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


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Contents:
  Amarillo hops (Fred L Johnson)
  fruits and vegetables ("Peter A. Ensminger")
  Time and Temp ("Rob Moline")
  Brewing Tools for the Palm Pilot ("Dirk Bridgedale")
  Flavour intensity transformations of c6-c10 ethyl esters ("Fredrik")
  Sorry Bernd (MICHAEL MECKEL)
  Steve's Mystery Illness ("Graham L Sanders")
  home roasted special b (Raj B Apte)
  Attenuation, etc Part I ("A.J deLange")
  Attenuation, etc Part II ("A.J deLange")
  Bacteria and Methanol alcohol ("Michael Kolaghassi")


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Date: Tue, 7 Nov 2006 23:02:07 -0500
From: Fred L Johnson <FLJohnson52 at nc.rr.com>
Subject: Amarillo hops

I've finally gotten my first opportunity to brew with Amarillo hops and 
I'm looking for a nicely balanced recipe that features this variety. I 
know many of you would recommend a highly hopped IPA to show off these 
hops, but I have been too often disappointed with my highly hopped 
brews, so I'm really looking for something a little more tame.

Any suggestions for an American Pale Ale? What if I just substituted 
these hops in my Sierra Nevada clone recipe (which is usually quite 
good)?

Fred L Johnson
Apex, North Carolina, USA



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Date: Wed, 08 Nov 2006 01:28:09 -0500
From: "Peter A. Ensminger" <ensmingr at twcny.rr.com>
Subject: fruits and vegetables

Hey now!

I have always appreciated that botanists and cooks/chefs have different 
opinions about fruits and vegetables.

For a botanist (I am one! BS & PhD), a fruit is the product of a ripened 
ovary *and associated parts* [see Gleason & Cronquist, 1991, "Manual of 
Vascular Plants" and a gazillion other sources]. Thus, the pumpkin, 
strawberry, watermelon, gourd, banana, fig, lingonberry, pepper, and 
tomato are all fruits to a botanist. In the kitchen, I treat the 
pumpkin, gourd, pepper, and tomato as vegetables.

Now that we're past pumpkin season and Thanksgiving season beckons, how 
about some ideas for making a "cock ale"!?!

Cheers!
Peter A. Ensminger
Syracuse, NY
Apparent Rennerian: [394, 79.9]



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Date: Wed, 8 Nov 2006 03:26:38 -0600
From: "Rob Moline" <jethrogump at mchsi.com>
Subject: Time and Temp

				Time and Temp
     Steve asks about time and temp in an improved high grav brew First
barley wine attempt and a lovely lushly dense sweetness of 24 P wort,
converted by Nottingham, to a tangled trap of razor blades in barbed wire!
Thankfully we kept  at  it, encouraged by visiting brewers who knew more than
we did.
     The beer was brewed 12.31.05,  took the silver for B-wine  at  the 96 WBC
in June, then the Gold  at  the GABF @ the end of September. Ferm as @68 F, and
secondary was  at  35 F, in spin-side Grundies, unpressurized, only a bit of
aluminium foil sealing the CIP inlet. Finings were AB Vickers Dry-Fine, and
the batch was force carbed to what I guess was 1.9 vols CO2...I didn't know
how to use, much less own a Zahm and Nagel!
     The beer continued to mellow for several years, though one could detect
a sherry like note attributed to yeast lysis...mot unpleasant, but notable.
I think Siebel called it  at  10.54 ABW when they analyzed it in 98. The only
known bottle, perhaps is still in Bosco's in Nashville...maybe it's gone
now, but that would be interesting to try. Cheers!
Gump

Rob Moline
"The More I Know About Beer, The More I Realize I Need To Know More About
Beer!"


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Date: Wed, 8 Nov 2006 11:01:02 -0800
From: "Dirk Bridgedale" <dirk at bridgedale.net>
Subject: Brewing Tools for the Palm Pilot

This is just to get the word out.  I have submitted a new application
at www.palmgear.com.  Tools by BrewPartner.  If you try it out, I
would like some feedback.

Thank you!!!!

Dirk


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Date: Wed, 8 Nov 2006 21:38:43 +0100
From: "Fredrik" <carlsbergerensis at hotmail.com>
Subject: Flavour intensity transformations of c6-c10 ethyl esters

On the possible candidate role of the ethyl esters of the 6-10 carbon 
fatty acids, Steve points out that these acids are nasty as well.
They have been described as fatty, soapy, goaty. So one may 
suspect that when their esters are hydrolysed, the result may not be 
very nice either, so it is valid to ask, how there can be overall 
"improvement" if we just trade in one bad thing for another one? 
That's a great general point, but lets take a look at the flavor 
thresholds...

