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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
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Contents:
  Re: Lagers made from ale malt [Sec: Unclassified] ("Greg 'groggy' Lehey")
  when to pitch Lager yeast (lkowens)
  Re: Woodstock Inn (February 05, 2006) (Brian Millan)
   ("Berggren, Stefan")
  DuPont strain (Matt)
  Weight for O.G. readings? ("Michael Eyre")
  Subject: Pete's stuck fermentation (Thom Cannell)
  RE: hopbacking (RiedelD)
  re: Woodstock Inn (RI_homebrewer)


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Date: Mon, 6 Feb 2006 14:02:45 +1030
From: "Greg 'groggy' Lehey" <grog at lemis.com>
Subject: Re: Lagers made from ale malt [Sec: Unclassified]

On Friday,  3 February 2006 at  9:09:51 +1100, Rowan Williams wrote:
> G'day all,
> Ok, I'm keen to start lager production before our southern hemisphere goes
> cool.

Why?  The cool time of year is best for lagers.

> I have plenty of noble hops, Californian / Bavarian/ Oktoberfest
> lager yeast and a newly acquired temp controller for the fridge.
> The only problem is I have no pilsener malt!

JOOI, why don't you just buy some?  There's even a very light
Australian Pilsener malt made by Joe Whites.

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


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Date: Mon, 6 Feb 2006 05:43:33 -0600
From: <lkowens at uiuc.edu>
Subject: when to pitch Lager yeast

I made a Dortmunder on Saturday. With my immersion chiller, 
I couldn't get the wort to cool below 60F. In this 
situation, which is the better strategy: 1)put the chilled 
wort in the refrigerator to finish cooling, then pitch the 
yeast when the wort cools to 50-55 or 2) pitch the yeast at 
60 and slowly drop the temperature of the refrigerator after 
the yeast has been pitched. I've read with option 2 I'll get 
more diacetyl, esters, and fusels. But option 1 makes me 
nervous because I don't want to wait 10-12 hours to pitch 
the yeast. I picked option 2 this time, but am afraid I'll 
end up with a fruity/butterscotchy Dortmunder. What would 
you do?
thanks,
Linda
Champaign, Il.


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Date: Mon, 6 Feb 2006 06:55:07 -0500 (GMT-05:00)
From: Brian Millan <ernurse at ix.netcom.com>
Subject: Re: Woodstock Inn (February 05, 2006)

>From: "Craig S. Cottingham" <craig.cottingham at gmail.com>
>Subject: Woodstock Inn

Hi Craig --

Sorry not to have info on the Woodstock Inn for you just now, but
I am planning on visiting there in the next couple of weeks, so I will
try to get back to you on it.

In the meantime, I found this place which will also be part of future crawl:

http://www.theinnonpeaksisland.com

Apparently it has on premises, a 15 barrel franchise brewpub from this brewery:

http://www.shipyard.com/

Peaks Island is a short 1/2 hour ferry ride from Portland, ME. Might this
be somewhere you'd be interested in?

Brian





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Date: Mon, 6 Feb 2006 08:48:17 -0600
From: "Berggren, Stefan" <Stefan_Berggren at trekbikes.com>
Subject: 

In response to the Saison WLP 565  Yeast question:

Steve, 

Don't worry so much about the temperature of fermentation 
for this yeast.  It likes to be abused...seriously !   I use this yeast 
and ferment in the hot summer at around 80-85 degrees and produce
some of the best Saison in my brewing portfolio.  You may want to 
finish off with a neutral yeast such as WLP001 to have a dry finish 
typical of Saisons.  Also pitch big or go home ! 
Be patient and abuse that yeast !   I noticed no 
off flavors at this temp when the beer was finished.  
If you are interested in the recipe, let me know ! 

