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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
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Contents:
  Valhalla Mead-only Competition Results ("David Houseman")
  re: Cereal mash ("Stevens, Jonathan C")
  Keg priming ("Stevens, Jonathan C")


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Date: Sat, 14 Oct 2006 21:46:26 -0400
From: "David Houseman" <david.houseman at verizon.net>
Subject: Valhalla Mead-only Competition Results

Thanks to all of you who entered your precious meads and made the  2nd
annual Valhalla-The Meading of Life a delicious success this year!  A total
of 66 entries were received from 37 mead makers with entries in each
category of mead style.

First, second and third place were also awarded in specific mead categories.

Dry/semi-sweet traditional
1st place Chad Gould, St. Petersburg. FL Anniversary Mead
2nd place Luke Kostu, Hopelawn, NJ D-47 Mead
3rd place Richard Weiss, New Bern, NC

Sweet traditional
1st place Jeffrey Swearengin, Tulsa OK, Sol de Blanc
2nd place Glenn and Dani Exline, Rockledge, FL, TKO
3rd place Curt and Kathy Stock, St. Paul, MN Tupelo Taming

Cyser
1st place Mary Rieland, McFarland, WI
2nd place Lyle Brown, Fredericksburg, VA
3rd place Patrick Payne, Melbourne, FL, Super Sizer

Pyment
1st place Steve Fletty, Falcon Heights, MN Chateau Fletty
2nd place Michael Fairbrother, Londonderry, NH, Wild NH pyment
3rd place Deborah Lee, Thornton, CO, Zinfully Wild

Other Fruit Melamels
1st place Curt and Kathy Stock, St. Paul, MN Plum Crazy
2nd place Ed Walkowski, Dalton, PA Raspberry melamel
3rd place Howard Curran, Oviedo, FL Guavalicious

Metheglin
1st place Christopher Clair, West Chester, PA Jenn & Barry's Matrimonial
               Mint Mead
2nd place Luke Kostu, Hopelawn, NJ Chili Mead
3rd place Ed Walkowski, Dalton, PA  Apple Butter Cyser

Braggot
1st place Patrick Payne, Melbourne, FL  Braggot Rights
2nd place Patrick Payne, Melbourne, FL There's Creek in me Honey
3rd place Glenn and Dani Exline, Rockledge, FL, St. Bernardus

Open Category Mead
1st place Patrick Payne, Rockledge, FL Paynes Pomegranate Braggot
2nd place Jeffrey Swearengin, Tulsa, OK Cornucopias
3rd place, Lyle Brown, Fredericksburg, VA, Meloglin

And the Best of Show winners are:
1st place BOS goes to Mary Reiland, McFarland WI for her heirloom apple
                                   cyser.
2nd place BOS goes to Jeffery Swearengin, Tulsa OK for his Sol de Blanc,  a
                                    traditional sweet mead
3rd place BOS goes to Steve Fletty, Falcon Heights MN for his Chateu Fletty,
                                    a pyment

Congratulations!

Score sheets will be mailed out on Monday, October 16.  Ribbons and awards
will be sent to the BOS winners and the 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winners in
each category approximately the last week of October.  If you have any
questions, please feel free to contact us!

Thanks again for sharing your meads and we look forward to your entries in
the Valhalla competition next year!

Suzanne McMurphy
Competition Organizer





Return to table of contents


Date: Sun, 15 Oct 2006 07:34:00 -0400
From: "Stevens, Jonathan C" <Jonathan.Stevens at dhs.gov>
Subject: re: Cereal mash

>After we mash the polenta with some base malt at 153F for 20 minutes, and
bring
it to a boil for 45 to 60 minutes, can we lauter it then and continue as
with an
extract batch or does the whole cereal mash have to be mashed with more base
malt ("main mash") at that point? 
Have you tried lautering oatmeal or cream of wheat recently?  I'm sure Mark
Sedam could give a better description, but here's the deal: the point of the
cereal mash is to make starch readily available to enzymatic conversion to
sugars.  Starch is composed of little "packets" of amylose and amylopectin. 
These packets can be broken open, or burst, through boiling.  The efficiency
of
this process is a function of time, pressure, and shear (physical/mechanical
forces in the boil).  The longer you boil, the harder you boil, the more you
stir...all of these things combine to make the starch in the native grain
more
available for enzymatic action.  The reason 10% of the malt bill is added
pre-boil is not for saccharification (converting starch to sugar) rather,
it's
for glucanase and other -ases (arabinozylase....) which break down the gummy
stuff making the boil less sticky (reduced boil viscosity/gel strength) and
less
likely to scorch on the bottom of the pot.  

So long story short, just boil the dukie out of your cereal grains and add
them
to the mash.  Be aware that the longer the cereal portion sits after
boiling,
the cooler it gets.  Below about 190, enzymatic resistant starch complexes
begin
to form, thus working against the boil you just worked so diligently to
perform.
 So make sure your main mash is at a stage to accept the cereal mash as soon
as
it is done boiling.

This is how I do it:

Cereal grain + some malt (whatever fills the pot about 1/4 of the way up)
plus
filtered water to about 3/4 of a full pot.  Put it on the stove, heat, stir,
boil, stir, leave it simmering while I go mash-in (yes, a vigorous boil
would be
better, but I can't be two places at once).  While boiling the cereal, my
mash
water has been heating up to about 165.  I mash-in VERY stiff, just enough
water
to make sure there are no dry pockets; this should leave me in the 120-130
degree f range.  Go get my pot of gruel which has now been boiling for about
15-20 minutes, and dump it into the mash.  Stir, take a temp reading, then
add
some more mash water to hit my target temp.  Mash as usual from here.

That's about it; pretty simple.  Don't get wrapped around the axle trying to
hit
target temps.  Each setup has its' own inherent thermal mass
characteristics. 
After one or two trial batches, you'll be able to come close to pegging
whatever
parameters you set for yourself.  But don't sweat it the first time around.
In
the end, it'll still be beer, and probably a good one!

Remember, to wear shoes by the way.  Living in San Diego, it's some sort of
social foppery to have white feet, so after receiving ridicule from a club
member a couple weeks ago, I was brewing in flip-flops in order to work on
my
foot tan (yes, the same week it was threatening snow in Chicago)....  I
performed the procedure above and ended up with boiling hot sticky stuff on
my
left foot; instant bad burn.

Good luck,

Chad Stevens (of the White Foot tribe)
QUAFF
San Diego


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Date: Sun, 15 Oct 2006 07:51:00 -0400
From: "Stevens, Jonathan C" <Jonathan.Stevens at dhs.gov>
Subject: Keg priming

Y'all,

I have come to the conclusion that yeast can scavenge o2 far better than I
can
purge it.  I've been priming my corney kegs with 1/3 cup table sugar,
conditioning at room temp for 10 days, then crashing the yeast in the cold
box
and topping off with tank co2 as needed (which is usually very little).  Yes
I
could probably use a bit more sugar and hit the appropriate number of
atmospheres co2, but my primary concern is to scavenge the oxygen, not
carbonation.  Primed beer just seems to stay fresher longer.

Is there general consensus on how long to condition a primed keg?  I've been
waiting 10 days at 68-70 degrees f.  How long does Unibroue condition their
kegs
(which sit at 82-85 degrees f by the way)?  The assumption being, the less
time
you leave them sitting around, the less chance there is for some funk to
start
growing.  This becomes far more important when conditioning in oak casks,
which
is what I'll be doing for the first time in a couple of weeks.

All data points appreciated,

Chad Stevens
QUAFF
San Diego


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