As is often thresholds tend to vary between papers, but the paper
from Vanderhaegen(1) and company I referred to in the other post the
thresholds of these esters are

(Ester)             (FT)
ethyl-hexanoate     0.2 ppm 
ethyl-octanoate     0.9 ppm
ethyl-decanoate     0.5 ppm

About the acids we see(2) for water(They are presumably higher in beer)

(Acid)              (FT)
hexanoic acid       3-5 ppm
octanoic acid       3-5 ppm
decanoic acid       3-10 ppm

To get a better picture what these ppm numbers means in terms of 
real flavor, the better unit for analysis is the flavour treshold 
unit (FU), I assume introduced by Meilgaard, which is the 
concentration relative to the flavour treshold of respective compound. 
FU = 1, means the compound is at the threshold and FU > 1 is obviously
more significant than FU < 1.

Since during hydrolysis we trade in one acid molecule for each ester 
molecule we split, we get the following relation for the differential 
shift of flavour intensities.

d[Acid].FU/d[Ester].FU = - M.acid/M.ester * FT.ester/FT.acid

(M.x is the molarmass; FT.x is the flavour threshold)

We now get [I make pessimistic esimates and take the threshold
to be only 3 ppm on all acids! the numbers are probably higher
due to masking, since the above acid values are for water, 
not beer, but this would further strengten the following conclusion]

d[hexanoate].FU/d[ethylhexanoate].FU ~ -0.05
d[octanoate].FU/d[ethyloctanoate].FU ~ -0.25
d[decanoate].FU/d[ethyldecanoate].FU ~ -0.14

So what does this mean? This means the stochiometry of hydrolysis
combined with the flavor tresholds implies that if the flavour 
intensity of

 ..ethylhexanoate decreases 2 FU, the hexanoate
intensity will increase 2 * 0.05 ~ 0.1 FU.

 ..ethytoctanoate decreases 2 FU, the octanoate 
intesity will increase 2 * 0.25 ~ 0.5 FU.

 ..ethyldecanoate decreases 2 FU, the decanoate
intesity will increase 2 * 0.14 ~ 0.3 FU.

So it seems that when you look at the numbers in these cases... the 
relative increase in goaty,sweaty (undoubtedly following the ester 
hydrolysis as pointed out) is probably small on the relative scale, 
and this is the exploit to trade a significant reduction in ester 
flavour, against at least a less significant, or possibly even 
insignificant in some cases, increase in fatty, goaty flavours, 
so it seems to me it's less of an issue that one might have 
intuitively suspected.

So I would still want to keep these esters on the list of possibilities. 
But that said there are of course other candidates.

(1) http://class.fst.ohio-state.edu/fst611/Papers/Vanderhaegen%202003.pdf
(2) http://www.leffingwell.com/odorthre.htm

 /Fredrik


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Date: Wed, 8 Nov 2006 13:07:00 -0800 (PST)
From: MICHAEL MECKEL <michael_m21234 at yahoo.com>
Subject: Sorry Bernd


Steve, I may agree with you concerning pumpkin beers,
but I have to strongly disagree with your contention
that pumpkin makes a second rate pie! If you have an
opportunity, stop by my bakery (Fenwick Bakery) and
you will have the chance to try a pie which is much
better than merely second rate <G>.


>Steve Alexander writes:
> They make dandy jack-o-lanterns, second rate pies
> and marginal cattle
> fodder.   



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Date: Thu, 9 Nov 2006 08:15:10 +1000
From: "Graham L Sanders" <grahamsanders at rawnet.com.au>
Subject: Steve's Mystery Illness 

G'Day All

Alexandre wisely noted

>>>>>Now, I'm sure he'll chime in (it's been a while, though, so he might
be buried under some mangoes)<<<<<

Yes I still lurk, and like some mysterious creature I have come into the 
light
 to grace this board. Actually it was more of a case that with all these
Australian legends dropping off the perch faster than Russian vodka
drinkers, I thought I was in the firing line, So I have been keeping myself
under the radar.