Cheers, 

Stefan Berggren 
Madison Homebrewers and Tasters Guild (Madison, WI) 
www.mhtg.org 
" Getting Ready for the Big and Huge Homebrew Competition" 



Date: Fri, 03 Feb 2006 19:45:05 -0500
From: "Steve A. Smith" <sasmith11 at verizon.net>
Subject: WLP 565 Saison Yeast Question

Last Saturday (six days ago) I brewed +7 gallons of Saison, about 1.064
OG, 
using White Labs 565 Saison yeast for the first time.  Per some of the 
threads I followed from the HBD archives, I have been fermenting in
primary 
a little hot, at about 78 F, even though the WLP web site recommends an 
optimal fermentation temp range of 68 - 75 F.  It was a simple matter
for me 
to place my two primary fermenters close to a basement furnace where the

heat remains quite constant at the mentioned 78 F (air temp).  The yeast
was 
very active when I checked 12 hours after pitching, and died down a lot 
about a day later, although even tonight it still bubbles once every
couple 
minutes or so.  Per the posts I read, some people ferment this yeast at
80 - 
95 F, and that the book Farmhouse Ales, which I do not yet own,
recommends 
fermentation temps somewhere in the vicinity of that range for this
strain. 
I'm planning to rack to secondary tomorrow or Super Bowl Sunday, and
will be 
unable to check the beer for a week after that.  My question to those
with 
experience with this yeast is would you recommend that, after racking to

secondary, I move the fermenters to a slightly cooler area, say 70 F, so

that the yeast will not break down during secondary fermentation?  I 
understand that this strain takes its time and secondary might take at
least 
2 to 3 weeks to clear and finish somewhere around 1.010 - 1.014.  My
normal 
inclination would be to go cooler and longer in secondary, but I know
that 
Belgian style beer-making can call for new ways of thinking.

thanks,

Steve Smith
transplanted from the Rocky Mountain West to the DC Metro Area 




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Date: Mon, 6 Feb 2006 07:51:57 -0800 (PST)
From: Matt <baumssl27 at yahoo.com>
Subject: DuPont strain

Steve asks about ferment temperature profiles for WLP565 Saison, which
is allegedly the DuPont strain.  Here are some comments that might
help, or might not.

1. For a beer I recently made (5 G of 1.051 saison, 5% sugar) the yeast
(from a 2-qt starter) slowed to a crawl after day 1, gravity 1.036.  I
had been fermenting at 78 (according to the strip thermometer on the
carboy, in a 73 degree room) and the slowing of the yeast resulted in a
temperature drop to 73 degrees.  1.036 is near the point where one
would expect all of the simpler sugars have run out and the yeast
starts to ferment maltose.  Maybe this is coincidence and maybe not.

2. From Phil Markowski's book and from the HBD post by Tomme Arthur, I
gather that even the pros have not gotten a handle on how to make this
yeast "go fast."  Given the control they have over pitching rate, yeast
health, aeration, etc, it seems unlikely that oxygen/sterol/UFA issues
are the main reason for the well-known slowness of this strain.

3. Chris White suggested (personal email) that the slowness may have to
do with maltose transport, and that when you ferment beer with "wine"
yeast, slowness in the second part of fermentation is common. 
Markowski comments that repitched yeast may ferment faster, and this
might make sense if repitching selects for maltose-savvy cells.

4. Back to my beer (still at 73-75 degrees), I added 1/4 tsp nutrients
and it started to ferment faster for a day, but then slowed again to
2-3 bubbles per minute.  So I don't think temperature was the issue.

5. Rather than keep adding nutrients (which might be a good thing to
try) I just let it sit for 5 weeks in the primary, bubbling very
slowly, and at the end of that time it was at 1.027.  I added a packet
of Nottingham, which fermented solidly for several days before stopping
hard.  The beer was at 1.008 and bubbling less than once every minute,
so I bottled it.  Never racked to a secondary.  It tastes great.

I would be interested to hear how this meshes with others' experience. 


Supposedly at Dupont much of the ferment is done in a week at 85-90
degrees.  Maybe the temp really is the key to this, but to me it seems
more likely that it is done with the help of the "other strains"
supposedly present.  The most foolproof way to get the beer finished is
to add another strain.  I guess WY and WLP are working on a
multi-strain Saison culture for this reason.  But it would be
interesting to try:

a. actually maintaining 85 degrees for a week or 2
b. a massive starter
c. incremental additions of nutrients

Anyone able to shed more light on this weird yeast?

Matt






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Date: Mon, 6 Feb 2006 12:03:24 -0800
From: "Michael Eyre" <meyre at sbcglobal.net>
Subject: Weight for O.G. readings?

Hey all!

