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


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Contents:
  HBD n' MIME ("Bev D. Blackwood II")
  Re: Hacking an Optical Mouse for Liquid Level Measurement (Dylan Tack)
  HBD's Memory (Dylan Tack)
  Re: One other thing that's going to kill HBD.... ("Greg 'groggy' Lehey")
  Optical mice in brewing/automation (Thomas Rohner)
  RE: Secondary Hopping w/Pellets ("David Houseman")
  Beer line cleaning... (Michael Eyre)
  Bar Keepers Friend, cloudy cider, and brett (K.M.)" <kmuell18@visteon.com>


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JANITORs on duty: Pat Babcock (pbabcock at hbd dot org), Jason Henning,
                  and Spencer Thomas



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Date: Mon, 1 Jan 2007 22:45:03 -0600
From: "Bev D. Blackwood II" <bdb2 at bdb2.com>
Subject: HBD n' MIME

Pat noted a couple of things...

1) It's possible to run an e-mail list that properly strips messages  
down to their proper content, regardless of formatting.
I know this is true, since our club e-mail list does exactly this.  I  
will send Pat our list owner's e-mail address in the hopes that the  
two of them can share some ideas.  I didn't mean to be critical and  
not offer a suggestion to help out.
2) He's got a life that requires attention outside of HBD.
I surely understand this, as my own life has become extremely busy  
(complete with erratic schedule) this year and I've had to severely  
curtail my homebrew club involvement and activites myself.

I appreciate HBD's presence and feel very strongly its existence is  
important to the homebrewing community.
I was just browsing the donations page, as I feel it's important to  
also "put my money where my mouth is" so to speak... I note that a  
PayPal contribution was made earlier this year, but couldn't find a  
link for it.  If that's not actually a contribution method, I'll  
happily send a check, but it'll happen a lot faster if i can do it  
online! :-)
How about it Pat?  Is there a way to contribute online?

(and... yes, I was dumb enough to NOT convert this to plain text YET  
AGAIN and be rejected once! ROFL!)

 -BDB2

Bev D. Blackwood II
http://www.bdb2.com




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Date: Mon, 1 Jan 2007 23:28:15 -0600
From: Dylan Tack <dylan at io.com>
Subject: Re: Hacking an Optical Mouse for Liquid Level Measurement

> Date: Sat, 30 Dec 2006 20:38:09 -0800
> From: Kevin Eggemeyer <keggemeyer at charter.net>
>
> A question for the collective:  Has anyone thought of or used a hacked
> optical mouse to measure liquid level in a tank?
> My idea is this... For my HLT, I would like to be able to measure  
> the liquor
> level to within a reasonable degree of accuracy

I am working on nearly the same thing.  The optical mouse is a new  
idea I hadn't considered.  I was planning to use a float / rod  
combination as you describe, but the rod will be used as a linear  
quadrature encoder.  This is like the older mice that had a shutter  
wheel, and a pair of IR phototransistors.  The rod will need to have  
a bunch of evenly spaced holes or slots (like a comb), or perhaps the  
rod could be acrylic with opaque stripes printed on it.

The optical mouse sounds like a good idea.  One way to handle the  
software would be to have your microcontroller talk to the mouse  
(I've read it's trivial to read PS/2 data, but I've never tried it),  
and then send the data to the PC in another format.  I'm using the  
PIC 18F4550 micro for it's USB transceiver.

Another idea worth considering: put load cells under your kettles,  
and use the weight to determine volume.

I don't expect to get to this project soon, but if/when I make  
progress on the level sensor I'll post the results!

 -Dylan


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Date: Mon, 1 Jan 2007 23:40:28 -0600
From: Dylan Tack <dylan at io.com>
Subject: HBD's Memory

> Date: Mon, 01 Jan 2007 17:29:56 -0500
> From: "steve.alexander" <-s at adelphia.net>
> Subject: oxygen permeation/reports of the death of HBD are somewhat  
> exaggerated
>
> I do have a more pressing and
> perhaps
> prescient suggestion - HBD needs a memory.   One complaint I have  
> wrt HBD is
> that we rehash the same topics repeatedly.

