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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
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Contents:
  dextrin redux (part 1) ("steve.alexander")
  dextrin redux (part 2) ("steve.alexander")
  re: Possible Problems Malting Corn ("steve.alexander")
  bending pipes ("MARTIN AMMON")
  Kegs on Planes/Alkaline water/SRM ("A.J deLange")
  Malting Corn (Paul Waters)
  Pumpy? ("A.J deLange")
  Re: Brewing with alkaline water (stencil)
  re: Brewing software program possible Linux version (Raj B Apte)


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----------------------------------------------------------------------


Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 05:17:15 -0500
From: "steve.alexander" <-s at adelphia.net>
Subject: dextrin redux (part 1)

Having voted for PhilsPhabulous vid submission, I feel comfortable
offering a few more details on dextrins ,sugars & carbohydrates ...
I'm not in love with the Phils longstanding "poison frog" imagery
wrt brewing, but otherwise a very nice vid.
- --

MONOSACCHARIDES - (simple sugars)
A monosaccharide molecule is characterized by a straight chain of
carbons with one carbonyl group (C=O), and a hydroxyl group (-OH) at
all others carbons.  As is the convention, hydrogen fills all bond left
unspecified. By definition monosaccharides contain no less than 3
carbons.  So the trivial monosaccharides are glyceraldehyde and
dihydroxyacetone.  Please recall that an aldehyde has it's carbonyl at
the end of a carbon chain and a ketone has it's carbonyl at a
non-terminal carbon.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glyceraldehyde
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dihydroxyacetone
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldehyde
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketone


So several parameters describe a monosaccharide.  First the number of
carbons with; 3-triose, 4 -tetraose, 5-pentose, 6-hexose, 7-heptose.
The location of the carbonyl.  In addition we see from glyceraldehyde
that there is a non-mirror asymmetry to many monosaccharides.  Also in
longer monosaccharides, the arrangement of the hydroxyl group from
side to side add to the the number of isomers for a particular sugar.
The Fischer projection representation of monosaccharides makes the
symmetry an hydroxyl arrangement clear.

In nature the monosaccharides that appear in great abundance are hexose
sugars and pentose sugars.  Ribose sugars, the basis of RNA and DNA,
and xylose and arabinose are other common pentose sugars.  Among
hexose sugars D-glucose (an aldose sugar) , D-fructose, and
D-galactose are the most common in nature.

Although monosaccharides have a connected "linear' carbon backbone,
they do curve back on themselves and will form various "ring"
structures, via oxygen molecules.  It's useful to observe the pyran
and furan molecules on this page,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbohydrate as these are sort similar in
stricture to the "ring" forms of pentose and hexose sugars.

As our primary example consider the most interesting, abundant and
also prototypical hexose - D-glucose.  Glucose (aka
6-(hydroxymethyl)oxane-2,3,4,5-tetrol ) see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glucose and especially observe the "chain
form", the alpha-D-pyranose form and the beta-D-pyranose form of
glucose.  The gif picture for glucose dynamically shows the transition
of the C5 hydroxyl to C1, while the C1 carbonyl oxygen is then shared
with C5.  The alpha- and beta- forms differ in the orientation of the
hydroxyl group at the 1st carbon.  Fructose also appears in a cyclic
form, a 5 sided ring called alpha- and beta- D-fructofuranose.


CARBOHYDRATES -
Monosaccharides can be connected into larger molecules in a shockingly
large number of ways with an even more shocking array of physical
properties.  Sticky gums, texture inducing thickeners, adsorbents like
carageenan. s Some have amazing properties wrt viscosity and flow.
Even common has quite a list of physical properties.  There's a
fantastic little book on carbohydrates by a fellow with the surname
Cornish-Bowden.

