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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
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Contents:
  Re: What do you think of this? ("Greg 'groggy' Lehey")
  RE: Flour beer? ("Llew J van Rensburg")
  re: Cereal Mash temp question... ("steve.alexander")
  re: Amylase continues working? (Petr Otahal)
  Happy 5000th digest (bob.devine)
  reverse recirculation RIM ("Mike Sharp")
  Fermenator in KC? (phase)


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Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2006 12:41:52 +0930
From: "Greg 'groggy' Lehey" <grog at lemis.com>
Subject: Re: What do you think of this?

On Sunday, 23 April 2006 at  8:54:27 -0700, Jeremy Bergsman wrote:
> http://www.warenhaus-geissler.de/index.php?r=module/info.php&sel=25248
>
> Reactions?

*very* interesting.  I'd buy one of these in a flash if:

 - it were bigger (only 25 litres)
 - it were cheaper (<insert Euro symbol here> 1148 is quite a price).

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


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Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2006 07:18:02 +0200
From: "Llew J van Rensburg" <llew at luco.co.za>
Subject: RE: Flour beer?

On Tuesday, 18 April 2006 at 23:59:19 -0500, Gary Smith wrote:
> While waltzin' through Costco I passed by their huge
> bags of flour & I couldn't help but wonder if anyone's
> ever tried (with success) making beer from flour.
>
> Seems like the addition of some 6 row for enzymes
> might do the conversion but how to deal with the
> inevitable sludge? Husks? I sure wouldn't run it in my
> rims, that would be a nasty mess to clean afterwards.
>
> I'm not thinking high quality brew but just wondering
> what might be possible.

Graham Sanders makes his Famed Tropical Flower Wit using about 45% ordinary
flour.  See his recipe under Recipes on http://new.craftbrewer.org/

Llew
Johannesburg







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Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2006 03:06:50 -0400
From: "steve.alexander" <-s at adelphia.net>
Subject: re: Cereal Mash temp question...

Michael Eyre asks, 

>If this is so, why do the distilleries (yeah, distilleries, not
>breweries... after all, they're the ones using the most corn I can think
>of in a mash) do a rolling boil on their corn and grains? If all that's
>required is 62-74 degrees, what's up with the boil? 

Let's not overgeneralize.  People distill a lot of fermentable
things, and ferment & distill grain products in several distinct ways.
Some of the decisions made are clearly tradition, while others are
economic.

Single malt scotch uses only malted barley - so no cereal issue there.
Blended Scotch uses neutral grain alcohol which ....

The neutral grain alcohol is made from (mostly) raw grain and large
plants use a continuous process which is most efficient.  The continuous
cereal cooking process (something like pressure cooking) is energetically
expensive *but* you can recapture the excess heat and use it elsewhere in
the mash & distill steps.  You have no such re-use potential for batch
processing.  [[Neutral grain alcohol is vodka minus the pretentious
bottles & huge markup]].  Small grain alc & vodka operations use batch
methods.  Many Scotch distillers also operate grain distilleries. for
blending purposes.

The high-end US whiskies (bourbon, tennesee, rye) typically use large
fractions of raw cereal (corn and some wheat) and many (most ? all ?)
are batch processes. The exact methods used are often trade secret and not
covered in much detail in the published literature. Where it is covered
the details are somewhat hazy.   Regan's 'Book of Bourbon' pp 214...
details  processing steps where the finely ground corn is boiled for
25 minutes cooled to 156F then wheat & rye added, then cooled to 148F
where the malt is added.  I suspect that is common for US whiskies,
but I also expect there is considerable variation.  Glen Raudins 
(raudins.com) reprints some very old brewing and distilling books.
The 1809 'Practical Distiller' discussed many vague procedures
most with a corn boil, while the 1875 'The Complete Distiller'
discusses the use of corn without boiling. 

