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


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Contents:
  "Spirit of Free Beer" Homebrew Competition Results ("Mark E.  Hogenmiller")
  Mashout (Fred L Johnson)
  re: Pitching Lager Yeasts Warm ("steve.alexander")
  Underpitching ("A.J deLange")
  Re: reusable yeast strains? ("Brian Pic")
  Re: A new taste sensation (Signalbox Brewery)
  Pitching lager yeast cold; BeerGun ("Peed, John")


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JANITORs on duty: Pat Babcock (pbabcock at hbd dot org), Jason Henning,
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Date: Sat, 20 May 2006 19:53:44 -0400
From: "Mark E. Hogenmiller" <mehogenmiller at cox.net>
Subject: "Spirit of Free Beer" Homebrew Competition Results

Brewers United For Real Potables  (BURP) completed the 14th Annual Nation's

Capital  "Spirit of Free Beer" Homebrew Competition at the Old Dominion

Brewery at Ashburn, Virginia on May 13, 2006.  Spirit of Free Beer, for the

eighth year in a row, served as one of the Qualifying Events for the Masters 
Championship for Amateur Brewing (MCAB).



The Best of show winners are:

1st  - Mel Thompson - German Pilsner Category 2A - Ed's Urine Sample with 
Head

2nd - Mel Thompson - Extra Special/Strong Bitter Category 8C - Ed's Drool

3rd - Ed Bielus - Dusseldorf Altbier Category 6C - The Ghost of Bill Leonard



 The winner of the Bill Moe Memorial Extract Award for the highest placing 
extract beer is:  Chuck Prouty



Complete results are posted to BURP website at 
http://www.burp.org/events/sofb/2006/



SOFB XIV Team

events at burp.org



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Date: Sat, 20 May 2006 20:00:49 -0400
From: Fred L Johnson <FLJohnson52 at nc.rr.com>
Subject: Mashout

Do any commercial breweries do a mashout? Or is a mashout something 
that only homebrewers do? If the latter, why do we bother to do it?

Fred L Johnson
Apex, North Carolina, USA



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Date: Sat, 20 May 2006 22:54:02 -0400
From: "steve.alexander" <steve-alexander at adelphia.net>
Subject: re: Pitching Lager Yeasts Warm

A.J deLange writes ...

>The instructions for the White Yeast lager strains suggest doing exactly 
>this stating that keeping the wort warm until things get going is the 
>most important thing in getting a good fermentation. It bothers me too 
>but if I don't do it I have long lag times and poor attenuation.

Whitelabs suggest several procedures ....
http://www.whitelabs.com/yeast_instructions.html

But the warm pitch suggestion is properly described with a warning:
"Flavor effects of this method vary with yeast strain, recipe,
and palette".

As AJ well knows the problem is underpitching.   Pitching rates for
lagers are inherently higher then for ales.  1 WL tube contains
30-60B cells, but the conventionally suggested lager pitching rate
into 5gal of 12P wort would be 240B cells, and Kunze suggests
(20M/ml) 400B cells.

Any way you consider it, the WL tubes underpitch lagers by a factor
of 4 to 13.  Special measures must be used to get a good fermentation
this way.

 -S





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Date: Sun, 21 May 2006 12:42:43 +0000
From: "A.J deLange" <ajdel at cox.net>
Subject: Underpitching

That  underpitching was responsible was certainly my first thought so I 
started pitiching 10% starters (3 gallons to a barrel) and oxygenating 
to 20 mg/L. While this improves things somewhat with repect to the start 
I still have to keep temperatures over 50  to get things going in less 
than 24 hours and if I back the temperature down to near 50 subsequently 
fermentation comes to a screeching halt with poor attenuation. The White 
Labs instructions do say that lager fermentations can take a month or 
more and they ceratinly do unless, or even in some cases if,  
temperature is closer to 55 than 50. This is not the way I recall it 
being with the Wyeast strains but I do have to say that the White Labs 
strains make tasty beer. There are 2 changed variables in my brewing. I 
am now using the White Labs strains (because that's what my supplier 
stocks) and I am brewing on new ( about a year now) equipment. I'm 
considering the possibility that the new gear produces more dextrinous 
worts even though I think I am basically following the same old mash 
schedules. I'm going to try lower temp, longer beta amylase rests on the 
next decoction brew.

