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


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Contents:
  Solvent Flavours ("Fredrik")
  Brew Haiku (?) (leavitdg)
  BJCP categories that exclude mammalian faecal matter (Signalbox Brewery)
  Specific Gravity of Sugar in Water ("William Simmons")
  fusel alchohol ("Bob Devine")
  latin brain plain ("Dante Grimes")


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Date: Sat, 7 Oct 2006 11:49:35 +0200
From: "Fredrik" <carlsbergerensis at hotmail.com>
Subject: Solvent Flavours

Obvious from the recent discussions and also one of the problems
I've found when trying to analyse my own beers, and trying to
correlate them with theory is to properly match real flavours
with the supposed candidate compounds known from theory.

In my experience the flavor descriptions you read are not always that
obvious to understand and are dependent of subjective associations.
For example "glue". There are glues that mostly use ethylacetate for
solvent, and there are glues that mainly use iso-butanol for solvent.

I think a good thing is to try to find references around you. Nailpolish is
a good one. Nailpolish typically contains ethylacetate, but many
brands also contain some butylacetate. The latter is IMO a little
more fruity (in a pleasant way) than ethyl acetate. I have compared
nailpolish and pure ethylacetate and they are bascically smell the
same, except the ones containing also a bit butyl-acetate smells
even more pleasantly fruity.

To me "generic fruity" is quite similar to the solvently notes you get at
high concentrations. I agree with Bob that I think that while ethylacetet
does not smell fruity as in a specific fruit, it does have the "generic
aroma fruitiness" at low levels, not necessarily bad. To put your nose
into a bottle of nail-polish is obviously off scale in comparasion.
Probably backing up the total fruitiness along with more specific
fruity flavours.

Some beers, like some belgian tripples has obvious levels of ethylacetate,
and it's good! I dig it at least :) But some don't. That last one I recall
is
leffe trippel, interesting, but excellent stuff. But it's not what you drink
everyday. I can't imagine that leffe tripple would be as good if you strip
out
all the ethyl acetate. But it also have plenty of sweetness to balance those
solvently fruity notes. Perhaps the perceived harshness may be a result
from the solvents when there is no counterbalancing body and sweetness?
I feel no misplaced harshness in leffe trippel. It's all in excellent
balance.

I think that there is not only a balance between hop bitterness and
sweetness and body. In my taste at least, there is also a balance
between the sweetness and some other "heavy" flavours, and the highly
pitched, and fire like, pungent, solvently notes you can get from
alcohols and esters. In my mind, in a big beer with has lots of heavy
notes and body, these pungent, solvently and peppery notes from
alcohols and esters is called for. Without them I think some of these
beers would be cloying, just like that lack of body, sweetness
and heavy notes would make these things be over the top harsh
and solvently.

Not that I am a fan of budweiser, but I recently tried it again because
of a recent discussion elesewhere on as it seems myth(?) that it
contains alot of acetaldehyde (I just could not sense it). I could be
wrong but I sensed highly pitched undertones of what I think
might be ethylacetate (or something similar) in budweiser too,
and it isn't bad at all. Anyone agree?
About the supposed apple notes I sensed someting indeed, but not
acetaldehyde I think. It reminds me of the kind of funky flavour
you get  from oak ages beers and I don't know where it's from,
which I usually don't like. A bit woody/apple. Possibly also the
long chain fatty acid "apple" ethyl esters. I don't  konw.

iso-propanol is at least in sweden used along with ethanol as
anti-freeze in windshiled wash. Fresh, highly pitchedm spiritous,
ethereal is right on IMO. Just like Steve wrote. I'd look in the
supermarket or gas stations, read on the package contents.
I admit I never tasted it in the mouth. Perhaps I should make
dilutions and try that someday. This doesn't smell "bad" per see
IMO, it's just so highly pitched and intense, that it might cut
right through other flavours?

iso-butanol has as a very distinct flavour from propanol, it is a bit
"funky", definitely not fresh. In sweden there is a common glue
that use this, and it smells just like the pure iso-butanol, which I
have smelled in isolation too. Goto your walmart and read on
the glue tubes, perhaps you can find a great iso-butanol reference.
In my personal terminology "glue" is iso-butanol (or similarly).
But then I associate to a specific glue.

I have smelled 1-butanol and 2-butanol in isolation too, and it's
interesting how different they are. 1-butanol is more "funky"
IMO that 2-butanol. But iso-butanol(what's in glue) is then
probably even more funky.

About the pentanols I haven't been able to get these pure :( But
I've seen various flavour descriptors for them. Some wine papers
described these as marzipan or whiskey like. If anyone has
suggestions for a easy to get reference for those I'd be interested.
The problem is that different sources, has slightly different flavor
descriptors, and it's not that easy to describe an aroma in text.
I suspect that until I get to smell these first hand myself, I can only 
guess.