Still I have been managing to cheat death lately, kicking the second worlds
deadliest land snake recently, (in bare feet), and doing home made impeller
repairs to my beer pump. But it was wisely written>>>>> but Gram
Senders from the oh-zee craftbrewers podcast had a series of things to
say about gluten-free beer.<<<<<

And yes I did quite in depth report over a number of program for those
unfortunates who cant drink "normal beer" for what ever reason.
We over here lead the world in Gluten Free Brewing, even have German
brewers coming over to learn, as well as an increasing wealth of gluten
free malts.

I myself have made a Budgeree Lager out of 50% raw millet that was a
real hit at a local folk festival. Mind you, those hippies would have drunk
anything I recon. So it certainly can be done.

Try http://radio.craftbrewer.org and look thru past programs.

Also >>>>I for one would love to hear about an actual rice beer. How
does a RicePA sound? :-)<<<< Thats ok but I have made rice beer,
but thats another story.

Shout
Graham L Sanders

oh

The salties up here are getting bad. They are breeding up to such an extent
they are now swimming in the open ocean and cruising off the local
beaches here. Could you imagine a Florida or California beach with a
type of shark alert, but its 3 metre crocs instead.

Still, they will help keep the stingray numbers down. 




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Date: Wed, 8 Nov 2006 14:15:39 -0800 (PST)
From: Raj B Apte <raj_apte at yahoo.com>
Subject: home roasted special b



Hi All,

I've been reading about and practicing home grain roasting.
I start with pale and can produce passable malts up to
chocolate. Now I'm interested in crystal. Graham Sanders
claims:

http://oz.craftbrewer.org/Library/Methods/Sanders/roasting.shtml

that Special B is just dark roasted crystal malt (with the
starting crystal malt dampened). Has anyone done this? How
close does it get (Graham was doing it because of low
availability; I'm interested for economy and freshness).

Is there any decent reference on producing different malts?
I've looked through the usual and only come up with general
comments, not specific techniques.

thanks,
raj

What is it we're not forgetting?



 


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Date: Thu, 09 Nov 2006 00:43:24 +0000
From: "A.J deLange" <ajdel at cox.net>
Subject: Attenuation, etc Part I

After the postings on attenuation last week Fred and I agreed off line 
that I'd post something on the subject and here it is. The best format 
seemed to be a bunch of definitions followed by a brief discussion of 
how some them are used to estimate alcohol. The definitions follow, not 
in alphabetical but in what I hope is logical order. I believe the 
basics are here. Some may find the Plato units unfamiliar. As they are a 
measure of mass brewing scientists use them a lot. It is not that they 
prefer them. It is that their use is required in many calculations. 
Brewing scientists also use specific gravity where appropriate. Home 
brewers, OTOH, greatly prefer specific gravity points and try to use 
them to replace Plato units directly which works approximately. Formulas 
for calculating Plato from specific gravity and conversely are given 
here and using them all the Plato based formulas can be expressed in 
terms of specific gravity or even just points. If I put all those in 
here this thing would be three times as long.

Density:
The mass of something divided by its volume. As volume depends on 
temperature the temperature must be specified. For example, the density 
of water at 20 C is 0.998203 grams per cc. The density of ethanol at 
that same temperature is 0.78924 grams per cc.

Specific gravity:
The ratio of the density of something (at a particular temperature) to 
the density of pure water
(at the same or another temperature). The specific gravity of water at 
20C relative to water at 20C is 0.998203/0.998203 = 1.000000 20/20 with 
the "20/20" indicating that both densities were measured at 20C. The 
specific gravity of ethanol is 0.78924/0.998203 = 0.790661 20/20 but 
0.78924/0.997769 = 0.791005 20/4 as the density of water at 4C is used 
in this latter case as the reference. A subtlety with respect to 
specific gravity is that if one fills a bottle with the substance to be 
tested, weighs it, refills the same bottle with the reference substance 
and weighs that the ratio of the weights is same as the ratio of the 
densities because the volume is the same in both cases - almost. The two 
weights are slightly off because of the air displaced by the bottle. The 
result is called the "apparent specific gravity". If adjusted for the 
air displacement the ratio becomes the "true specific gravity" or 
"specific gravity in vacuuo". This is not something home brewers worry 
about but analysis laboratories do.