Google does a great job of indexing HBD.  You can search it by adding  
the term "site:hbd.org" (without quotes) to your search.  This is  
actually the first place I look when I have a brewing question.


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Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2007 16:42:32 +1030
From: "Greg 'groggy' Lehey" <grog at lemis.com>
Subject: Re: One other thing that's going to kill HBD....

On Monday,  1 January 2007 at 10:41:19 -0700, Dion Hollenbeck wrote:
>
> Bev Blackwood said:
>> Is the fact it rejects MIME encoded e-mails.  Time for HBD to catch
>> up to the modern world.  I can post to my club e-mail list (volunteer
>> moderated) without fear of rejection and same goes for AHA Tech-
>> Talk.  Last conversation I heard regarding HBD among the AHA folk was
>> that it's dying a slow death... well, getting posts rejected
>> regularly only speeds that process.  I realize this is a volunteer
>> effort, but technical currency is an essential element to being
>> relevant.
>
> The HBD rejects HTML (as do all well run lists) for two important
> reasons:
>
> 1 - HTML can contain executable code and if sent to you, could
> infect your computer with a virus, or install a trojan.

Agreed.

> 2 - Email clients that send out HTML messages send out the same text
> twice, once in plain text, and also once in HTML,

Not necessarily.  Some particularly emetic ones send only HTML,
forcing me to use a web browser to view them (or, more likely, discard
them unseen).

> thereby putting over 50% more characters in the archives, for NO
> additional content.  If Pat were to change the policy, his already
> strapped servers will be more strapped for disk space, and this
> might just kill the HBD.

OK, let's think about this.  I save all the messages I get, not just
from HBD, but other lists (notably Oz Craftbrewers and German HBF) and
all other mail.  I've been doing so for 25 years.  Many of these
messages contain large attachments.  I save some messages in two
places to make it easier to find them.

In this time, I have collected somewhat more than 5 GB of mail in
17419 folders.  Currently a 200 GB disk costs about $100, so we're
talking about a cost of $2.50 for those 5 GB.  In other words, this
isn't an argument.

> No, Bev, I strongly disagree with you.  Letting HTML through ...

There's more to MIME than HTML.

On Monday,  1 January 2007 at 14:02:57 -0500, Pat Babcock wrote:
>
> I can only ask for patience. Dion's comments are spot on - the HBD
> will never publish in a format that enables our profit-seeking,
> phishing, and hacking friends in their pursuits; however, it is not
> unreasonable for Bev and others to hope for the day when sending
> HTML does not result in rejection from the queue.

There are a number of alternatives here.  An obvious one is to convert
to plain text, or just to strip out the text part of a multipart
message.  If you're interested, I can point you to something.

On Monday,  1 January 2007 at 13:35:39 -0800, Scott Alfter wrote:
> Bev D. Blackwood II wrote:
>> Is the fact it rejects MIME encoded e-mails.  Time for HBD to catch
>> up to the modern world.  I can post to my club e-mail list (volunteer
>> moderated) without fear of rejection and same goes for AHA Tech-
>> Talk.
>
> MIME encoding is an almost foolproof indicator of two things that don't belong
> on the list:
>
> 1) File attachments (a security risk to the unfortunate souls who are still
>    running Windows, and an annoyance to the rest of us who've moved on to
>    something better)
> 2) HTML (which doesn't belong in email)

In my case, they're neither.  They're either:

 - My cryptographic signature (a security plus, not minus, though I
  agree that it doesn't make much sense on this list).
 - Photos, which can be of great utility.

