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


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Contents:
  Re: Better Bottle drain port and availability question (Bob Tower)
  Re: Sparkalloid & Carbonation (Bob Tower)
  Re: Better Bottle (Nate Wahl)
  Better Bottles again ("Dave Draper")
  Broken Carboy (Rick) Theiner <rickdude@tds.net>
  A Dutch home brewer advises ("martin hofhuis")
  Re: Better bottles (Joe Gerteis)
  Mash mixing ("Doug Moyer")
  Carboy thread ("Stevens, Jonathan C")
  Better Bottles vs. Glass Carboys ("Alexandre Enkerli")
  Wassail Recipe ("Brian Dougan")
  Smartgroups is Dead . . . . But UK Homebrew lives On!! (UK Homebrew Administrator)
  Re: ACS HCl ("Greg 'groggy' Lehey")


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Date: Wed, 29 Nov 2006 22:29:29 -0800
From: Bob Tower <bob at constructotower.com>
Subject: Re: Better Bottle drain port and availability question

Robert Marshall asks about installation of spigots on Better  
Bottles . . . .

 -snip-
One question I have though. Does anyone sell the bottle WITH the side
port drain already installed? I checked out morebeer.com, which is a
stone's throw from where I work, but I didn't seem to find an option to
buy it installed? If it isn't available that way, is it easy to install
yourself?  My imagination is that its akin to building the ship in the
bottle, where you've got to use long appliances to get it right, which
is something I don't really appreciate! Al
 -snip-

As far as I know they are not available pre-installed. However, they  
are extremely simple to install. The trick is to use something to  
hold the inside portion through the port while you thread the outside  
half of the spigot onto it. I believe the Better Bottle web site  
recommends using a 2-3 foot piece of 1/4" rod (available at hardware  
stores) slipped into the racking arm on the spigot to lower it into  
the bottle and hold it in place while the outside portion gets  
attached. I just use a 3/8" racking cane which works great. The  
installation is extremely simple once you go to do it. To explain it  
makes it seem complicated. Really, if you are clever and handy enough  
to home brew then you can do this with ease. Good luck!

Bob Tower / Los Angeles, CA

P.S. Careful though when you go to purchase the spigot, you may fall  
over and hurt your head when you see the price. It's as much or more  
than the bottle itself!


Return to table of contents


Date: Wed, 29 Nov 2006 23:11:18 -0800
From: Bob Tower <bob at constructotower.com>
Subject: Re: Sparkalloid & Carbonation

Fred Johnson made a post concerning the use of Sparkolloid to clarify  
beer and was concerned about it stripping out yeast for bottle  
conditioning.

I feel that it does strip out a considerable amount of yeast, whether  
it strips it ALL out is debatable. I've never tried it on beer  
because somewhere a long time ago I read that it was not recommended  
for beer as it tends to pull out hop character (not sure if they  
meant bitterness or aroma) plus I rarely have problems with yeast  
clarity for the beer I brew. However, I do use it quite regularly for  
cider. I ferment cider for two weeks on the fruit then rack and treat  
with Sparkolloid and allow it to settle for two more weeks. Then I  
rack to kegs and force carbonate. I sweeten a certain amount of the  
batch that I give to friends (they DEMAND that it's sweet!) and then  
counter pressure bottle the sweetened cider. To avoid any yeast that  
still might be hanging around from going to work in the bottles I  
treat the sweetened portion with potassium sorbate. However, I add it  
at HALF the rate prescribed and I've yet to have a bottle bomb (I've  
probably done 10-15 batches like this over the years). Just for a  
little quality assurance, I'll keep a sweetened bottle or two from  
each batch at room temperature for a few months and then drink it.  
The carbonation level has never increased nor have I gotten yeast  
sediment in a bottle. It could be that 4 weeks (2 with Sparkolloid)  
with a flocculent strain (Lalvin K1V-1116), chilling for a few days  
(for forced carbonation) and the half dose of sorbate is enough to  
keep whatever remaining yeast down for the count. But my gut feeling  
is that not a lot of yeast are making it through the Sparkolloid  
treatment. Rather than adding the dregs from the fermenter (which has  
got trub and other substances better left out) to ensure yeast  
activity for bottle conditioning why not just add a neutral strain of  
dry yeast (like Nottingham) at bottling time? That way you are only  
adding yeast and it's strong and healthy yeast at that. Plus the dry  
yeast is cheap.