Piggott's, 'Science and Technology of Whiskies' describes 4 cereal mash
procedures:
  continuous cook - sort of a continuous pressure cook system.
  batch cook - batch processing to 100C or beyond
  cold cook - reducing the starch to flour and adding to a normal mash.
	[mostly of academic interest]
  no-cook - grits and a small amt of malt are stepped to the cereal gelat
	temp.  As discussed a pre-mash degradation of the cereal.
 

As to energy .... the no-cook process saves ~70% in heat energy compared
with the batch (boiled) cook processes, but requires a greater expenditure
of time, space and energy for grain milling.  This no-cook process is used
by by some commercial batch distillers.   By comparison the continuous
hi-pressure cook with heat recapture uses about 50% as much energy as the
batch-cook process.   Pretty efficient, but there are many other advantages
to continuous distilling.

The Bourbon batch-cook boil is not energy efficient, but the point is quality
and tradition. I imagine that some of the larger operations re-use the
boil-heat somehow.  There could be a sanitation aspect here too - I have no
idea what the "bug demographics" are on corn vs rye & barley.

 -S




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Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2006 17:21:07 +1000
From: Petr Otahal <petr.otahal at aardvark.net.au>
Subject: re: Amylase continues working?

steve.alexander wrote:
>The short answer is yes !  Some alpha-amylase survives the mash
>(even a mashout) and will continue to degrade dextrins slowly,
>but more thoroughly than you might expect.
>
>Piggott et al, in "Whisky Technology" state that all malt wort
>will have FG of 0.997 to 0.998.  They suggest other final
>gravity figures (all less than 1.000) for other grain adjunct
>additions.  They claim that high FG figures (around 1.0035, or
>3.5 degrees) indicate that the raw grain adjunct was insufficiently
>cooked (sic cereal mash)

Steve,

thanks for the reply, looks like I am a little high with my FGs but within 
the ballpark.

I did think that it was the degradation by alpha amylase that was resulting 
in the lower FGs (lower than beer FGs anyway), glad to hear it confirmed.

>BTW, some limited lactobacteria activity in the whisky fermentation
>is said to be desirable as this has a positive impact on the final
>whisky flavor. It's almost unavoidable anyway.

I have heard this and yes it is unavoidable, I have also heard that some 
whiskey makers allow their fermentations to get over 30C (86F). I'm sure 
this would encourage high levels of lactic bacteria, and consequently 
lactic acid and associated esters.

Cheers
Petr Otahal



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Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2006 16:16:04 +0000
From: bob.devine at att.net
Subject: Happy 5000th digest

Thanks to our esteeemed janitors, the HBD hits #5000.

Bob Devine
still in Riverton, UT (soon to be in Tri-Cities, WA area)


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Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2006 10:39:21 -0700
From: "Mike Sharp" <rdcpro at hotmail.com>
Subject: reverse recirculation RIM

Jeremy wants reactions on an upwards reverse recirculation RIMS

It's an interesting device.  I've played with a similar idea, though not
nearly as nicely done.  I actually got the idea because a 15 gallon kettle I
bought came with a huge strainer that fit completely inside with the lid
on...so I thought, why not mash in that, then hoist the strainer, spent
grains and all, right out.  But a fifteen gallon strainer filled with spent
grains weighs a lot.  It does works great when cooking a ton of spaghetti,
though!

My thoughts:

1.  No vorlauf, but frankly I don't know whether that's a bad thing or not.
2.  There doesn't appear to be any sparging going on, but maybe that's a
good thing.
3.  The water to grist ratio seems really high.  But then, there doesn't
appear to be any sparging going on, so maybe that's why.  I wonder if mash
pH needs to be carefully watched.
4.  I wonder what the upper limit for the amount of grain is, and how "big"
of a beer you can make without cutting down on volume.   

Seems fairly reasonably priced, considering how nicely executed the design
is.

Regards,
Mike Sharp


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Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2006 19:46:12 -0600 (MDT)
From: phase at booyaka.com
Subject: Fermenator in KC?

Is there anyone in the Kansas City metro area that owns a Fermenator? 
If so, would you be willing to show it to me?

Thanks,
Matt


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