I read on here a while back about making gravity readings for wort by
using a graduated cylinder and an accurate scale to weight the sample
before and after fermentation, as a way to make more accurate than
hydrometer readings possible. I know there was a bit of a hoo-ha about
it really being necessary, but I just happened to come into possession
of all of these required pieces of equipment and now the curiosity is
killing me. I can't find the link to anything on Gooogle and the HBD
site gave me fits for about 45 minutes with no luck to be had on the
original post. I think it was -S who made the post, but I may be
wrong... anyone point me in the right direction, perhaps?

Mike



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Date: Mon, 06 Feb 2006 12:30:43 -0500
From: Thom Cannell <Thom at CannellAndAssociates.com>
Subject: Subject: Pete's stuck fermentation

> Subject: Pete's stuck fermentation

I once had a super Russian Imperial Stout stick at 1.036. Went to the local
brewery, Michigan Brewing Company, and asked if the brewer had suggestions.
He did, and gave me a slurry of WLP 099 - super high gravity - yeast. It
worked. Perhaps it would help you as well. Of course a starter, nutrients,
etc.


Thom Cannell

Thom near CannellAndAssociates dot com




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Date: Mon, 6 Feb 2006 11:28:27 -0800 
From: RiedelD at pac.dfo-mpo.gc.ca
Subject: RE: hopbacking

I seem to have been misleading in my last post.  I did not mean to suggest
that I don't get a nice aroma from hopbacking.  I don't seem to get a nice
full aroma from late (as the heat is shut off) kettle additions.  My
interest in hopbacking is for that reason.  Has anyone experienced a
consistently good full aroma from hopbacking?  Yes, dryhopping works, but it
has a different character - often grassy - that I'm not as fond of.  It's
also out of place in most lagers.

As for Fred's increased bitterness - since his transfers only took about 5
minutes, I'd think that the increased bitterness would be negligible.
However,  for 30g of hops, ProMash suggests about +2IBU in five boil minutes
for a low alpha hop like EKG, and ~+3.5 for a higher alpha hop like
Northdown.  If Fred was closer to 10 minutes, then he could get close to a
+5 IBU change.  I believe that most people can only detect changes in
bitterness of about +/- 5 IBU.

It's interesting that Fred also went from immersion to counterflow chilling.
This might be the more important factor.  The near-boiling steep of the
kettle hops while the wort runs through the counterflow chiller may add
significant bitterness vs. an immersion method.  Personally, I noticed a
drop in bitterness in my beers when I sped up my counterflow-cooled runout
by using a pump.

If none of the above issues may have caused Fred's increased bitterness, is
it possible that there is a perceived increase in bitterness due to the
increased hop 'character'?

cheers,
Dave Riedel
Victoria, Canada


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Date: Mon, 6 Feb 2006 17:45:48 -0800 (PST)
From: RI_homebrewer <ri_homebrewer at yahoo.com>
Subject: re: Woodstock Inn

Hi All,

  In HBD #4944, Craig Cottingham from Olathe, KS asked about the
Woodstock Inn in North Woodstock, NH (http://www.woodstockinnnh.com/).

  I've never stayed there (we usually stay a few miles up the road at
http://www.indianheadresort.com/), but I have been there a couple times
for food and beers.

  The food is very good and the menu quite extensive (it's online if I
remember correctly).  They usually have about 6 beers on tap.  Very
well made and very close to the advertized styles.  The APA/IPA, brown
ale, and oatmeal stout are my personal favorties. I'm pretty sure they
brew on a Pugsley/Austin brewing system, but I don't think they use the
Ringwood yeast strain.

  There are many, many, family oriented summertime attractions in the
immediate area.  Such as: Clark's Trading Post, Lost River gorge, the
Flume, and the Basin.  Google will get you more info on any of these.

  A similar bed-and-breakfast-with-a-brewpub in the same area is the
Moat Mountain Smokehouse in North Conway,
NH(http://www.moatmountain.com/).  They are also well worth checking
out, either for staying there or just dinner/beers.  There is also a
place just up the road that has a good selection of local/regional
beers on tap (http://www.tuckermanstavern.com/index.html).


Jeff McNally
Tiverton, RI
(652.2 miles, 90.0 deg) A.R.
South Shore Brew Club



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