For my beer, I occasionally use Polyclar and I have found that it  
tends to strip out yeast too. The first time I used it my beer  
carbonated eventually, but it took much longer than usual (6-8 weeks  
vs. 1-2 weeks). Now I always add a little dry yeast before bottling  
or cask conditioning and it brings the conditioning time back to  
normal. Others who've used Polyclar and not had any bottle  
conditioning problems may not be using enough Polyclar. I've found  
that the dosage recommendations on the Polyclar available at HB shops  
(which are almost always bought in bulk and repackaged either by the  
store itself or the vendors they buy from) are notoriously low. I  
obtained instructions from the manufacturer (they are not easy to  
follow!) and worked it out for myself and came up with much higher  
dosages. The dosage does vary with starting gravity and wort make up  
(adjuncts or all malt) so there's no "one size fits all" dosing rate  
like the instructions on the repackaged bags and jars of Polyclar  
you're likely to encounter at your LHBS would have you believe. The  
same goes for kettle finings (Breakbright, Whirlfloc, etc.) and yeast  
nutrients: low or misleading dosage rates on the package.

Bob Tower / Los Angeles, CA


Return to table of contents


Date: Thu, 30 Nov 2006 06:16:04 -0500
From: Nate Wahl <oogiewawa at verizon.net>
Subject: Re: Better Bottle

Here's a link to some plans to build wood carriers for carboys that 
several of us around here have made, and they work really great. 

http://mysite.verizon.net/cruiser570/Carboy/carboy.html

No stress on the neck, they make the things one heck of a lot easier and 
safer to handle, you can sit them upside-down to dry, on their sides for 
cleaning, and even stack them when empty.  Sorry that the construction 
photo link doesn't work, I haven't had time to fix it yet since 
switching providers, but if you FTP around you might be able to find the 
photos.

However, that said, I've switched to the Better Bottles and am glad I 
did.  The convenience, performance and safety/peace of mind, seemed 
worthwhile enough that I got another pair despite what I thought was a 
rather high price.  I still use the glass ones, but only for long term 
storage of meads and such, and I've built a carrier for each one..

As an aside,  Brian's posting got me really fired up; a while back I 
really wanted to try to have some of these carriers made up and sell 
them as kits, because I know how dangerous it is throwing glass around 
like a lot of homebrewers do.  I had a near miss that convinced me so, 
hence coming up with the idea for them in the first place.  I really 
wanted to get them out there to help people.  I even researched what it 
would take to get the top and bottom plates made out of injection molded 
plastic.  Getting stuff done like that is very expensive, incredibly so 
for small runs, and I would have had to charge way too much to have made 
it worthwhile.  Sorry, please build your own, its not that hard and its 
cheaper anyway.

I'd bet coming up with a relatively tiny run of these specialty plastic 
bottles, labelled,  packaged and distributed, along with developing all 
the racking connections and stuff was similar.  Advertising to get them 
out there isn't cheap either.  Probably not a whole lot of profit 
there.  I sure didn't expect to make a killing and retire from the few 
piddly bucks profit I might have made from a couple of dozen homebrewers 
for all my efforts, that's just rediculous.  I dissagree and suspect 
that safety really would have been a big factor in his passion, but 
that's just a take on it; you gotta know someone to know what motivates 
them.

Cheers,
Nate Wahl
Oak Harbor, OH
64.3, 145.8


Return to table of contents


Date: Thu, 30 Nov 2006 06:29:22 -0700
From: "Dave Draper" <david at draper.name>
Subject: Better Bottles again

Dear Friends,

Robert Marshall asks about the installation of the drain port in a 
Better Bottle.  Robert, it's a snap, takes two minutes.  You get a 
length of PVC pipe that has an ID that fits over the intake tube (I 
don't have that dimension handy, it's on their site), turn the bottle 
upside down, insert, and the pipe holds the works in place while you 
hand-tighten.