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


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Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2007 11:58:21 +0100
From: Thomas Rohner <t.rohner at bluewin.ch>
Subject: Optical mice in brewing/automation

Hi Kevin

My first advice: don't do it.
If i understand the technology of optical mice, they are ok
to measure movements in different speeds and directions, but
not precise and repeatable lenthg measurements.
You can have a look here to get a idea, why i don't think it
will work without a considerable amount of code, if ever.

http://home.comcast.net/%7Emaccody/robotics/mouse_hack/mouse_hack.html

While thinking of it, i came to a much easier and workable solution.
Go to a electronics/computer junkyard and look for a inkjet printer
like a epson/canon or a hp. On the backside of the cartridge carrier
you will see the encoder strip going the whole length of the normal
movement. It's a plastic strip maybe a quarter of a inch high. If you
take a close look, you can see fine black lines on it. On the cartridge
holder, you will find a two channel sensor that gives you two square
signals 90 degrees out of phase. With some logic and a up/down counter,
you have a precise length measurement.
Maybe you could even use the mechanics of the printer as guides.
This is a fairly common way of length measurement in the automation
world. You could as well take a rotary encoder, it's essentially the
same as the strip, but on a rotating disk.
I don't know your skills in electronics or microcontroller programming,
but this would be a fairly easy thing to do.

Atmel controllers rule!!!

Cheers  Thomas



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Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2007 08:23:44 -0500
From: "David Houseman" <david.houseman at verizon.net>
Subject: RE: Secondary Hopping w/Pellets

Brian,

I just drop the pellets into the secondary carboy.  They do eventually
settle out.   But at the last AHA conference I had a discussion about dry
hopping with Ralph Olson of Hop Union.  Ralph recommended re-hydrating the
hop pellets into a slurry and pouring that into the secondary carboy, that
this would yield much better hop aroma in the resulting beer.  I tried that
and it did seem to work well.

Regards,

David Houseman



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Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2007 10:45:06 -0800
From: Michael Eyre <meyre at sbcglobal.net>
Subject: Beer line cleaning...

 ...for line cleaning, I don't see any reason why I can't just fill a keg 
with the line cleaner solution and run that through my lines and faucet, 
no? That, then flush 'em with clean water and I should be good, correct? 
I was just reading the Micromatic site and see their pro cleaning kit 
with the pressurized bottle apparatus... the only difference I see 
between that and using a keg is that their vessel is made of plastic. Is 
there a problem with putting solution in a SS keg? I can't imagine, but 
figured I'd ask first....

Mike


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Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2007 16:29:30 -0500 
From: "Mueller, Kevin (K.M.)" <kmuell18 at visteon.com>
Subject: Bar Keepers Friend, cloudy cider, and brett

First: I've regularly used Bar Keepers Friend on my converted keg kettles to
keep them in tip top shape.  Great stuff.  This weekend however, I also used
them to take the years of oxidized grunge off of my copper and brass (dip
tubes, fittings, etc.)  Awesome stuff!  Just rubbing it lightly with a green
scrubby (although I'm sure a wash cloth would have worked) got the grunge
off!  I'll be doing my immersion cooler before I brew next!

If you haven't tried Bar Keepers Friend, you owe it to yourself to try it!

Second:  I've got a couple of gallons of cider that won't clear.  I started
with two gallons of cider from the local mill, and fermented with some
nutrient and White Labs English cider yeast in a 5 gallon carboy.
Fermentation went well, and I transferred to a 2 1/2 gallon carboy for
further conditioning and clearing.  At the same time I added some store
bought cider to top up the carboy.  I also added some pectic enzyme.  Now
I've got some very lightly colored, but murky, yellow/gold cider in the
carboy.  This was 3-4 weeks ago.  

Any suggestions on how to clear it?

Third:  I've got a mason jar with some old yeast in it from Orval.  This was
successfully used by me and others in my club, and mine was to my knowledge
the last local source.  I looked at it last night (its buried behind a bunch
of corneys, so I don't normally see it) and there is an obvious, bright
white pellicle on it.  It was stored under boiled distilled water, but its
possible that I didn't completely wash out all of the spent beer.  So, does
Brett (which I believe is in the Orval culture) cause a pellicle, or do I
likely have some sort of infection that I don't want to deal with and I
should just throw out the whole lot?

On a side note, I had one of the best brew sessions ever this weekend.
EVERYTHING went right!  Temps and volumes were spot on.  (OK, there was a
minor boil-over, but not to bad).  Hopefully this is a sign for good brewing
in the new year!

Kevin
Canton, MI


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