These complex carbs are formed when a oxygen bond replaces a hydroxyl
group on each molecule as: was { X-C-OH HO-C-Y } become { X-C-O-C-Y
}. These bonds with oxygen between are called glucosidic bonds
(glycosyl) and (as an aside) saccharides can bond with many
non-saccharides in this way.  When two monosaccharides form a
glucosidic bond we have a di-saccharide ... names such trisaccharides
and polysaccharides have the obvious meaning. When two monosaccharides
form a glucosidic bond, the hydroxyl orientation at the reducing end
(see alpha- beta- in monosaccharides) determines if this bond is an
ALPHA- or BETA- glycosyl bond, and this is very important.  The
difference between starch and cellulose is the alpha- beta-
orientation.

In plants like barley and other grains the majority of accessible
carbohydrates in starch of the endosperm are alpha-linked glucose
polymers (starch).  The husk and parts of the plant stem (structural
components) are beta- linked polysaccharides (cellulose, lignan).

STARCH -
Two categories of alpha linked glucose polymers appear in the grain
endosperm, amylose and amylopectin.  Common grain starch usually
consist of about 25% amylose and 75% amylopectin, but "waxy" forms of
certain grains have been developed with almost no amylose.  High
amylose sorts of barley reach 45% amylose; some experimental grains
exceed 50% amylose.

Amylose is a long chain of glucose units where the 1st carbon of a
glucopyranose has a glucosidic bond to the 4th carbon of the next, the
1-4 bond. The polymer isn't really straight but instead spirals into a
helix and not co-incidentally an iodine atom fits neatly inside the
helix at a spacing that corresponds to the blue-black positive iodine
test.  In barley the amylose units are relatively short, containing
300-100 glucose units.  Amylose does not form a gel and isn't as
subject to retrogradation.

Amylopectic has nothing to do with true pectin, except that both can
form a gel.  Amylopectin polysaccharides consist of segments of
roughly 18 to 22 1-4 linked glucose units which are connected in a
branched form 1-4 and 1-6 branch points.  This can be imagined as a
binary "tree" of short (~20 unit) amylose polysaccharides with 1-6
linked branches.  A single amylopectin molecule can extend to tens of
thousands of glucose units.  In grain the many non-reducing ends of
the amylopectin tree are capped with glucose-1-phosphates.

DEXTRIN - The term dextrin refers to alpha-linked polysaccharides
smaller than starch molecules, and frequently this term is applied to
starch hydrolysis products. Many definitions mention the dominant
alpha-1-4 glucosidic bond (common starch).  Some definitions refer to a
negative iodine test, making the amylose fraction above M12
small. Some definition of dextrin allow for the inclusion of small
amounts of glucose and maltose.  Certainly as modest size degradation
of common starch we expect a mix of 1-4 and 1-6 linked glucose units.

SUGAR - The definitions are variable, but I prefer one that includes
sweet tasting water soluble polysaccharides, which means mono-, di-
and some tri-saccharides.

GLUCAN - is any polysaccharide of D-glucose (no galactose or fructose
of other monosaccharides) including starch, maltose, cellulose,
glycogen.

ALPHA-GLUCAN - The subset of alpha-linked glucans.  Starch and it's
hydrolysis products (dextrins) are examples, but alpha-glucans is a
broader category.

BETA-GLUCAN - Dietary fiber. Beta-linked glucans.  For example cotton
is BETA-1-4 linked glucose cellulose) with some 1-3 link branches
thrown in for strength.

 -S



Return to table of contents


Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 05:53:58 -0500
From: "steve.alexander" <-s at adelphia.net>
Subject: dextrin redux (part 2)

One red-herring issue raises it's ugly head again and again in brewing
literature, and that is the fact that lager yeasts will generally
ferment melibiose and ale yeast will not.  This forms a simple and
effective test of whether a strain is an ale or lager (S.cerevisae vs
S.pastorianus) variety, but this feature of lager yeast has absolutely
no (zero nada ) importance in brewing.  Several misunderstandings
surround this feature.