I won't rehash my preference for plastic fermentors-- you can Google 
the HBD if you're really interested-- but I will restate my 
conviction that there is zero evidence that beer fermented in glass 
can be distinguished from that produced from properly cared for 
plastic.  If glass works for you and you don't have safety issues, 
like I do with tile, hard wood, and concrete everywhere my beers go 
during my process, rock on, more power to ya.  Given these 
constraints in my home and the fact there is no difference in the 
end, it's a no-brainer for me and worth the extra thirty bucks to 
never have to worry about needing the ER to sew my hands back on. :-)

Cheers, Dave in ABQ

David S. Draper, david at draper.name
Institute of Meteoritics, 1 Univ New Mexico,
MSC03-2050, Albuquerque, NM 87131
Lab: http://epswww.unm.edu/highp
Homepage: http://www.unm.edu/~draper
Commercial email unwelcome.



Return to table of contents


Date: Thu, 30 Nov 2006 9:16:46 -0600
From: Eric (Rick) Theiner <rickdude at tds.net>
Subject: Broken Carboy

Mike Stumpf asked about the events leading up to my sudden
carboy failure, and I'd say they're good questions that 
perhaps we can all learn from in handling glass carboys.

>I'd guess stress and microfractures that built up over 
>time caused something that is unlikely, but given a large 
>enough sample size is far from impossible. Could you 
>elaborate a bit on what happened? Had you ever misused the 
>carboy (hauling by its neck)? Did you ever temperature-
>shock it? Can you in any way account for what happened?

The unnamed guy at Better Bottle that I referenced also 
brought up the glass microfracture phenomenon.  Because 
glass is amorphous, I didn't think that stress was 
something that accumulated... of course, I'm not a 
materials scientist, so I probably have flawed reasoning on 
that.  Anyway, the point is that glass does accumulate 
microfractures which can lead to weak spots over time.

In my case, I can't point to any one incident, but here are 
my former glass carboy handling habits.  Oh, and I can only 
guess at the age of the carboy, but I think it may have 
been 3-4 years old.  It was of a type that I first 
purchased in 1995, so it could have conceivably been 8 
years old.

First off, my former brewhouse had a brick walk leading to 
it and the brewing area itself was under an overhang that 
had a pea gravel surface.  The brick walk was often used 
to "stage" carboys on brewing days when we could clean them 
and sanitize them.  So setting the carboys on both the 
gravel and the bricks could have had a cumulative effect.

My method of lifting a full carboy was to push the neck 
away from me to create a groove between the ground and the 
carboy that I would fit my fingers into.  I would then lift 
primarily from the bottom, although I'm sure I exerted some 
lifting force on the neck as well.  (Incidentally, my 
current method involves me giving the carboy a bear hug and 
simply pulling it up.)  I'm guessing that let to the 
eventual failure.

I did have a carboy handle, but I only carry via a handle 
when the carboy is empty.  Maybe even that can produce some 
weakness.<shrug>

But I am at a loss to say whether or not there was a 
significant event that led to the break.

Rick Theiner




Return to table of contents


Date: Thu, 30 Nov 2006 17:33:05 +0100
From: "martin hofhuis" <martinhofhuis at home.nl>
Subject: A Dutch home brewer advises

Hallo Bob Tower,

I am a Dutch homebrewer, who red about your quest for home brew organization
in the Netherlands.
When you are searching for homebrew club's in the Netherlands in the
Neighbourhood of Utrecht than there 
Are 2 club 's to consider. 
1. 't Wort Wat; in Hoofddorp. The place is on the other site of Amsterdam,
nearby the airport Schiphol.
2.  De Amervallei; in Amersfoort. Amersfoort is a place jus ton the other
site of Utrecht than Amsterdam.
The addresses can be found on the site of Jacques Bertens on
www.hobbybrouwen.nl.

Succes with your stay in Holland.

Martin Hofhuis, a Dutch homebrewer in Tilburg, member of De Roerstok the
Netherlands.

