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


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Contents:
  Promash settings for Oregon Fruit Products puree, or should I use (Robert Marshall)
  Ft. Collins Water ("A.J deLange")
  Burton Union (Chris Tweney)
  re: Refrigerator vs. Freezer (Bob Tower)
  buffalo bill's orange blossom cream ale (lindera)


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Date: Thu, 09 Nov 2006 21:58:09 -0800
From: Robert Marshall <robertjm at hockeyhockeyhockey.com>
Subject: Promash settings for Oregon Fruit Products puree, or should I use

Hi all,

I'm planning some beers with fruit flavors and have been looking at the 
Oregon Fruit Products purees. I'm playing around with Promash to figure 
out my recipes, however, I've hit a roadblock. What settings do I need 
to plug into Promash software to calculate fermentables and OG for my beer?

As a side note there seems to be "fruit essence" extracts for sale at 
most of the homebrew shops. Some shops claim their extracts are used for 
GABF winners!! Should I give up on using the purees and go with the 
extract instead? From the descriptions I've seen of it there are no 
fermentables so I'd have to add some additional DME as well, which is no 
big thing.

Thoughts?

Robert


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Date: Fri, 10 Nov 2006 13:18:01 +0000
From: "A.J deLange" <ajdel at cox.net>
Subject: Ft. Collins Water

Todd asked for comments on this water profile

Alkalinity mg/L as CaCO3  37
Calcium mg/L  as CaCO3  42.4
Chlorate mg/L  <0.1
Chloride  mg/L 2.5
Chlorite mg/L  0.1
Hardness mg/L as CaCO3  48.8
pH  7.91
Sulfate mg/L 12.0
Iron ug/L  18.0

That's really nice water! The low level of alkalinity and modest 
hardness give a residual alkalinity of about 24 which is low enough that 
you should be able to brew almost anything. I'm not surprised that "pH 
seems to self adjust..." For Bohemian Pilsners you might want to dilute 
1:1 or 2:1 (your water:distilled water) with distilled water to get the 
sulfate level down. Conversely for Burton syle ales you will probably 
want to add gypsum to get sulfate levels up but you should be able to 
brew good ales and lagers without any additions. To improve mouthfeel 
for ales you might want to try the addition of some calcium chloride but 
a slightly higher conversion temperature will also do this.

I note with interest that your water is disinfected with chlorine 
dioxide. This means you don't have to worry about chlorine or chloramine 
which plague lots of brewers. While this is apparently fairly common I 
don't think I've ever seen it indicated in a water report before.

A.J.


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Date: Fri, 10 Nov 2006 06:57:11 -0800
From: Chris Tweney <cat at pobox.com>
Subject: Burton Union

I just bought a "Phil's Burton Union" system from Listermann and thought 
some might be interested in my experience. If you're not familiar, it's 
a gallon glass jug with two holes in the side (one up high, one low) and 
a pair of tubes. Beer blows out the fermenter through the top hose and 
returns via the lower.

In years past I've seen much ado about Burton Unions and alleged removal 
of hop resins. I don't give that much credence -- it could only remove a 
small percentage of resins at best. The real reason to use this, in my 
mind, is that I can fill my 7.1 gallon conical essentially full. 
Figuring on losing half a gallon or so, that means I can get a case of 
12-oz bottles for competition and layovers and a nearly-full Corny keg 
from the single batch.

I've also been pondering the benefits of top-cropped yeast for reuse 
(since reading Brew Like a Monk, which recommends the practice). The 
union makes for a sanitary and non-fussy way to harvest yeast by 
top-cropping, since quite a lot of yeast comes out with the blowoff and 
settles in the jug below the lower hole. In my first batch, a dubbel 
made with WLP-500, I harvested about 100ml of good white yeast slurry 
from the jug without needing to open up the conical.

I wish I'd taken pictures of the active fermentation... it's quite a 
sight. The glass and tubing lets you see what's going on much better 
than even a glass carboy. Next brew, maybe.

Is anyone else using one of these?

 -chris



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Date: Fri, 10 Nov 2006 11:47:26 -0800
From: Bob Tower <roberttower at sbcglobal.net>
Subject: re: Refrigerator vs. Freezer

Todd in Fort Collins, CO is contemplating the purchase of an upright  
refrigerator vs. an upright freezer to act as a kegerator and  
possibly as a temperature controlled environment for fermenting.

The main problem with upright freezers is that many of them have  
refrigerant/coils in the shelves thus rendering them useless for your  
proposed purpose. Most people use the chest (horizontal) type  
freezers with an external thermostat. I used to run a homebrew shop  
and the most common problem that people had with using freezers is  
that they tend to rust out in the inside. I assume that this is  
because they are operating above the freezing point which allows  
moisture and spilled beer to build up in the joints between the walls  
and the bottom. A couple of customers reported that carefully sealing  
these joints with caulk added a few years to the life of their chest  
freezers. From what people told me they were getting about 5 years  
out of them before either the compressor failed or they simply rusted  
out.

I myself much prefer upright refrigerators. The footprint is smaller  
than a chest freezer and rusting is not a problem. I use an external  
thermostat to control temperature and my refrigerator easily takes  
the temperature down to freezing and keeps it there for times when  
I'm lagering. It's also nice to have a top/down refrigerator as you  
can store your hops in the freezer section. I generally keep it set  
between 38-40 F. and thus my freezer section rarely gets above 20 F.  
Another nice thing about refrigerators is that used models are cheap  
and plentiful. My old brew fridge failed at the beginning of this  
past summer. I was able to find a late model (2-3 year old) 19 cubic  
foot top/down refrigerator for $100. I simply rolled the old one to  
the curb and rolled the new one into the brew area, installed my  
hardware and it's been cool running ever since. Cheap and easy!

The only problem with using your fridge for serving and fermenting is  
that the temperature ranges don't overlap much unless you're brewing  
a lager. If you're fermenting an ale, you'll have to keep it too warm  
for serving. Even with a lager (in primary) the temperature is on the  
high side for stable draught dispense. And when you are lagering,  
it's too cold for serving (although you could live with this  
temporarily) unless you've got a keg of Pabst in there that you are  
serving while you are lagering one of your own creations! :-)  
Ideally, you'd want two refrigerators: one exclusively for serving  
and one exclusively for fermenting. That way you'll have no  
interruption in your beer supply, you can be serving past brews while  
you ferment your current one(s). But, we can't always live in an  
ideal world so you do what you can.

Bob Tower / Los Angeles, CA


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Date: Fri, 10 Nov 2006 22:02:28 -0500
From: lindera at umich.edu
Subject: buffalo bill's orange blossom cream ale

does anyone have any idea how to create "buffalo bill's orange blossom 
cream ale"?  a friend of mine is dying to get some of this but can't 
buy it? how can i make it?

aaron
A^2, MI


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