First it is sometimes claimed that lager yeast create a lower FG beer,
or that final Cl*nitest readings are lower for lager yeast due to
melibiose fermentation.  Lager yeast may (or may not) ferment more
wort carbs than ale yeast, but it has nothing to do with melibiose
which is virtually absent in wort.  Beet sugar can contain up to 3%
raffinose, reducible to melibiose, but even a 100% beet sugar 'wort'
would require a serious lab investment to detect a difference in FG.

The dextrin/sugar melibiose is a 1-6 linked pair of hexose sugars,
*BUT* the reducing sugar is GALACTOSE, and the non-reducing one
glucose.  Lager yeast have a MEL gene that produces melibiase enzyme
that can degrade melibiose into glucose and galactose (both products
fermentable by either yeast).  The enzyme does NOT give lager yeast
any ability consume any of the common 1-6 glucose-glucose containing
dextrins in beer, nor to generally break 1-6 glysosyl bonds.  Enzymes
are quite specific.

===================

Catabolism (digestion) of polysaccharides: As a side note, we humans
and our little yeast buddies both have the ability to crack alpha-1-4
linked polysaccharides, although brewing yeast have difficulty dealing
with anything bigger than M3 (maltotriose).  We humans reportedly use
some acid+enzyme hydrolysis and can hammer larger starches into
submission.  Neither of us do a decent job on the alpha 1-6 links nor
on certain galactose based polysaccharides of either alpha- or beta-
conformation.  To be more specific human infants and adults hailing
from N.Europe and East Africa (dairy cultures) have the ability to
digest lactose (beta (1-4) galactose,glucose), but most cannot.  Some
vegetables, like cabbage contain considerable amounts of small alpha
linked galactose containing polysaccharides, which are not directly
digestible. Large cellulose-like polysaccharides are indigestible by
humans and pass through the digestive tract like grass through a goose
(for much the same reason).

The good-news=bad-news part of thsis story is that human gut bacteria
can convert some of these otherwise indigestible polysaccharides into
usable acids (like lactic or acetic, propionic), but at a cost.  The
bacteria spill about half the energy and produce some noxious gassy
byproducts.  I understand that cows extract almost all of their energy
from such acid byproducts of bacteria. Yeast themselves have a
crunchy mannose polysaccharide exoskeleton (cell wall) which may
explain the stomach upset too much residual yeast in beer can induce.
Complex carbohydrates are not all that digestible unless you are born
with the enzyme apparatus to deal with these or the digestive
apparatus of a ruminant.

============

Amonst the good stuff Phil drops a few clinkers ...

 >>Fructose is another simple sugar consisting of a single 5 chain
 >>molecule.  (pentagon)

Fructose is a ketose hexose sugar; six carbons.  The furan-like
5-sided ring appears because in fructose the second carbon has the
carbonyl bond.

 >>These 1-4 bonds are easy to break and that is exactly what we do in
 >>the mashing process. The other common sugar bond is a 1-6 bond and
 >>these are much harder to break. Indeed, hard enough to prevent
 >>fermentation by ale yeasts, however most lager yeast have a pathway
 >>to do this.

Neither bond is difficult to break; breaking these bonds is
energetically favored and they readily break when the right enzyme is
added.  The difference is that lager yeast produce an enzyme which
will hydrolyze alpha-1-6 galactose-glucose (melibiose) ONLY.

 >>Sucrose is a glucose bound to a fructose with simple 1-4 bond.

Sucrose is glucose-(BETA-1-2)-fructose, it's a beta-1-2 link.

 >>For instance laminaribose is two glucose molecules but instead of a
 >>1-4 bond like maltose it uses a 1-3 bond.

Spelling - "Laminaribiose", and it's not like maltose.  Laminaribose is
a BETA-glucan, not an ALPHA-glucan like maltose.

