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


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Contents:
  New to brewing and currently making some mead (need some answers) ("Michael Kolaghassi")
  Re: yeast settling and crash cooling ("steve.alexander")
  RE:  An essay on homebrewing (Bill Tobler)
  Homebrewing Economics ("A.J deLange")
  Beers for Women ("Alexandre Enkerli")
  Old Hops a Problem? ("Dave and Joan King")


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Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2006 05:54:11 +0000
From: "Michael Kolaghassi" <kolaghassi89 at hotmail.com>
Subject: New to brewing and currently making some mead (need some answers)

     Hey everyone Im new to this list and brewing.  Well I'm makin a one 
gallon batch of Joe's Ancient Orange Mead right now, and it's hiding in my 
computer desk drawer, haha.
     I have a question regarding foam.  I used baker's yeast like the recipe 
said (fleischmann's highly active rapid rise to be exact) and after I mixed 
it with the must I woke up the next day to find that it had ALOT of an 
orangish thick foam and it got into my airlock turning the water yellowish, 
spurting out some drops. I dumped some liquid out of the gallon carboy and 
fitted the rubber stopper with a piece of siphoning tube leading into a jug 
filled with water so if it foams up itll go in there.  It still foamed again 
but it didnt go into the tube, instead it stopped a little before the end of 
the jug but it blocked my view of what was goin on inside, so I opened the 
jug and poured some water down the neck so it ran down the sides to clear 
off all the crap...is all this stuff normal???
     OH and how long will it take before I can drink it (I really don't mind 
aging right now, this is an experimental first batch)?  And what would the 
approximate ABV be? I used about 3.5lbs of honey...and I dont have a 
hydrometer/ whatever-thing.

I really appreciate any answers,
Michael Kolaghassi



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Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2006 02:06:20 -0400
From: "steve.alexander" <-s at adelphia.net>
Subject: Re: yeast settling and crash cooling

Matt wrote:
> This explanation is not consistent with what I have heard from
> commercial brewers [...] When I asked why, their
> answers were the same: to get the yeast out.  I hear the same
> explanation from some American commercial brewers--but as they
> generally filter they tend to mention both the yeast AND the haze
> aspect.
>   
Haze yes - yeast ... not so simple  It is important to perform an 
extended chill
before filtering.  This allows the formation of the unstable haze complexes
which is filterable in the complexed state, but not warmer.   Also the 
amount
of yeast in suspension should be minimized to reduce filtering time& costs.

> The contradiction with what Steve has said (or my reading of it,
> anyway) is that these brewers seemed to say that *even after
> fermentation has stopped*, crash-cooling can cause the yeast to fall
> clear sooner.  Given Stokes' Law, the only reasonable mechanism for
> this would be improved flocculation induced by the cold (which is why
> things might be different for inanimate vs. animate objects, by the
> way). 
>   
No - that really doesn't wash with the facts.  Several descriptions in 
the lit describe
the clearing of beer and wine with several "waves" of turbidity dropping
successively.  The last wave are the individual cells which fall slowest 
according
to Stokes.   Just because yeast cell surfaces become "sticky" doesn't 
mean they
instantly find each other and clump into floccs.  The beer isn't really 
clear till the
single cells fall, and this takes longer at cold temps.  Flocculation 
prevents
or reduces the re-suspension.

>  So I think there are two possibilities:
>
> 1. Even after fermentation is over, cold shock can cause yeast to
> flocculate more effectively than they already are.  It is hard for me
> to believe this is not true, at least for some common strains.
Possible, but I doubt it.

> or
>
> 2. For these brewers, "fermentation has stopped" doesn't necessarily
> mean that every last bit of sugar is gone, but rather that they are
> okay with the attenuation as is.  Thus, as Steve says they are simply
> arresting fermentation prematurely, to induce flocculation.  For some
> of these breweries (the American ones that are going to filter anyway)
> this is easy for me to believe.  For De Dolle, Kerkom (who allegedly
> primary for 3 weeks), St. Bernardus, et al, I am more skeptical.
>   
Crash cooling & filtering is performed when the beer is a few SG degrees
above the finish as a time saving device.

The cold (dropping an ale ferment from 20C to 2C for example) both stalls
fermentation induces flocculence changes in fermenting cells.   In a large
CCV the cooling causes a substantial convection - which is exactly the sort
of gentle stirring which will assist flocculation.  The cold increases CO2
solubility which could help prevent bubble formation that will re-suspend
the yeast cake.   Also commercial brewers are more aware of and concerned
with autolysis - which is greatly retarded in the cooled beer too.

You can't get these sort of thermal convection in a small fermenter.  It's
worth noting that ale yeasts have a much greater tendency to stay attached
to daughter cells and generally flocc better than lager yeasts.

> I don't know where the truth lies.  Right now my interest in this is
> really driven by the question of "how do I get the yeast to drop clear
> as fast as possible, so I can drink my beer before the (probably
> thermo-lactic) infection that has been plaguing me ruins it?"  And
> going forward, there is a much more desirable solution to that problem.
>  (See my previous question about boiling water).
>   
The crash-cooling might buy you a little time, but it's no substitute 
for sanitation.
Thermolactic fermentation peak around 40C, but please note that the the
lacto-bacterial culture used in Berliner Weiss is thermophilic too, yet 
the lactic
development takes place at cool cellar temps according to the books.

The solution to your problem is to re-double your sanitation procedures, not
crash-cooling.

 -S



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Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2006 05:43:39 -0500
From: Bill Tobler <brewbetter1 at houston.rr.com>
Subject: RE:  An essay on homebrewing

Peter, thanks for clearing that up. I was scratching my head over  
that post.  I read it twice and still couldn't figure it out.

Cheers!

On Tap:
Sweet San Fran (Steam Beer)
Big Black Dog (Am. IPA)
Kolsch
Schwarzbier

Conditioning:
Octoberfest



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Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2006 11:49:10 +0000
From: "A.J deLange" <ajdel at cox.net>
Subject: Homebrewing Economics

For about $120 worth of raw materials (malt, hops, propane) I get 3*120 
pints of beer which comes out to $0.33 a pint. This sounds good at first 
but then someone mentions the NRE. I'm still at the hundreds of $ a pint 
level and I've got to get that number down. I can't stop either!

A.J.


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Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2006 19:01:02 -0400
From: "Alexandre Enkerli" <enkerli at gmail.com>
Subject: Beers for Women

Do you have good recipes for beers that most women are likely to enjoy?

Kevin Gray posted an exchange we had about beer, culture, and gender.
http://kevbrews.blogspot.com/2006/09/craft-brew-culture.html

One thing that came up is the lack of recipes for women-friendly
beers. Of course, women have as diverse tastes as men but there's a
tendency for women not to like the typical American IPA.

Wheat and fruit sounds like common ingredients in woman-friendly
beers. But there are surely other things to think about. Some people
(bartenders, say) have told me that women tend to like the chocolate
and coffee character of some porters and stouts. Maybe that's a good
approach.

If you have brewed a beer which has helped a woman get into beer (and
she wasn't into beer before), what did it?

- -- 
Alexandre
http://enkerli.wordpress.com/


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Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2006 19:35:50 -0400
From: "Dave and Joan King" <dking3 at stny.rr.com>
Subject: Old Hops a Problem?

I'm done picking my hops for this year, in fact, I'm not sure the ones 
drying now are useable.  Many of them have dark brown tips to the individual 
"pedals."  They seem to smell OK.  Does anyone think they should not be 
used?  Thanks,

    Dave King, President of BIER  http://www.thebierclub.com/
          [396.1, 89.1] Apparent Rennerian




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