nesdoly at shaw.ca>
Subject: More HERMS stuff....

Whoa - I've been quite overwhelmed by the requests to see my homemade HERMS. 
Since there is a lull in posts at the HBD, I figured I'd post all the 
relevant stuff here.

Here's a link to pictures of the system:
http://photoshare.shaw.ca/view.php?VEID=19826_LTWJRi1137176785HLwSJl&mesg=1

As far as parts are concerned, the pump is from Beer, Beer & more Beer.  I
forget the model number, but it seems to me that it may have been H315?  The
heater elements are 120V 1500W hot water heater elements from home depot.
They come with a screw-in mounting bracket that makes it very easy to
mount them to the metal pots I use.  I did have leakage, but a little
aquarium caulking solved that.  I use aquarium caulking because it is
waterproof and is safe as well (don't have to worry about nasty stuff
leaching into the wort/water.)

The pots I purchased from a hardware/automotive chain here in Canada called
Canadian Tire.  They are 64 liter aluminum pots.  I forget what they were
worth - something like $90 each or so I think.  The heat exchanger is a
crappy old pot that I was going to throw away.  The key for this is to make
it small so that there isn't much "thermal mass" in the heat exchanger
itself, yet large enough to accomodate the coil and the heating element.
This particular pot takes only 6 liters of water to fill, which translates
into not much thermal mass at all.

I'll warn you up front:  I'm a geek, and I had time on my hands when I first
created this system.  I'm an electrical engineer, and I actually make my
living by building stuff like this.  It might be a little intimidating.
Pretty much everything that went into this thing was sitting around my
workshop as spare parts.  The only "critical" thing is the solid state
relay.  I got it (and all the other electronic components) from DigiKey.
The relay's part number is Z178-ND available at www.digikey.com.

Some general information first.  The temperature sensors are National
LM35DH.  They are a very small metal package (TO-46) and I placed them
inside copper tubes.  The tubes then are placed into the heat exchanger,
mash tun and lauter tun.  I have one more sensor which I intended to place
on the outflow of the heat exchanger, but it's a pain to mount it.  In
hindsight, I could have done without this one.

With the sensors mounted in this manner, there is the issue of response
speed, which is lower than if they were directly immersed.  I didn't want to
directly immerse them because I couldn't waterproof them, and I also really
don't want lead solder leaching into my beer.  However, I notice no issues
with temperature lag at all, and I confirmed all temperatures with ordinary
thermometers.  The temperatures reported by the system were all dead on (no
error at all) the readings from the thermometers.  Hopefully the
thermometers are right....

In order to increase the efficiency of the heat transfer, I mounted stirrers
in the heat exchanger and the lauter tun.  The motors were from a place
called "Princess Auto" here in Canada.  Basically a salvage operation.  They
were small & cheap, and that's why I'm using them.

The two elements are 120V 1500W water heater elements from home depot.  I
elected for 120V because I don't have any spare 220V outlets in the basement
here.  With these elements, I get pretty much exactly 1F/min temperature
rise at full power for a 10 gallon mash.  This has not yet been confirmed
with an actual mash, but based on the response with only water, it will be
true.  The element in the heat exchanger was bent over (carefully) by hand
to get it to be completely immersed.  The coil in the HE is my old immersion
wort chiller.  It is a 25' roll of 3/8" copper tubing.

Now the controller.  It takes a temperature reading once per second, which
is more than fast enough.  The temperature control algorithm was implemented
with the help of the great article found here:
http://www.embedded.com/2000/0010/0010feat3.htm

The heating element in the heat exchanger is driven by a solid state relay
(rated for 20A, 240V) because I rapidly turn it on/off for power control.  A
normal relay wouldn't tolerate this at all.  I have 64 power levels, 0 - 63,
with level 63 being continuously on.  Basically I pulse-width-modulate the
heater.  I have a little over 16 ms "resolution" with each "on" window.  16
ms x 64 is about a second, pretty much the same as the reading rate.

The gains in use in the system are all on the spreadsheet.  You'll notice
that all the gains are a power of 2:  32, 2048 and 1024.  This was done to
speed the calculations because I'm using an 8 bit microcontroller to run
everything.  Since these gains are all factors of 2, they can be calculated
simply by shifting left (multiply) or right (divide).  These shifts are
quick - much quicker than formal multiplies and divides.  If you decide to
build your own and have a background in programming, I really recommend you
go this route too.  A word to the wise:  careful right-shifting negative
numbers.  Make sure that the MS bits are set back to 1's - this
bit me in the butt.