The ALPHA linked glucose-glucose disaccharides are:
1-1 trehalose [alpha-alpha] (fermentable)
1-2 kojibiose (fermentable (saki!))
1-3 nigerose  (not fermentable)
1-4 maltose (fermentable)
1-6 isomaltose (probably not fermentable, variable reports)

The BETA linked disaccharides (not fermentable) are:
1-1 trehalose [beta-beta]
1-2 sophorose
1-3 laminaribiose (common in fungi)
1-4 cellobiose (trivial cellulose polymer)
1-6 gentiobiose

None of these beta-glycosyl disaccharides are fermentable by yeast
(nor directly by humans either).  Some bacteria will digest these.
The beta-glucans are called "fiber" in food parlance.

 >>Any ring, or series of rings, of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen can be
 >>called a carbohydrate.

No, Benzene, phenol and pyran are not carbohydrates, nor do carbos
require the heterocyclic ring structure (tho' it's most common).
Carbos are characterized as glucosidically linked monosaccharides,
and monosaccharides are characterized as alkenes of length C3 or
greaterwith repeated (H-C-OH) units and a single carbonyl group.

 >> proteins
I assume this was a typo/brain-f*rt.  As complex as carbo's may seeem,
anyone reading a bit would be in a position to sketch out a useful
carbohydrate design.   Proteins are far more complex.  No one knows
how to design a protein as complex as an enzyme except by
primate-see-primate-do analogy to known examples.

 -S




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Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 07:21:40 -0500
From: "steve.alexander" <-s at adelphia.net>
Subject: re: Possible Problems Malting Corn

Marc Dubeau says,

> I am trying to malt some corn to make Chicha. The problem is that the 
>malt smells like farts and corn. There seemed to be a little bit of mold on 
>the corn as it was sprouting. It smelled bad for most of the time it was 
>drying. Do any of you who have experience malting stuff know if it is still 
>useable?---Marc

I've home malted barle,y oats and rye - and the process is difficult and
infection is the biggest difficulty.  My suggestion is that  you finish
the drying and kilning (is chicha corn kilned ?) for the experience,
but not use this batch.  Mold flavors persist horribly.

Generally in malting you want to soak the grain to get it's water load
up to 40-45% of the grain mass.   That is the 10lbs of dry grain should
weight in at about 14 to 14.5lbs after the water absorbtion phase.
Various schedules are suggested but you want to change the water
regularly (4+ times per day) and also allow some aerobic rests of an
hours or two between soaks.  After 1.5 to 2 days you're at the correct
water load (drain the grain in a colander and weigh it - you need to
be accurate.  I've read that 2 - 4hr soaks per day (with 8hr air rests)
are best, but I have't tried so much aeration.

During the water absorbtion phase, infection is extremely likely.
Two measure greatly help in reducing (not eliminating) infection.
In the first soak - use food grade lime (available where canning
jars are sold - for pickles, several tablesppons per gallon of
soak water) to create a very basic soak.  The lime soak kills much
of the initial bacterial load and removes phenolics that reduce
germination rate.  A lime soak is used by commercial maltsters.
When changing water, rinse the grain thoroughly in chlorinated tap
water (or use bleach to make the equivalent.  This modest chlorine
addition has little or no impact on flavor.  If you do this then
your infection problems will be greatly reduced.  I haven't
tried it, but a metabisulfite (campden tablet) solution rinse
should kick down the infection level w/o damaging germinability.

I suggest that you UNDERwater your grain.  For example typical malt
calls for about 43% water as above.  If you stop soaking at ~38%,
then you can always add a little water during the chitting.
The reason is this - if your grains infection gets serious during
chitting and if your grain is underwatered - the you can give it
a chlorinated water soak and reduce infection.  OTOH if you already
have all the water you can tolerate then there is no opportunty to
rinse/disinfect.  The malt turns to mush with too much water.

You should not use a plastic tarp as the grain contact surface as
the lower grain will remain surrounded by water.  Instead a cotton
sheet over a plastic tarp will wick off the water far better.  I
imagine that direct contact on a clean concrete surface is fine too.
An aluminum window screen supported off the floor works well. This
is most important in the first few days when a lot of residual water
remains.  Turn the grain often throughout the process.  A gentle
airflow with dry air are very helpful (fan & dehumidifier if in
a closed space).  Spray water on the grain or turn if you get surface
drying.

