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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
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Contents:
  Fwd: Accurate Thermometers (Fred L Johnson)
  dry ice carbonation - warning (ALAN K MEEKER)
  Big beer efficiency... ("Michael Eyre")
  Water Test (Pete Limosani)
  AHA Governing Committee Election ("Gary Glass")


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Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2006 07:51:45 -0500
From: Fred L Johnson <FLJohnson52 at nc.rr.com>
Subject: Fwd: Accurate Thermometers

If a thermometer isn't NIST certified or NIST traceable, there's little 
guarantee that the thermometer will be very accurate. One should 
calibrate such a thermometer. It is standard procedure in the lab to 
calibrate whatever thermometer one is using against an NIST certified 
thermometer. For many thermometers, no adjustment can be made to the 
value displayed on the thermometer. "Calibration" for such thermometers 
means making notes on the value displayed at various temperatures (as 
several have pointed out in this thread), constructing calibration 
curves from those values, and making adjustments to the displayed value 
using the calibration curves.

I have used NIST traceable thermometers made by Control Company for 
many years. They are sold by several dealers (see the web site below). 
The prices of the thermometers vary depending upon features, but there 
are several that are quite affordable.

(I have no affiliation with Control Company. I'm only a satisfied 
customer always looking for an inexpensive way of getting what I want.)

www.control3.com

Fred L Johnson
Apex, North Carolina, USA



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Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2006 14:48:13 -0500
From: ALAN K MEEKER <ameeker at mail.jhmi.edu>
Subject: dry ice carbonation - warning

For those of you that may be thinking quick carbonation of beer in the 
bottle using dry ice might be a handy trick - think again! In the interest 
of safety I relate the following embarrassing anecdote:

A while back I had made an insanely strong barleywine that failed to 
carbonate despite a fresh addition of champagne yeast at bottling. It
ended up being completely uncarbonated, likely due to the high alcohol
content inhibiting or killing off the yeast. So, here I was with a case and
a half of barleywine that tasted great but was totally flat. It would be near
perfect if only it were carbonated. Adding more yeast to the bottles was
unlikely to help and I certainly didn't want top go to all the trouble of 
emptying all those bottles into a new container for force carbonation,
not to mention the oxygen pick up that would occur during the transfer.
So, I decided I would try to carbonate them in the bottles using dry ice.
Knowing I wanted about 1.5 volumes of CO2, I easily calculated the 
mass of dry ice I'd need to add to each bottle using the ideal gas law.
Just to make sure I hadn't screwed anything up, I weighed out this 
amount of dry ice and placed it in a balloon to make sure the volume 
produced by the sublimated dry ice looked about right. Sure enough
it came out perfect. Time to carbonate the BW. I carefully weighed out
the correct amount of dry ice, uncapped one of the bottles, dropped in
the dry ice chip and immediately re-capped the bottle. Unfortunately,
what I had neglected to consider was the fact that, although CO2
dissolves in water very quickly, this is by no means instantaneous. Thus,
The CO2 gas generated by the rapidly sublimating dry ice hitting the 
room temperature liquid, rapidly accumulated in the headspace of 
the bottle. Instead of having 1.5 volumes of gas distributed throughout
the bottle, it was all cramming itself into the ~1cubic centimeter 
headspace, leading to a couple of hundred-fold higher pressure than
anticipated. Needless to say, this was more than the bottle could handle
and it promptly (and dramatically) exploded! Luckily I escaped injury, but
what a mess! The bottle pretty much vaporized, spreading small glass
shards and sticky barleywine all over the kitchen. Took about 3 hours to 
clean up the mess. 

I was eventually able to carbonate a few bottles using dry ice by adding 
the full amount in several small stages, giving each stage plenty of time
to equilibrate, but this was a royal pain, so I can't really recommend it. 


Alan Meeker
Lazy Eight Nanobrewery
Baltimore, MD




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Date: Sun, 26 Mar 2006 09:30:37 -0800
From: "Michael Eyre" <meyre at sbcglobal.net>
Subject: Big beer efficiency...

Hello all...

There's a nasty rumor going around that the bigger beer you try to make
(all grain, btw!) in a given mashtun, the less efficiency you *tend* to
get. I seem to be seeing this in my brewery when I make a barley wine...
any truth to this?

Mike



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Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 07:14:49 -0500
From: Pete Limosani <peteLimo at comcast.net>
Subject: Water Test

Hi, Folks,
I bought a water quality test kit at Home Depot yesterday.
The strip revealed only pH, Total Alkalinity, Chlorine and Total Hardness.

My results were:
pH=5.5
Total Alkalinity=60
Chlorine=.5
Total Hardness=50

 From these numbers is it possible to estimate Ca, Mg, SO4, Na, Cl, 
Carb/BiCarb?
At least enough to make reasonable adjustments to emulate other water styles?

Thanks in advance for any thoughts.

/Pete Limosani/ 




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Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 16:28:34 -0700
From: "Gary Glass" <gary at brewersassociation.org>
Subject: AHA Governing Committee Election

Hi All,

This is the last week of voting for the American Homebrewers Association
Governing Committee Election.  All online ballots must be submitted by April
1.  See www.beertown.org/homebrewing/election.html to review the candidate
statements and submit your online ballots. 

We have an excellent slate of candidates this year.  The people you choose to
serve on the Governing Committee will have a very direct impact on guiding
your organization, so I urge you to vote.

AHA members casting ballots in this year's election are eligible for an
additional entry into the Lallemand Scholarship drawing for a scholarship to
the Siebel Institute's two-week Concise Course.  Voters can also renew their
membership for a special $29 renewal rate.

Cheers!

Gary Glass
Director
American Homebrewers Association
gary at brewersassociation.org 
www.beertown.org 





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