Plato Degrees (P):
Plato degrees express the weight of sucrose in a solution as a 
percentage of the total weight of the solution. For example, if 10 grams 
of sucrose are placed in a flask and water added until the weight of 
water plus sucrose equaled 100 grams the solution would be 10% sucrose 
w/w or 10 degrees Plato. This unit was named after the head of the 
German government commission which precisely measured the specific 
gravity of sucrose solutions of specified strength in w/w or Plato 
units. These tables are the basis for the EBC and ASBC tables currently 
used to tie specific gravity to degrees Plato i.e. sucrose 
concentration. Sucrose was used because it is easy to work with and has 
specific gravity vs. concentration profiles very similar to the sugars 
actually found in wort. It is important to understand that Plato degrees 
are not just another specific gravity scale though there is, through the 
tables, a one for one correspondence between specific gravity and Plato. 
This fact makes it possible to make hydrometers which are marked in 
Plato rather than specific gravity. These are popular with advanced home 
and professional brewers. The formula P = (((135.997*S -630.272)*S + 
1111.14)*S -616.868)  gives the degrees Plato for the specific gravity 
(20/20) S and replaces the ASBC tables. This formula has the blessing of 
the ASBC and is, thus "official". It is valid for S up to 1.083. The 
simpler "Lincoln Equation": P = (463-205*S)*(S-1) is plenty good for 
most applications (maximum error 0.005P) and can be inverted 
(approximately) easily by S =  1 + P/(258.6 - 0.8796*P). Exact inversion 
of the Lincoln equation is possible by multiplying it out and solving 
the resulting quadratic for S. The same can be done for the ASBC formula 
but, as it's a cubic, it's a bit messy. It's easier to calculate a few 
values around the answer and interpolate (or use Excel's Solver or a 
root finder).

Specific Gravity "Points"
Points are defined by 1000*(S -1) where S is the specific gravity. For 
example, a wort with S = 1.0492 would be said to be of strength 49.2 
points. Home brewers prefer points to Plato degrees often using them as 
if they, like Plato degrees, are indicative of the amount of extract in 
solution. This can be done because they are, approximately, indicative 
of the amount of extract. Each degree Plato corresponds to about 4 
points in the region around 1.040 SG (10 P). Thus, if an approximate 
answer is sufficient, points can be used in place of degrees P where a ratio is 
involved (such as an attenuation calculation) because the 4 factor 
cancels out. In other cases, convert specific gravity to degrees P using the 
ASBC formula or Lincoln equation given above.



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Date: Thu, 09 Nov 2006 00:48:38 +0000
From: "A.J deLange" <ajdel at cox.net>
Subject: Attenuation, etc Part II

Balling/Brix degrees:
Ostensibly the same as Plato degrees in that they express the strength 
of sugar solutions as % w/w. The Plato tables represent corrections to 
these earlier scales.

Extract:
All the things dissolved in wort including the sugars, the minerals and 
the soluble hops constituents. In using the Plato/EBC/ASBC tables 
brewers are modeling extract as if it were all sucrose.

Original Extract (OE, P):
The amount of extract in a wort at the time of pitching of the yeast. 
Determined by measuring the specific gravity of the wort at 20/20 (or 
converting the specific gravity measurement to 20/20) and using the ASBC 
tables to determine the equivalent Plato degrees or by using a density 
measuring device (hydrometer, density meter) calibrated directly in 
degrees Plato.

True Extract (TE):
The amount of extract remaining at the end of fermentation. Determined 
by removing the alcohol from a known volume of the beer (by evaporation 
or, more usually, during the distillation in which case the alcohol is 
recovered and used to determine the beer's alcoholic strength), 
restoration to the original volume and measurement of the specific 
gravity of the resulting solution. This is then entered into the tables 
to obtain the Plato degrees i.e. the percentage of extract in the 
solution. The volume of the solution is then multiplied by the specific 
gravity of the solution to obtain the weight of the solution and this is 
multiplied by the Plato degrees divided by 100 to obtain the weight of 
extract in the solution. This is the amount of extract which was in the 
beer before evaporation so the specific gravity of the beer is 
multiplied by the volume to obtain the beer's weight and this is divided 
into the weight of extract to obtain the fraction of extract in the 
beer. Multiplying by 100 gives the True Extract in Plato degrees. 
Because the volume is the same before and after evaporation it is only 
necessary to multiply the Plato value of the solution by the specific 
gravity of the solution and divide by the specific gravity of the beer.

Apparent Extract (AE):
If the specific gravity of beer is measured the relationship between 
specific gravity and extract is thrown off by the alcohol produced by 
the fermentation. One can still, however, enter the ASBC tables or use 
the formula to come up with an extract number. This is the apparent 
extract.