I am not a grappa fan, but was offered it once at a work dinner in an
italian restaurant, and I immediately say it smelled like gluey,
funky, iso-butanol. I think the other guys at the tables was a bit
offended,  but pardon me, I was only telling the truth. Then I had
to excuse myself and reveal that I was a homebrewer and explain
why I had this obsession for flavours. I can't speak for all kinds
of grappa, but perhaps grappy will be a a butanol reference too ;-)

Only once have I smelled these clear funky butanol notes in a beer,
and that was in my first beer which I still remember. It basically
had three primary flavours. Ethylacetate, funky iso-butanol like,
and buttery diacetyl. Interestingly enough, the heavy diacetyl
provided a slight counterbalance to the solvent notes, still it was a
disaster. It was fermented very warm (as warm as I could get it;)
with the coopers dry strain with alot of sugar, as per instructions :)

 /Fredrik 



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Date: Sat, 07 Oct 2006 07:02:44 -0400
From: leavitdg at plattsburgh.edu
Subject: Brew Haiku (?)

Drinking his evening ale,
the man is at peace.
Fuggles.



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Date: Sat, 07 Oct 2006 12:46:00 +0100
From: Signalbox Brewery <signalbox.brewery at ntlworld.com>
Subject: BJCP categories that exclude mammalian faecal matter

Steve Alexander sets a poser which demonstrates my ignorance of how
BJCP classes work in practice:

>E.coli of the naughty (0157:H7) sort, can survive at apple cider pH
>so perhaps they could survive in beer.  To prevent this I strongly
>recommend that you avoid adding any mammalian fecal matter
>to your beer after the boil ((which BJCP style does that eliminate?)).

13 and 23 sir? Would a coffee stout made with coffee go in one or t'other?
Perhaps subtle coffee = 13, blatant coffee 23 with a reference to the base
style within 13. Perhaps someone can help.

Of course the warning about mammalian faecal material would only
apply to a cold infusion of kopi luwak

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kopi_Luwak

A second possibility, but only a risk for British brewers would a naive
attempt to produce "a fine nappy head". (Nappy = diaper).


David Edge, Derby UK  



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Date: Sat, 07 Oct 2006 07:27:33 -0700
From: "William Simmons" <williamsimmons1 at hotmail.com>
Subject: Specific Gravity of Sugar in Water

I have read that one pound of sugar dissolved in one gallon on water will 
give a solution with specific gravity 1.045.
Given that specific gravity is defined as the density of the solution being 
measured relative to the density of water, I can't for the life of me figure 
out how this calculation works.

One gallon of water weighs 8.34 lbs.  So one gallon of water with one pound 
of sugar dissolved would weigh 9.34 lbs.

So 9.34/8.34 = 1.199!

What am I doing wrong?



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Date: Sat, 7 Oct 2006 20:40:38 -0700
From: "Bob Devine" <devinebob at gmail.com>
Subject: fusel alchohol

On 10/6/06, steve.alexander <-s at adelphia.net> wrote:
> Bob Devine writes ...
> >Fusel alcohols are the common name for the grab-bag of amyl
> >alcohols and random fatty acids.
>
> Not fatty acids - no !  Only 5 of 40 identified fusels in beer are
> amyl alcohols although three of these are important ones.

Steve is right about not including fatty acids.  I should have been
clearer when I used the phrase "common"  which I meant to
include its (common but incorrect) use by some homebrewers
I shouldn't have repeated that but I had hoped it would help.

So let me expand--
Fusel alcohols are a normal part of fermentation.  They form
mainly during the first half of fermentation.  Final concentrations
may be only a few parts-per-billion on up to a few ppm in extreme
examples.  Technically, they are alcohols with more than 2 carbons,
many of the molecular arrangements are branched.  Examples include
propanol, butanol, amyl alcohol, and furfural.  Other straight-chain
alcohols like pentanol, hexanol, and septanol might play a small part
in the overall aroma. Most folks would say n-propanols smell alcohol-y.
Propanol smells like those alcohol cleaning pads of rubbing
alcohol. Butanol (aka butyl alcohol) has an industrial alcohol aroma
but some might call it fermented banana. And furfural is like stale almonds.

Ale yeast often make more fusel alcohols than lager fermentations.
High temp usually makes more fusel alcohols. Surprisingly, the
shape and size of the fermenter has an effect; deeper and bigger
ones make less.  Stressed yeast also make more.

A formula for high fusel alcohol is to have a small fermenter
filled with high-gravity wort and under-pitched with yeast.
In a hot room.  Sounds like the pattern used by many
homebrewers for their first few batches, doesn't it?

> >So, I don't think that ethyl acetate tastes like fusels.
>
> I disagree.  Fusels and also ethyl-acetate have fruity sprity,
> brandy-like aroma and are harsh.  That's quite similar.

We might be talking about different levels here. At "normal" levels,
fusel alcohol has a distinctive 'hot' feel different from ethanol
(sort of like comparing whiskey to vodka) as well as a somewhat
oily/coating mouth-feel.  My point was that ethyl acetate does
taste different to me than fusel alcohols. I find a difference in smell
too, of course.  Neither are pleasant at high levels; so they
are similar in that regard.

not a chemist,
Bob Devine


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Date: Mon, 9 Nov 2006 02:09:15 +0300
From: "Dante Grimes" <41stocknews at tourofshenandoah.com>
Subject: latin brain plain

hi,
if you need any p11Ls

http://oabvki.dungeoncalf.com/?35522797

bye




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