Lastly, I'll exlain the controller screen.  Yes, it's animated.   The pump
spins while it's running, and I actually showed a bubble moving through the
pipes, and "rain" sprinkling into the mash tun.  However, I had some sort of
issue with the s/w behind the animations so I disabled them for now.  I
might revisit the code to try and find the problem, but not now.  I'm tired
of this thing.  ;-)

The vessel on the left is the mash tun.  The temperature at the top is the
set temperature, and the one at the bottom is the actual temperature.  The
vessel in the middle is the heat exchanger.  The temperature in the middle
of the HE is the HE's present temperature.  On the pipe leading up and out
of the HE is a little line and another temperature.  This is the outflow
temp I mentioned earlier.  Between the HE and the vessel on the right is a
number and bar graph.  This is the HE element's power level.  Beneath the HE
is a round object - that's the pump.  The line inside the pump rotates when
the pump is on.

The vessel on the right is the lauter tun.  As with the mash tun, the number
at the top is the set temperature, and the number at the bottom is the
actual temperature inside the lauter tun.  There are a couple of "stands"
under the lauter tun - this is the control for the lauter tun's heating
element, which is simply on or off - no PID needed here.  When it's on,
little flames appear on these stands, and yes, the flames are animated too.
Hey, I had time on my hands when I first coded this.  ;-)

Lastly, over on the right is a timer to let you know how long you've been
mashing.  There's also an alarm so you can get the thing running, set the
alarm, and go do something else.  A buzzer sounds when it's done counting
down.

If you want a copy of the spreadsheet I used to calculate what the PID gains 
should be or a copy of the schematic of the controller, let me know. 



Return to table of contents


Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2006 23:04:00 -0500
From: Doug Renfrew <renfrew at email.unc.edu>
Subject: Continuous Culture Methods to Produce Alcohol Tolerant Yeast

The History Channel's show, Modern Marvels, recently did a piece on
beer. In the show the interviewed Jim Koch of the Boston Beer Company
(Samuel Adam's). He was talking about a some of their "Utopia" series
of beers and mentioned that one of them achieved a ABV of ~25% making
it the ABV attained through natural fermentation without distillation.
He also mentioned that they had been developing the yeast through
breading for the last 13 years. I am interested in trying to make a
beer of equally high alcohol concentration.

To get yeast that can tolerate alcohol concentrations this high, I was
thinking of trying to rig up a continuous culture system using some
carboys, sterile wort, everclear, and some aquarium pumps. I would,
over a period of weeks (longer maybe?) raise the ethanol concentration
to the desired level, hopefully selecting for the yeast that can
tolerate the ethanol. I figured using one of the alcohol tolerant
yeast produced by white labs or wyeast for a starting point.

So I had a couple of questions. First off, do people think this will
work? Secondly, are there any other recommendations for yeast, or any
bacteria for that matter, that are used in beer that can tolerate that
concentration of ethanol (ie. are brettanomyces, candida, or
kluyveromyces strains more alcohol tolerant than saccharomyces)?
Thirdly, Where can I find more information on this topic (brewing
texts, food science journals)?

Thanks in advance,

Doug



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Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2006 12:40:24 -0500
From: Terry Felton <tdfelton at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Questions for a stuck fermentation on a Barley Wine

Steve,

 I also think you failed to get enough O2 into the wort.  But if it's
still at 1.085, I don't think you're too late to try again. 
Hopefully, you still have the small beer in primary.  If so, just rack
it off to secondary, add some yeast nutrient and aereate the barley
wine (yes - it won't hurt), and transfer it onto the yeast cake in the
small beer's primary.  I bet it'll take off in a few hours.  The yeast
will just use up the available oxygen for growth.

 If you've already disposed of the yeast from the small beer, you
should make up a new starter, but definitely make it bigger than
1.025.  1.060 would be much better.  Once it's going strong, pitch
into the re-aereated barley wine.  And don't forget the yeast
nutrient, either.

 Hey - relax, etc.  It'll work out.
 Terry Felton



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Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2006 09:05:40 +1030
From: "Tony Wilkinson" <awilk at bigpond.net.au>
Subject: Water Ph. And citric acid.

I am a little perplexed with my water Ph, perhaps someone can clarify it for
me!

My town water supply is relatively hard, CaCO3 total hardness is averaging
around 130 mg/L and. I also noted comments made on previous posts suggesting
that water filtered through activated carbon should be boiled. As I use such
a filtering method and have had some taste problems I have boiled my water
and have seen the Ph rise from 7.6 after filtering to 9.4 after the boil. 

Why has the Ph risen, and should I adjust the Ph down with citric acid or
leave it be? I brew all grain pilsners.

Tony Wilkinson.






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Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2006 19:08:37 -0500
From: "John Bryce" <jbryce at vt.edu>
Subject: lager yeast starters

I am looking for some help on lager starters.  I sent out a post on
Christmas Eve about my troubles with some starters, but didn't get any
replies.  Let me ask some general questions about lager starters and then
present a review and update to my situation.  Any feedback is appreciated.