Different grains malt diffently, and in my very limited experience
barley seems easiest and rye hardest; the big problem is infection,
not germination. You may want to try malting some barley as a
beginner's course.

Normal malt chitting gives off some big diacetyl and DMS aroma and
there is a little barnyard-funk aroma in there too.  When the funk
becomes unpleasant (fart and vomit are apt descriptions) you need
to somehow kick the infection.

I have never malted corn, so the water ratios and time may be
different.  Also corn requires a warmer temp than say rye to
germinate - so chitting temp may be a factor too.

A big problem in barley chitting is stopping the germination in
time.  It's strange, but after ~10 days you examine the grain and
realize that it needs more time, then the next morning you look
and the malt is way overmodified, wrinkled and you've lost a lot
of starch to growth.  Keep a tight watch on the grain as it
approaches full modification.  Ideally the water is running out
and growth stalling at this point, but a drying oven will stop
it immediately.  My personal opinion is that you should dry the 
malt a little on the undermodified side - a day or two early.
The enzyme level is just as high, but the undermodified malt
will require a more extensive mash.

Removing culms(roots) is a pita until the malt is dried, then
it's trivial.

Using the pillow-sack, clothes drier works OK but if you
consider the cost of placating SWMBO - this is a net loss.

A crockpot does a nice job of pre-kiln crystal conversion.

You can consider puting the late chitting malt into
respiratory deficit by covering w/ a tarp or placing in a closed
bucket - similar to the method for munich and melanoidin malt.
Probably not traditional but ...

best of luck,
 -S








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Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 06:47:41 -0600
From: "MARTIN AMMON" <SURFSUPKS at KC.RR.COM>
Subject: bending pipes

This may sound crazy but I would give it a try.   I have in the past bent copper
where I need a crazy bend by filling the pipe with sand.

The sand will keep it from kinking and with the polycarbonate tubing I would
fill with the finest sand I could find.  I also would use an heat gun turning
the tube for even heat.  Also a jig  made from pipe or something that has the
radius I need and slowly bend the tube over the jig.
Like I said before little strange but I would give it a try.

Hope this helps

Swagman




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Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 13:15:22 +0000
From: "A.J deLange" <ajdel at cox.net>
Subject: Kegs on Planes/Alkaline water/SRM

While I am aware that the FAA, DoT, TSA, OSHA, ICC and probably the DAR 
have regulations concerning pressure vessels on aircraft I would like to 
point out that a sealed keg pressurized to the standard serving pressure 
of 14 psi would be subject to a differential pressure of a little less 
than 2 atmospheres if taken into the vacuum of outer space i.e. about 
28.7 psia. Aircraft interiors are usually set to a pressure altitude of 
about 7000 ft where the pressure is probably about 10 psia so the 
differential pressure would only be about 20 psia. That's not a lot.  It 
seems to me that for a small vessel like a Cornelius keg the mess is a 
bigger danger than an explosion.  None the less, even here on earth the 
rules require an ASME approved vessel for more than 1 bar (1 atmosphere) 
in a commercial setting.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The water described by Stephen is indeed extremely alkaline. More 
significantly, there isn't nearly enough hardness to offset it. Residual 
alkalinity is 178 meaning that a proper mash pH for anything other than 
a dark beer is very unlikely.  The obvious thing to do with this water 
is boil it before brewing with it but the calcium needs to be 
supplemented first. Either gypsum or calcium chloride will do as both 
sulfate and chloride are at modest levels.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

A few months back I asserted that the single SRM number conveyed a lot 
of information about the color of a beer. I've been looking into this on 
and off since then and have analyzed 45 beers. Over that ensemble the 
SRM lets me predict color  in Lab space with an rms Delta_E of about 13 
for a 5 cm path and about 6 for a 1 cm path. This is actually amazingly 
good. To give you an idea of what it means it takes a trained observer 
to be able to detect color differences of 3 or less. A casual observer 
can detect about 5 or so. Prepress and printing operations shoot for 5 - 
8. So no, color predicted by SRM alone isn't spot on but it's pretty 
close. The interesting thing is that SRM plus 2 "correction" numbers 
reduces the rms error to 7 while 3 correction numbers reduce it to 1 (5 
cm path, illuminant C, 10 degree observer).

