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


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Contents:
  CBS Spooky Brew Review Homebrew Competition (Roger Deschner)
  Little Rocktoberfest 9/30 ("Ken Haycook")
  RE: Subject: Re: Oak chips (Steven Parfitt)
  Have I ruined a good beer ("J. Ben Schafer")
  re: what happened to my fusels/harshness? (Glyn)
  re: what happened to my fusels/harshness? (Glyn)
  CO2 pressure question (Mark Nesdoly)


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JANITORs on duty: Pat Babcock (pbabcock at hbd dot org), Jason Henning,
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Date: Thu, 28 Sep 2006 00:10:59 -0500 (CDT)
From: Roger Deschner <rogerd at uic.edu>
Subject: CBS Spooky Brew Review Homebrew Competition

This is a call for judges, stewards, and entries, for the Chicago Beer
Society's 15th annual Spooky Brew Review Homebrew Competition, on
October 28, 2006.

The renowned Flossmoor Station Restaurant & Brewery (1035 Sterling
Avenue, Flossmoor, IL) will host the competition for the first time. As
usual, the Spooky Brew Review will feature judging in all categories of
the BJCP Style Guidelines. But the highlight is always the judging of
the special Spooky (scariest) and Smashed Pumpkin (Worst of Show)
categories - these should not be missed!

Entries will be accepted October 5-19, and the fees are $7 for the first
entry, $5 for each entry after that, or $1 for each entry in the Spooky
and Smashed Pumpkin categories. Shipping address and drop-off locations
are listed in the entry materials.

The competition announcement, entry forms, bottle labels, judge
registration/waiver forms, and the latest BJCP Style Guidelines are all
available at the competition web site, at
http://www.chibeer.org/spooky06.html

So, please plan on entering, judging, stewarding, or just attending
Spooky Brew Review 2006 -- it definitely doesn't get any crazier than
this!

For questions not answered at the web site, or to volunteer to judge or
steward, email the organizers Roger Deschner at roger at chibeer.org and
Tony Babinec at tony at chibeer.org.


Return to table of contents


Date: Thu, 28 Sep 2006 06:56:52 -0500
From: "Ken Haycook" <k.haycook at sbcglobal.net>
Subject: Little Rocktoberfest 9/30

All you central Arkansas lurkers need to know that the Central Arkansas
Fermenters (your local homebrew club) and New Belgium Brewing are hosting
the 2006 Little Rocktoberfest this Saturday from 6pm to 10pm at the Rick's
Armory. It is located near Ray Winder Field. We are looking for volunteer's
to help or just party. We will have beer from Bosco's, Vino's and Diamond
Bear Brewery as well as 12 kegs of various styles of homebrew.  We will also
be serving Brats, Sauerkraut, and German Potato Salad. For the kids, we will
have homemade Root beer and Hot dogs. 4 local bands will provide
entertainment for the evening and New Belgium has donated a Fat Tire Bicycle
for the Raffle. All this for only $20 admission or free if you volunteer.

Come one - Come all.

Call or email for other information.

Ken Haycook
501-351-3942



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Date: Thu, 28 Sep 2006 05:33:50 -0700 (PDT)
From: Steven Parfitt <thegimp98 at yahoo.com>
Subject: RE: Subject: Re: Oak chips

In hbd 5066 Al was talking about how to sanatize oak
chips:

Date: Sat, 23 Sep 2006 02:51:18 -0400
From: Alan Semok <asemok at mac.com>
Subject: Re: Oak chips


>On Fri, 22 Sep 2006 14:13:48 -0400, "Kevin Gray"
><kevin.gray at  
>gmail.com> wrote:
 ...snip...
>As far as keeping the brew clean, you could steam the
>chips then soak them in whiskey...or nuke 'em in the
>ol' microwave.  I can't imagine that any baddies
>would survive that (input from a microbiologist  
>member would be most welcome here!!)
 ...snip....
>cheers,
>AL


Anecdotal evidence to the contratry: 

On two occasions while boiling starters in a flask in
the microwave in my garage (brewery) I have trapped a
fly in with the flask. On both occasions, the fly
continued to buz around while being nuked for a full
ten minutes! I presume the fly eventually died from
the exposure, but it did not do them in immediately.

This makes me wonder about the effects of microwave
energy on micro-organisms not a in solution being
boiled. I wonder just how effective microwaves are in
destroying bacteria, mold, etc on dry surfaces like
wood.

Just an interesting accidental experiment

Boil, pressure cook or bake them to be sure.

Steven



Return to table of contents


Date: Thu, 28 Sep 2006 09:38:24 -0500 (CDT)
From: "J. Ben Schafer" <schafer at cs.uni.edu>
Subject: Have I ruined a good beer

So yesterday was a comedy of errors in my brewing day.  What's done is
done, but I wanted to get some thoughts from the group about what
happened.