*All questions refer to a 1 liter lager starter made from extra light DME.
Assume a white labs homebrew vial pitched into a 2 liter growler (half
full).  Starter wort density 9.5-11.5 P.  Assume I want to decant most or
all of the starter's beer as to not dilute my final batch of beer.

QUESTIONS:
1. Should activity be visible while the starter ferments?  If so, to what
extent?  I have read that activity is sometimes not visible in a starter
like it is in a normal fermentation.  Assume no airlock, so I am mostly
talking krausen head and/or other visual cues.

2. I have also read that a starter fermentation usually goes much faster
than a normal (~7-10 day primary) fermentation due to the large quantity of
yeast vs. wort.  Is this true?  How much time should it take for such a
starter fermentation to complete?  Half the normal time?  A quarter?  Any
data from anyone who has taken gravities during a starter lager fermentation
would be awesome.

3. I prefer to start lager fermentations cold in general.  I know there are
plenty of brewers (making great beer) who like to/have to pitch lager yeast
into wort as high as 70F, but I prefer to pitch at or slightly below actual
fermentation temperature, usually 52F.  This gives me longer lag times, but
less esters.  While propagating in my particular starter scenario, is it bad
to stick to my cold start rule?  I would imagine that a starter at lower
temperatures would also exhibit longer lag times and fewer esters, but is it
critical to provide a warmer temperature for a starter?  By decanting most
of the starter's finished beer I will be dumping any fruity beer, which is
certainly an argument for just going warmer.  If I can get good results
cold, I'd prefer to do so.

4. What is a typical lag time for a lager starter?

REVIEW OF PROBLEM:
I recently made 2 liters of wort from extra light DME to be used as
2 separate 1 liter starters.  I had only done this once before, years ago.
I heated up my
water to maybe 150 F and then started adding and mixing in the DME.  I
predicted that I would need something like 6 ounces to get to 10-11 P
(1.040-1.044 SG).  I took a gravity reading after I mixed in the 6 ounces
thoroughly and it was low, so I added more DME and re-sampled a few times
until I got to about 10.5 P.  I boiled it for about 6 minutes, cooled it to
50 F rapidly, and then poured equal parts into 2 separate growlers.  This
gave me 2 half gallon growlers that were each half full (1 liter).  I
pitched a white labs vial of lager yeast into one and some lager yeast that
I had recently harvested into the other.  I shook both of them up to aerate
and put them in ambient temp of ~54 F.

I saw no visible activity in the harvested yeast starter.  I started taking
gravity readings after 2 days to see what was going on and I got
7.4 P.  The yeast sedimented out and the wort was bright and flat.  I moved
everything to ambient temperature of mid 60's.  Same thing days later.

I saw very slight activity (a few large bubbles on the surface) in the
starter from the vial on day 2.  Gravity was 7.6 P then and days later.
There was
some carbonation present and there was some yeast in suspension.  The
carbonation dissipated and the yeast dropped out around day 4.

Currently I have only one theory as to what happened:  There is a reasonable
chance that the yeast (both strains had been stored in the same fridge)
froze.  It was not frozen when I pitched it, however I had never seen it
stick to the vial's walls/bottom that much before.  The fridge had been set
colder than it should have.  The cheap thermometer that I have in there read
30 F when I pulled out the yeast.

I guess there is also a remote chance that I screwed up the wort and it
ended up being really high gravity, but I think that is a long shot since I
took multiple readings with a commercial brewery hydrometer that I know is
good and only boiled it for ~6 minutes after my last reading.

UPDATE:
I repeated the same steps, this time with 2 new vials of lager yeast.  This
time I added 6.5oz of DME in 2 liters of hot water.  I took a pre-boil
gravity and got 9P.  I added 0.5oz and took another reading.  It was 10.1P.
I boiled for ~6 minutes, then cooled a sample for a reading.  The gravity
had shot up to 11.5P!  Maybe I shouldn't have been surprised, but I was - I
am used to working with much lager quantities of wort and didn't realize how
much evaporation could occur in such a short time frame on this scale.  I
added some more water, did a short boil, and ended up with a starter gravity
of 10.5P.

At this point I began to think that maybe my previous problem was a
combination of yeast with low viability (from the extra cold
temperature/possible freeze) and higher gravity starter wort (I never took a
post-boil reading last time due to my assumptions that the short boil
wouldn't impact it much, but it was probably at least 11.5P based on the
above paragraph)

This time I also only cooled the starters to about 65F (more like 55F last
time), pitched a vial into each one and set them in an ambient temperature
of about 55F.  I saw a little activity (some large bubbles on the surface,
but certainly not a krausen head) in one of the starters and none in the
other.  After 2 days, I took a gravity readings and got 6.4P and 6.2P.  Both
samples were carbonated and had yeast in suspension.  pH was 4.48 and 4.3,
within range, but I equate such numbers to a fermentation much closer to
completion - below 4P.