True Attenuation, Real Degree of Fermentation (RDF):
The reduction in the amount of extract over the course of the 
fermentation of the beer. If a beer has an original extract  of 12 Plato 
and finishing (True) extract of 3 Plato then 9/12 of the extract have 
been consumed and the True Attenuation is 75%. RDF = 100*(OE - TE)/OE.

Apparent Attenuation, Apparent Degree of Fermentation (ADF)
The reduction in the apparent extract over the course of the 
fermentation of the beer. ADF = 100*(OE - AE)/OE. Note that this can be 
more than 100% if a beer (or more likely a mead) finishes with a 
specific gravity below 1.

Alcohol by Volume (ABV):
The number of cc of alcohol in 100 cc of beer. This is often indicated 
as %v/v. To convert to alcohol by weight (ABW) multiply by the density 
of alcohol at 20C and divide by the density of the beer at 20C. This 
gives the same result as multiplying by the specific gravity of alcohol 
at 20/20 C (0.791 ) and dividing by the specific gravity of the beer 
(20/20) because the density of water cancels.

Alcohol by Weight (ABW):
The number of grams of alcohol in 100 grams of beer, often indicated as 
% w/w/. To convert to alcohol by volume multiply by the specific gravity 
of the beer (20/20) and divide by the specific gravity of alcohol at 
20/20 C (0.791).


Calculation of Alcohol concentration:
When we brew beer we do it with the conviction that 2.0665 grams of 
"extract" (sugar) will produce 1 gram of alcohol,  0.9565 grams of CO2 
and 0.11 grams of yeast mass. Thus if we have a volume of beer weighing 
100 grams and containing A grams of alcohol (it is A% ABW) there must 
have been (2.0665*A + n) grams of extract in that volume initially with 
n being the number of grams of extract in that volume which did not 
convert to alcohol. n is the TE. This volume of beer originally thus 
weighed 100 grams (the weight of the water, alcohol and unconverted 
extract) plus A*0.9565 + A*0.11 (the weights of the CO2 which escaped 
plus the weight of the yeast which fell to the bottom of the tank) i.e. 
100 + 1.0665*A. Thus the wort originally contained (2.0665*A + n) grams 
of extract per (100 + 1.0665*A) grams of wort and the "strength" of the 
wort, in % weight per unit weight (OE), is P = 100*(2.0665*A + n)/(100 + 
1.0665*A). The utility of this formula is seen if it is solved for A 
giving A = (P-n)/(2.0665 - 0.010665*P). Thus if we know the true extract 
and the original gravity we can calculate the amount of alcohol produced 
based on simple conservation of mass. This formula is appealing in that 
it is based on nothing more complicated than conservation of mass but it 
is of little practical utility because one must know the True Extract, n 
to use it. A lesser annoyance derives from the fact that we usually 
speak in terms of ABV and the formula gives ABW. Methods for conversion 
were given in the definitions.

Note that the form of the formula is A = g(P)*(P-n) i.e. the change in 
extract level multiplied by a function of the OE, g(P) = 1/(2.0665 - 
0.010665*P). There is a similar formula, A = f(P)*(P-m) where f(P) = 
((P*1.0788E-5 +0.0017091)*P + 0.39661) and m is the Apparent Extract 
which also gives the ABW but which requires nothing more than a finished 
beer hydrometer reading converted to Plato. This formula is not based on 
conservation of mass alone but also on Ballings experimental 
observations. As such its results are approximate. My last effort, a 
barley wine, was predicted to have, by this formula, an alcohol content 
of 9.0% ABV and measured 9.6%. The TE based formula predicted 9.9%. Why? 
Though conservation of mass is inviolable there is no guarantee that 
exactly 0.11 grams of yeast will be produced by 2.0665 grams of extract. 
Judging from the amount of yeast thrown by this fermentation (I've never 
seen so much) more than 0.11 grams extract went to yeast production and, 
therefore, not to alcohol.


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Date: Thu, 09 Nov 2006 02:43:25 +0000
From: "Michael Kolaghassi" <kolaghassi89 at hotmail.com>
Subject: Bacteria and Methanol alcohol

Hey guys,

I was just wondering if its a big problem or chance that some bacteria could 
be in my batch of mead metabolizing some of the sugars and making poisonous 
methanol alcohol along with the yeast producing ethanol alcohol.  I also 
wanted to know if letting the mead sit at room temperature for a long time 
without disturbing it could maybe let mold grow in it or something.
Just wanted to know if it was a big health risk and stuff with different 
bacteria metabolizing the sugars into methanol and the mold issue.

Thanks,
Michael K.



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