A little background:

Our community is having a beer festival over the weekend (commercial
brews) and our homebrew club is going to be brewing a beer on site at the
festival.  The local paper decided to do an article on homebrewing and our
relatively new club as a tie-in/promotion for Saturday's festival.  They
wanted to interview/photograph me during a typical brewing session.

I decided to brew a holiday Hazel-Nut-Brown that I had been putting off
brewing.  It's a simple partial mash recipe with about 1# of assorted
grains, both LME and DME, and lightly hopped (well, that and cinnamon,
clove, molasses, and belgian candy sugar).  I thought it was a good recipe
because it gave me a chance to talk about both grain brewing and extract
brewing.

None of this is my problem/question.

On Monday I smacked my smack pack (Wyeast #1028 London) and set it aside
like I always do.  Tuesday morning I noticed it was sweling nicely. 
Tuesday night I discovered that it had a small pin hole at one of the
seams and the pressure had built up enough to the point it was spewing
yeast slurry all over the place.  I was unwilling to use the remaining
contents of the pouch.  The HBS I deal with was more than willing to ship
me a new one, but since I don't have an LHBS I am at the mercy of the
shipping schedule.

This put me in a bind.  I didn't have an appropriate back up yeast in my
supplies so I have to wait to pitch.  If I were doing this for myself, I
would have simply waited to brew until the yeast showed up, but I was
supposed to brew for the paper.

What I decided to do (right or wrong) was to go ahead and go through the
partial mash process all the way until the final few minutes of the boil -
I steeped grain, dissolved extract, brought to a boil, added bttering hops
and the adjuncts, boiled about 50 minutes, and then shut the process down.
 I dropped a layer of CO2 on top of my brew kettle, strapped the lid on,
and stuck the mess in my brewing fridge.  My intention is that once the
yeast shows up and gets energized again hopefully by Saturday, I will
throw the kettle back on for another 15 minutes or so to kill off any
beasties that might have gotten through the initial boil/CO2 blanket (if
that worked), add my finishing hops and proceed as "normal."

Have I overlooked something?  Does this beer have a chance of tasting
perfectly normal?  Is there something that I can still do when I "finish"
the process to improve its chances?

Thanks,

Ben
_________________________________________________
J. Ben Schafer
Assistant Professor
Department of Computer Science
University of Northern Iowa
Cedar Falls, IA, 50614
_________________________________________________
"Always behave like a duck --
   keep calm and unruffled on the surface
   but paddle like the devil underneath."
      -J. Braude


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Date: Thu, 28 Sep 2006 12:21:33 -0700 (PDT)
From: Glyn <graininfuser at yahoo.com>
Subject: re: what happened to my fusels/harshness?

I attribute it to time and yeast. Most of the high
alcohols/fusels break down or combine. I brewed a
tripel that ended up fermenting in the 90^F range. At
bottling it tasted like rocket fuel. After 4 weeks in
the bottle it was drinkable. After 8 weeks it was the
best tripel I have ever had. It remain as a great beer
until it was gone. I have never made another one that
good.

Glyn
S. Middle TN



Return to table of contents


Date: Thu, 28 Sep 2006 12:21:36 -0700 (PDT)
From: Glyn <graininfuser at yahoo.com>
Subject: re: what happened to my fusels/harshness?

I attribute it to time and yeast. Most of the high
alcohols/fusels break down or combine. I brewed a
tripel that ended up fermenting in the 90^F range. At
bottling it tasted like rocket fuel. After 4 weeks in
the bottle it was drinkable. After 8 weeks it was the
best tripel I have ever had. It remain as a great beer
until it was gone. I have never made another one that
good.

Glyn
S. Middle TN



Return to table of contents


Date: Thu, 28 Sep 2006 16:11:01 -0600
From: Mark Nesdoly <m-nesdoly at shaw.ca>
Subject: CO2 pressure question

Stupid question. I've kegged my beer for about 9 years, and have only 
recently obtained a proper fridge so that I can leave my CO2 always hooked 
up.  Recently meaning about 8 months.  A roughly half-full tank lasted about 
7 months.

I have a two gauge system - high pressure gauge for the tank, low pressure 
gauge showing the regulator pressure.  I've noticed through the years that 
all tanks (20 pounders) will show approx. 900 psi of tank pressure until 
they're almost empty, then the pressure quickly drops.

Until this tank.  I just got a full one (swapped for the old tank) maybe 
about a month ago.  I noticed that it read about 700 psi when I first hooked 
it up.  I thought that was odd, but the tank was definitely full (heavy), so 
I didn't think too much about it.  Now it's down to 500 psi, but the tank is 
still very heavy - it's definitely still full.  I don't have any leaks 
because I checked all fittings, connections and lines with soapy water.

My question is:  can pressure gauges fail?  The only thing I can think of is 
that the high pressure gauge is somehow hooped.  Can a failed/failing gauge 
leak?  I don't think it's leaking because the tank is still heavy (therefore 
full).  Will a screwed up gauge read lower than the actual pressure?

Thanks in advance for any answers you can provide.

- -- Mark 



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