The next day was brew day and to my disappointment the new samples showed
only a slight decrease in gravity (0.1P).  I went ahead and brewed a 5 gal
batch of wort and split it equally into 2 separate FVs.  For each starter, I
decanted about half of the starter wort, swirled the rest (~a half of liter)
to suspend the sedimented yeast, and pitched into the 2.5 gal of wort.  The
wort had been chilled to my fermentation temperature of 52F.  Lag time was
~18 hours and ~20 hours and both beers fermented out completely in 9 days.
The beer is clean and good and the fermentation was normal other than being
just slightly on the sluggish side.

Why are my starters stalling out around 6-7P, or am I just not being patient
enough?  Or am I making them wrong?  I would normally be OK with/prefer
pitching an active starter into new wort, however on this small scale I
don't want to dilute my wort that much (~5%) with wort from a DME starter,
and I'm not all that certain that the starters were actually active since
they seem to have stalled out again.  I don't want to just decant the whole
thing and pitch only sedimented yeast if the fermentation is incomplete
because then I am selecting yeast that doesn't fully attenuate. -John



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Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2006 20:14:17 -0500
From: stencil <etcs.ret at verizon.net>
Subject: Stonefruit Ale

preamble:  This came to be through an embarrassment of riches.  Last August I
asked the produce manager of the local supermarket, What happens to the
unsaleable fruit? and in answer received two large boxes of cosmetically
challenged stonefruit - peaches, nectarines, pluots, apricots, and plums, in
approximate order of mass;  price: four pints of Dos Hiccups
hiberno-viennexican ale. The fruit, unsorted,  were chilled to ca. 35F, then
blanched, peeled, pitted, bagged, and frozen. 20 lb went into a melomel which
shows great promise, 5 went into this recipe, 15+ lb remain.
The fruit came out of the freezer on brewday-3 and was thawed at 38F.  On
brewday 5 campden tablets were added to the bag.  On brewday+2 the fruit and
its juice were transferred to a 5-gal paint strainer bag and tossed in the
fermenter, along with 1/4tsp pectinase.  The juice in the bag was at 12.4P.
The base beer incorporated various leftover grains, thrown in just for the
halibut..

recipe:

Weyermann's Pilsener Malt, 7lb
Munton's Wheat Malt, 1lb 3oz
Weyermann CaraHell, 8oz
Dingemann's Special B, 6oz
Mixed stonefruit flesh, 5lb

Norhern Brewer 8.4%AA FWH, 1oz
Perle 4.5%AA Finishing, 1/2oz

Wyeast 1728 Scottish Ale, 1pt starter fleeted up from dregs of 
            bottle of Dos Hiccups

Brew water 3-1/2gal alkalinity 92ppm, Ca hardness 60ppm, both as CaCO3
           pH 7.3, brought to 7.0 w/ phosphoric acid
Sparge water 6gal  as above, pH brought to 5.8 w/ phosphoric acid

Doughed-in at 57F w/ 6qt, set overnight
Mashed-in w/ 6pt boiling, set at 95F 30min
   tweaked pH w/ 1tsp CaCl2, pH5.6
Infused w/ 6pt boiling, set at 122F  30min
Direct heat to 145F  set 15min
Direct heat to 158F  set 30min
Direct heat to 168F  USW...

Runnings 7gal 10P
Boil 80min, finishing hops at -15min
Pitched to 5.5gal OG1052, ferm at 62F

Brewday+2, added 5lb fruit pulp ca. SG1050
Brewday+16 removed fruit; resting at 57F
Brewday+34 SG1004.  Primed w/ 5oz corn sugar;  bottled 42 grolsch  pints;  
           conditioning at 65F
Brewday+40 Clear, amber, excellent head, no distinct aroma, mouthfeel crisp, 
           malty flavor, tart, no "fruity" character, no hops aroma or flavor,
           mild bitterness, distinct clove note in aftertaste.  Refreshing. 
           Clove aroma was noticeable while cleaning fermenter.


A little worried about that clove smack;  it's not that it's unpleasant, just 
that it's unexpected and out of place.  Will try to keep the beer out of 
circulation till the first warm Spring day, like maybe July.

stencil sends


[535.2mi, 86.4deg] AR


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Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2006 21:29:53 -0500
From: "James Payne" <james at houseofpayne.us>
Subject: converting a keg to a secondary fermenter

To the Esteemed Brewing Masses,

I've recently acquired a pin lock corny keg that I would like to convert to
a secondary fermenter, so I can more easily dry hop as well as provide
myself a secondary fermenter that is more robust than a glass carboy.  Does
anyone have any suggestions as to the best and/or easiest way to do so?  Do
I need to modify the beer out valve? ...the gas in valve? ...drill out the
pressure relief and insert an airlock? ...????  Any suggestions will be much
appreciated.

Many thanks,

James




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