- -- 
Mijn Postvak In wordt beschermd door SPAMfighter.
75 spam-mails zijn er tot op heden geblokkeerd.
Download de gratis SPAMfighter via deze link: http://www.spamfighter.com/pro




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Date: Thu, 30 Nov 2006 17:13:00 +0000
From: joe_gerteis at comcast.net (Joe Gerteis)
Subject: Re: Better bottles

For what it's worth -- you do not need the port on the 
better bottles.  To me, that's a needless expense 
that I can't justify and it makes it more complex  -- 
I like using the same system for the plastic and the 
glass carboys.

The secret is that the regular carboy caps fit on the 
Better Bottles.  The orange ones fit, though a little 
loosely.  The purple ones (6.5 gallon) fit better.  
You need to force them, but once on they are snug.  
I just push a regular S-shaped airlock in the larger 
hole for fermentation.  For racking, I use the cap 
with a racking cane and push the beer through 
with CO2 top pressure in the other hole of the cap.  
Works great, and no worries about the carboy 
breaking.

For the record, I am not a Better Bottle evangelist.  
I like them and have had good luck with them, but 
I'm not giving up my glass ones.  I got mine initially 
because I needed more fermenters and with I 
started to get nervous with 2 kids running around 
my house and in reach of some of the carboys.  For 
that, it's worth the extra expense to me.  (Extra 
expense since I don't expect them to last as long 
as glass.)

Just my two cents.

Joe G
St Paul MN


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Date: Thu, 30 Nov 2006 12:35:50 -0500
From: "Doug Moyer" <shyzaboy at yahoo.com>
Subject: Mash mixing

Jay sez:

==================================
Bazooka screens are tough little buggers, so if you're deforming them it
sounds like you're running waaay too much flow.  As an aside, I see a grant
as a useless introduction of air (at least in my system).  Just throttle the
flow back and see if that helps.
==================================

Yep. An obvious solution. Unfortunately, it is a solution that doesn't
apply. I barely crack the ball valve.

I ordered fifty pounds of rice hulls. We'll see if that helps.

I think the only thing I've changed recently was trying to mash-in at a
lower temp to avoild flour balls. I wonder if that is causing the mash to be
pastier or something...

This is what my double Bazooka setup looks like:
http://img374.imageshack.us/img374/6864/dscf0041vy9.jpg

Brew on!
Doug Moyer
Troutville, VA

Star City Brewers Guild: http://www.starcitybrewers.org

Beer, brewing, travel & kids: http://shyzaboy.blogsome.com 



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Date: Thu, 30 Nov 2006 10:36:00 -0500
From: "Stevens, Jonathan C" <Jonathan.Stevens at dhs.gov>
Subject: Carboy thread

Y'all

Just to throw in my $0.02...I've been brewing in 6 gallon plastic buckets
for...18 years now?  I like them most of all because they are easy to clean;
just never use anything rougher than a sponge on them so you don't create
scratches in the plastic.  I've had one contaminated batch in all those
years,
and it was a yeast issue, not bucket hygiene.  And I've left beer in them
for up
to a month with no oxidative notes.

I think the concerns about buckets came from winos who converted over to
brewing
in the 60's, and brought their long term aging/oxidation concerns with them.

Certainly, I wouldn't leave a beer in plastic for a year, but short of that,
they're fine for most primary fermentation needs.

FWIW,

Chad Stevens
QUAFF
San Diego


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Date: Thu, 30 Nov 2006 14:11:30 -0500
From: "Alexandre Enkerli" <enkerli at gmail.com>
Subject: Better Bottles vs. Glass Carboys

Brewers,

I'm currently working, a few days a week, for a winemaking-on-premises
place. They're currently switching from white plastic carboys to
Better Bottles (without the spigot system). I believe the reason we
don't use glass is in fact to prevent injuries but weight is also a
factor. BBs are much lighter than glass carboys, which makes them
easier to handle. With wine kits (which contain metabisulfite), O2
permeation isn't much of an issue.

The dangers associated with glass carboys are real. I did get some
glass carboys explode, in my absence:
http://enkerli.wordpress.com/2006/11/30/beer-explosion/

Another carboy was destroyed by cold (there was some liquid at the bottom).
I'm not necessarily that worried about carboy explosions causing harm
to my physiological integrity. But plastic carboys and Better Bottles
do offer some advantages over glass.

