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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
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Contents:
  peltier chips and fermentation temps ("David Lewinnek")
  Young's Bottle Culture (Matt)
  BJCP Regional Elections (Ed Westemeier)
  WOI Radio's Semi-Annual Beer Show! ("Rob Moline")
  To HERMS or not to HERMS... (Michael Eyre)
  Barrels.... (rick)


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Date: Tue, 26 Dec 2006 09:18:13 -0500
From: "David Lewinnek" <davelew at gmail.com>
Subject: peltier chips and fermentation temps

In HBD #5114, Jeff Dieterle asks about peltier chips to control
fermentation temperatures:

> I'm wondering about anyone's experience with peltier devices because that's
> how I'm going to construct my next fermenting fridge.

Within the strange breed known as "homebrewers", there is an even
stranger subgroup of individuals who insist on using peltier chips
with their beer,
despite recommendations to the contrary.  Using peltier chips to cool beer is
a horrible idea.  Really, a converted fridge is a much better tool for
the job.  I
know of only three people who combined the stupidity of selecting a peltier
chip with the stubborn pigheadedness and technical skill to make the
setup work.  I am one of those three, and you can see my setup here:

http://hbd.org/discus/messages/26895/29631.html

My Beer Technology Unit (BTU) has a water bath that the carboy sits in, a
heat exchanger, a spearate reservoir, and two small aquarium pumps.
One pump circulates the the water from around the carboy over the
peltier assembly and back.  The second pump circulates a different
reservoir of
water over the other side of the peltier and through a water-air heat
exchanger.  I have a temperature probe sitting in the water next to the
carboy which controls the peltier to heat or cool.  If there were a
temperature difference between the beer and the coolant, the huge surface
area and liquid contact areas should cause the heat to flow to balance
out the temperatures.

The main problem with my setup is that it's underpowered.  It has trouble
cooling a beer adequately in the most vigorous stage of fermentation,
when temperature control is the most important.  To make peltier solution
with the power of a typical refrigerator woul take a lot of peltier chips
(which are fairly cheap from NWCA.com), and a lot of DC current (which
isn't quite so cheap, although I have some crazy ideas about doing it
cheaply with a high power SCR and some high ripple 120VDC).

Dave Lewinnek
Somerville, Massachusetts
[647.4, 85.1deg] Apparent Rennerian


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Date: Tue, 26 Dec 2006 10:51:34 -0800 (PST)
From: Matt <baumssl27 at yahoo.com>
Subject: Young's Bottle Culture

Anyone ever had success culturing from Young's Special London Ale (or
any other Young's product)?  Anyone know if the primary strain is used
for bottle conditioning?

Thanks,

Matt



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Date: Tue, 26 Dec 2006 19:37:00 -0500
From: Ed Westemeier <hopfen at malz.com>
Subject: BJCP Regional Elections

Taking advantage of the quiet period during the end of year holidays,  
I'd like to invite all BJCP judges in the Mountain/Northwest, North,  
and Northeast regions to consider tossing your hat into the ring for  
Regional Representative. Elections in these regions for the BJCP  
Board of Directors are coming up very shortly, and it would be a  
wonderful thing if we could have two or more candidates for each office.

More detail is available on the BJCP Forums:
http://www.bjcp.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=943#943

Ed Westemeier
BJCP Communication Director
communication_director at bjcp.org




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Date: Tue, 26 Dec 2006 21:51:52 -0600
From: "Rob Moline" <jethrogump at mchsi.com>
Subject: WOI Radio's Semi-Annual Beer Show!

WOI Radio's Semi-Annual Beer Show

You are invited to tune in to WOI Radio's Semi-Annual Beer Show on Talk of
Iowa!

Hosted by Katherine Perkins, the Semi Annual Beer Show airs on 640 AM from
9:00AM - 10:00AM CST, on 12.28.06 and the stream can be found  at 
http://www.iowapublicradio.org/woistream/woi-am.ram
and is accessible through Real Audio.