A.J.


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Date: Mon, 22 May 2006 12:00:44 -0400
From: "Brian Pic" <bpicke at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: reusable yeast strains?

> From: "Ben Dooley" <bendooley at gmail.com>

> I was wondering if anyone can suggest a yeast strain that is
> particularly suited to long-term repitching. I've heard that the Chico
> (Wyeast 1065?) gets overly attenuative in three generations. I've
> heard that Ringwood has excellent longevity, but I don't care for the
> diacetyl. Has anyone had success with any particular strain?

I am just guessing here (and since the queue has been short I'll post).

I have heard of a more than a few brewpubs that use WY 1968 or
equivalent exclusively for a number of styles with the same yeast.
Though it needs a dicetyl rest, it is malty, somewhat sweet, but
highly flocculant and easy to get a clear beer.  I would guess that it
repitches well, since brewpubs are using it.   Or, maybe it is just
the few pubs that I am familiar with...  ?

- --Brian



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Date: Mon, 22 May 2006 20:17:24 +0100
From: Signalbox Brewery <signalbox.brewery at ntlworld.com>
Subject: Re: A new taste sensation

Bob Devine makes some suggestions about my anaesthesis
at the hands of a local pub.

 >Hmmm, hard to tell.  Did others notice anything weird?
 >Was it extra fizzy?  Was the glass clean? Had you eaten
 >anything spicy or hot before?

My companion was not a beer connoisseur, beer not extra fizzy
and I didn't notice anything odd about glass. Rest of pub was
swilling it without complaint. That doesn't mean much in England.
Nothing spicy and it was my second pint. The first was sweet
and green but didn't have the anaesthetic effect.

 >Beware - the old textbook versions of the tongue maps are misleading.
 >Those maps were great for making easy tests for students learning
 >basic anotomy, but, do not take those simplistic maps as gospel.

No, I'm young enough to have been introduced to tongue maps as a
only guideline on relative sensitivity. I find it useful when teaching
people to recognise bitterness and distinguish it from astringency.

I mentioned the front sides purely because the anaesthesis
was localised to that area of my tongue! There may be no
sensitivity differences and maybe if I's swallowed more of
the revolting muck I could have anaestetized my whole mouth.
However I'm afraid I'm not going back in the interest of science.

David Edge, Derby



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Date: Mon, 22 May 2006 13:11:29 -0700
From: "Peed, John" <jpeed at elotouch.com>
Subject: Pitching lager yeast cold; BeerGun


I've done one warm pitch and numerous cold pitches.  The warm pitch (a
pretty delicate Pils) turned out just fine.  The cold pitches show
evidence of activity within 2 to 4 hours and ferment out just fine, but
I build up lots of yeast over a period of a week or two (on a stir
plate) before pitching.  

I still get the occasional comment from competitions suggesting that I
have bottle deterioration, and I've experienced it with a British Best
that's been in the bottle for 2 months (although it might just be that
particular batch), but in general my beers bottled from kegs have
improved tremendously since I got a Blichmann BeerGun.  I always got
terrible results from counterpressure bottling.  Things improved quite a
bit when I just started bottling from the tap with a short length of
plastic tubing, but the BeerGun is giving much better results than that.
It's also very convenient and very easy to use.  I'm still experimenting
to find the best technique, but it appears that capping on foam is not
the way to go with it - "quieter" seems to be better.  Darn good
investment, in my opinion.  BTW, I find hoppy American beers most prone
to bottle deterioration, and fruity Brits next.  Light delicate beers
actually seem to improve in the bottle (I have no idea why).

John Peed
Oak Ridge, TN




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