As has been said by Craft Beer Radio's Jeff Bearer (in a comment on
James Spencer's Basic Brewing Radio), Better Bottles are quite
convenient but they do scratch easily.

All told, cornies are probably the best secondary fermenters, as they
can withstand pressure, are virtually indestructible, and rather easy
to sanitize.

As for the grain-related pregnancy test, someone must have thought up
a joke with an alternate interpretation of "SWMBO"...

- --
Alexandre, in Montreal
http://enkerli.wordpress.com/


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Date: Thu, 30 Nov 2006 16:44:07 -0500
From: "Brian Dougan" <dougan.brian at gmail.com>
Subject: Wassail Recipe

After a hearty thread on the pumpkin ale I figured I would start up
(what is probably seen every year) the next holiday themed recipe
thread.  When the family gets together for Christmas I would like to
do a bit of "wassailing" but I am finding vastly different recipes out
there.  What I am looking for is a fairly traditional wassail recipe.
Does anybody have one to share?  Thanks so much, happy holiday season.

 -Brian


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Date: Thu, 30 Nov 2006 23:24:25 +0000
From: UK Homebrew Administrator <ukhbadmin at ukhomebrew.info>
Subject: Smartgroups is Dead . . . . But UK Homebrew lives On!!

Hi all,

Well after 5 years at Smartgroups UK Homebrew has been forced to move, 
due to Orange deciding that it can't run a free group service for zero 
cost. Luckily due to ongoing support problems with them this year  a 
group of us were already planning a revolution, and have set up another 
site.

"The UK home brew discussion list exists to talk about issues related to 
brewing at home in the UK with the emphasis on the brewing of UK styles. 
To be honest if its related to brewing we generally talk about it"

I know there are many readers of the HBD that were contributors and I 
can see that several of you have migrated over, however if there are any 
of you that have missed the emails that were sent, or are interested in 
life this side of the pond, if you send an email to 
mailto:subscribeme2 at uk-homebrew.info, you'll get an invitation to join 
along with joining instructions.

- -- 
UK Homebrew administrator



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Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2006 10:37:02 +1030
From: "Greg 'groggy' Lehey" <grog at lemis.com>
Subject: Re: ACS HCl

On Wednesday, 29 November 2006 at 14:19:09 +0000, A.J deLange wrote:
> Made curious by Steve's post I looked at the lable on a jug of ACS
> hydrochloric acid. To my surprise heavy metals were listed at less than
> 1 ppm and arsenic at .01 ppm.

That doesn't surprise me in the slightest.  I thought at the time that
Steve was misunderstanding.  My experience of decades ago was that
analytical chemicals are generally an order of magnitude more pure
than pharmaceutical quality.

> To put this in perspective this acid is about 36% HCl by weight so a
> gram of this solution (1/1.186 cc) would contain 10 mEq HCl enough
> to neutralize all the bicarbonate in a liter of water of alkalinity
> 500 ppm as CaCO3. This would add 1 microgram or less of heavy metals
> to the liter of water i.e. heavy metals would be at the 1 ppb or
> less level. The drinking water standard used to be 50 ppb for lead
> and the newer (but perhaps not current) action level is 15 ppb.  So
> still well under that.

Don't worry so much about the proportions of the impurities as their
absolute quantity.  I don't know if the 0.05 ppm for lead applies
generally, but if they are, drinking a litre of water would give you
50 <insert prohibited micro symbol> grams of lead.  One gram of HCl
with 1 ppm of lead would give you another 1 <insert prohibited micro
symbol> gram of lead.

> This does NOT mean that I advocate the use of non FCC chemicals in beer.
> In fact I don't advocate the use of dangerous chemicals in any grade by
> home brewers.

I occasionally put a few drops of commercial HCl in my brews to adjust
pH.  HCl is probably less dangerous than bleach, though you need
appropriate care with both.

Greg
- --
Finger grog at lemis.com for PGP public key.
See complete headers for address and phone numbers.


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