A.J.


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Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 06:04:03 -0800 (PST)
From: Paul Waters <pwaters3 at yahoo.com>
Subject: Malting Corn

Marc Dubeau wrote
"There seemed to be a little bit of mold on the corn
as it was sprouting. It smelled bad for most of the
time it was drying. Do any of you who have experience
malting stuff know if it is still useable?"

My short answer is NO, some corn molds are toxic. 


I havent malted, but from what I have read and seen
seed corn do when wet. I would say that you didnt turn
the corn enough to expose it to the air or you malt
bed was to deep.

Also make sure the seed that you are using isnt
treated to inhibit mold.

my 2 cents

Paul W
Mad Cow Brewing 


 


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Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 14:05:55 +0000
From: "A.J deLange" <ajdel at cox.net>
Subject: Pumpy?

I've been watching the 'Midsommer Murder' series (dour chief inspector 
and young, foolish seargeant assistant  running around quaint West 
Country villages and pubs - you know the formula). In one episode Mrs. 
Inkpen's gardener has an enterprise going on in an unused garden shed in 
which he produces what I think he calls "pumpy" explaining that this is 
like scrumpy except that potatos and garlic are involved. Is this fancy 
on the part of the writers or is there actually such a thing? Sounds 
awful (and looked awful too).

A.J.


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Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 12:52:55 -0500
From: stencil <etcs.ret at verizon.net>
Subject: Re: Brewing with alkaline water

On Mon, 22 Jan 2007 00:34:46 -0500, in
HOMEBREW Digest #5132   Sun 21 January 2007
Steve Pierson  wrote:

> [ ... ]
>
> 
>I am considering using acid malt to reduce the pH in the mash - or using 
>a slaked lime treatment.  What would you suggest for this water?  
>
>
>
Some while back, after researching the hbd archives (referring Hubert
Hanghofer's and A.J. deLange's posts) and Palmer's How To Brew, I
ginned up a spreadsheet that I use for lime-treating my (only
moderately hard) water.  After plugging in your numbers, the oracle
recommends adding to a ten-gallon lot of brewing water:
6.6gm (1-1/4tsp) MrsWages Pickling Lime
35gm (3Tbsp) calcium chloride
1/2 tsp powdered chalk

I usually agitate this by chucking a mini submersible pump into the
tank and letting it circulate for an hour or two;  then it sits quiet
for a day or two, at which point I decant quietly.

You have an enviably informative water report but you can get your own
numbers, albeit much less precisely, by using the Alkalinity,
Hardness, and Calcium Hardness test kits marketed by (among others)
pollardwater.com.  The kits are not cheap, but they will last for
several years at a test-a-month rate.  My water comes from the gravel
beds under a local "river"  and its alkalinity  stays pretty constant
at around 100ppm, give or take 10.  Well water, I gather, is as
changeable as weather, and wants watching.

stencil sends
[535.2mi, 86.4deg] AR


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Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 17:49:06 -0800 (PST)
From: Raj B Apte <raj_apte at yahoo.com>
Subject: re: Brewing software program possible Linux version


Joe (?) asks about interest in a linux version of brewing
software.

I, for one, find that promash works great under wine. I
purchased it back when I served the dark lord, and it
continues to work fine under ubuntu edgy. A linux version
is nice, but a wine-compatible windows version is quite
acceptible, IMHO.

raj


 


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