Guests on this Semi-Annual Beer Show on Talk of Iowa include Aaron Taubman,
Head Brewer of Millstream Brewing in Amana, Iowa; Jeff Irvin, Head Brewer,
Olde Main Brewing, Ames, Iowa; John  Runyon, Brewer, Olde Main Brewing,
Ames; and Rob Moline, Internet Technical Consultant to Lallemand, makers of
the Danstar line of brewing yeast, and member of the Governing Committee for
the American Homebrewers Association.

Join us as Katherine leads the discussion of beer, brewing, and brewers,
both in Iowa, and where ever the keg lands; call in on (800) 262-0640 to ask
any beer related question, and be ready to win fabulous prizes in our Beer
Trivia contest!

That's Talk of Iowa on WOI!


Cheers!
Rob Moline
Lallemand

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Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2006 21:05:56 -0800
From: Michael Eyre <meyre at sbcglobal.net>
Subject: To HERMS or not to HERMS...

Hello all,

My question is this: Should I buy a pump and build a HERMs into my 
existing setup or not?

I have a three tier gravity feed converted keg rig that I use right now 
to make mostly 10 gallon batches. It's all uninsulated except for a 
blanket I throw over the Mashtun when I'm doing a rest. I'm virtually 
always doing single infusion mashes and usually drop a few degrees 
during the rest period. My premise from the beginning was that I always 
wanted to have gravity work for me and not have to rely on a pump, which 
*could* fail, and leave me stranded. And I wanna stick with that. Now 
that I have a couple bucks saved up, in the form of gift certificates, 
burning a hole in my pocket, I'm thinking about making some 
improvements. I think I'd like to get a little better consistency in my 
mash temps. whether it be single infusion or steps, I'm wondering if it 
would make my beer better to have more precise control over the temps. 
i'm also wondering if, in this day and age of malts (as good as they 
are..), if steps are going to really benefit me or not. I'm thinking of 
getting a pump and a couple of SS false bottoms so that I can heat my 
mash... right now I've got a copper manifold going on that I *can* 
direct fire, but I always run the risk of scorching the grain if I fall 
asleep at the wheel for too long. Honestly, I never do temp steps, not 
even a mashout, and the beer I make, I feel, is damn good. I guess I'm 
just concerned that that the rate of return from the money I spend on 
parts and equipment would be better spent on more grain to just make 
some more damn beer. But hey, I like toys... but I just don't know. So, 
I'm thinking of the false bottoms and running a pump to pump the wort 
from under the false bottom up into the HLT where I'd run it through a 
copper or SS coil and then back to the mash, heat exchanging the wort 
via water temp in the HLT. Is this feasible? I've heard it works OK, but 
does anyone here run one like this? Should I just stick to RIMs? Any 
thoughts on this, collective?

Mike


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Date: Thu, 28 Dec 2006 10:05:23 -0700
From: rick at salvagebeer.com
Subject: Barrels....

Hi folks! A friend and I have been looking at brewing using some
historical methods. One method we found involved heating and
maintaining the mash and boil in a wooden vessel through the addition
of hot stones directly into the mash/wort. The stones were heated in a
wood fire and moved with tongs. In looking for an appropriate vessel,
we happened upon the wooden barrel bottoms often used in landscaping.
They're relatively cheap, about $35 each, and all of those I've been
able to find locally indicate that they are oak. My research online
indicates that many of these landscaping-type barrels are, in fact,
reclaimed wine and whiskey barrels. I have two questions.

1) Do you think these barrel bottoms would be safe for the use I intend
them for? Is there a way to find out if they have been treated with
chemicals?
2) If they're safe for this use, why not use them for longer
conditioning? Might this be a cheap alternative to buying barrels
specifically for wine/beer? They're often available in both half and
full-size barrels...Thoughts?



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