HOMEBREW Digest #5147 Mon 19 February 2007


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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
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Contents:
  Re: Brewing in Austin, TX? (David Thompson)
  Ascorbic acid ("Thomas Rohner")
  re: Brewing in Austin, TX? (Wayne Clark)
  re: Ascorbic Acid as anti-staling agent in beer ("steve.alexander")
  Re: Stirbars (Scott Alfter)
  2007 Coconut Cup Results (Scott Graham)
  Infection and Wort Chillers (Matt)

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---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2007 22:40:53 -0600 From: David Thompson <david at dtphoto.com> Subject: Re: Brewing in Austin, TX? Alexandre asks about brewing in Austin. Austin was the home to Celis Brewery because this is a great place to brew beer, especially darker ales, given the water supply. Heat is a problem, except now when it's our 3 weeks of winter. AC here in Austin keeps temps tolerable in the 104 heat of August. It does not help beer. I brew at night because of this, and have to keep the fermenting brew in a cooler to maintain proper temps. Ugh! Unless it's a wheat ale, then I am going for the esters... The guys in Zealot will be a great help as well, and Austin Homebrew Supply are the best! Cheers! Dave Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2007 15:36:41 +0100 From: "Thomas Rohner" <t.rohner at bluewin.ch> Subject: Ascorbic acid Hi Rich i don't see the benefits of using ascorbic acid, as long as you bottle condition your beers. I never had staling issues with our beers, that's in the 10'000 gallons range up until now. We have made beers from 11 to 20 Plato and even our "light" beers keep well over a year. (If they last so long...) But from time to time you find a forgotten bottle. So i would stick to the Reinheitsgebot and keep unneeded stuff out of my beers. I'm not a Reinheitsgebot fanatic, i love belgian beers and raspberry wheat. But then my absolute favourite is munich helles. Cheers Thomas Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2007 07:25:11 -0800 (PST) From: Wayne Clark <driftwoodtex at yahoo.com> Subject: re: Brewing in Austin, TX? Austin is a pretty decent place for a homebrewer. We have a few brewpubs (Draught House, Lovejoy's, North By Northwest, plus a new one starting up on Barton Springs Road (Billy's??)). We also have a few regional brewers in the area (Live Oak, Independence, Real Ale). We also have an excellent hombrew shop (Austin Homebrew Supply). The weather does get hot in the summer, and pretty much all homes have AC. On the other hand, the cool months (~November through April) are a real pleasure when it comes to brewing. Most of the serious homebrewers I know have some sort of refrigeration for dealing with the hot weather. Either an insulated box or a beer-fridge in the garage. There are other ways to deal with the climate. For a couple of years before I acquired an old fridge, I would brew american and english style ales during the cool months, then brew hefe- and belgian styles during the warm months. Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2007 15:43:25 -0500 From: "steve.alexander" <-s at adelphia.net> Subject: re: Ascorbic Acid as anti-staling agent in beer Rich Lynch asks .... << Does anyone know much about this? Is it good, bad, neither? I bought an ounce or so from a local HBS back when I was still real new at brewing. I've since read on Leeners, I think, that this is not advisable for beer, but okay for wine. ... >> Ascorbic acid gets a "C" as an beer antioxidant. It's decent at picking up free oxygen, but not strong enough to reduce most oxidation reactions once they have occurred. Also in quantity it will add a citrus-y acidic twang that doesn't belong in beer. It is speculated that the oxidized ascorbic (dihydroascorbic) can actually enhance the rate of certain oxidative processes - so it *may* be less than ideal for longer storage times. You certainly won't harm and may help a beer if you make a addition modest ascorbic addition at bottling time in an attempt to capture free O2. A modest sulfite addition is a far better anti-oxidant overall and less likely to interfere with beer flavor. -S Return to table of contents
Date: Sun, 18 Feb 2007 18:29:35 -0800 From: Scott Alfter <scott at alfter.us> Subject: Re: Stirbars Glyn wrote: > Okay, I only want one or two, not ten. Anyone want to split an order? You might want to check eBay...you should be able to find several vendors that'll sell one or two. I bought two stirbars and a "retrieval thingy" (a magnet on the end of a stick, basically) for fishing them out. Shipping shouldn't be much more than $3 or so. > What is the optimal size for half gallon and gallon jars? For a 1L Erlenmeyer flask, I use a stirbar about 2" in length. I've not used anything larger yet. _/_ Scott Alfter / v \ Visit the SNAFU website today! (IIGS( http://www.nevadabrew.com/ Top-posting! \_^_/ rm -rf /bin/laden >What's the most annoying thing on Usenet? Return to table of contents
Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2007 09:43:14 -0500 (EST) From: Scott Graham <grahams at cs.fiu.edu> Subject: 2007 Coconut Cup Results The Miami Area Society of Homebrewers (MASH) held the 9th Annual Coconut Cup competition on February 17th, 2007. The competition included 131 entries from 8 states and many different clubs. Many thanks to everyone who helped judge and steward the competition. Our judging panel included three National BJCP judges, quite a few certified and recognized judges, and several judges who are awaiting their BJCP test results. Clubs represented as judges included the Crescent City Homebrewers (all the way from New Orleans!), the Fort Lauderdale Area Brewers, the Palm Beach Draughtsmen, and MASH. Fifteen beers and two meads advanced to the Best of Show round. The Best of Show award went to Nick Marshall of the Palm Beach Draughtsmen for his Coconut Wheat beer. The full results are posted at http://hbd.org/mash/coco-cup/coco_results_2007.html . Out heartfelt gratitude goes to Kevin Rusk, Steve Copeland, and the staff of the Titanic Brewery and Restaurant for hosting the Coconut Cup again this year. They were gracious and patient, as always, and their generosity made the event possible. We would also like to thank our other sponsors: Gordon Biersch, Brew Your Own magazine, Hopunion, WYeast Laboratories, Olde Auburn Ale House, Briess, Flying Dog Brewing, White Labs, SABCO, Puterbaugh Farms/Hops Direct, Cargill, New Belgium Brewery, Dogfish Head Brewery, and Northern Brewer. Thanks to everyone who submitted entries and helped with the competition. Score sheets and medals will be in the mail this week. We look forward to experiencing your brews at next year's Coconut Cup. Cheers, Scott Graham Miami, FL [1159.9, 169.3] Apparent Rennerian (statute miles) Coconut Cup Judge Coordinator Return to table of contents
Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2007 08:42:16 -0800 (PST) From: Matt <baumssl27 at yahoo.com> Subject: Infection and Wort Chillers Perhaps my recent experiences with infection and counterflow wort chillers will be of use to someone. Over the past few months my fiance and I have suffered an infuriating rash of batch infections, with several going down the drain. Our frustration has been increased by the fact that the uninfected (or more likely "less infected") batches were really very good. The problem has not improved despite many attempts to "be more careful about sanitation." We have been pretty careful. The copper manifold used to siphon hot wort from the kettle is the same as we use in our (bacteria ridden) mash--but is fully submerged in the wort for the entire 60 minute boil. The hose that attaches to this manifold is a heat-resistant type, cleaned with a strong bleach solution after each batch, and then on brewday boiled for 20 minutes before being submerged in Star San until needed. The hot wort passes through a counterflow chiller, then through a short length of similar hose into a bleach-cleaned glass carboy that only 5 seconds earlier has been emptied of a full load of Star San. Both the hot kettle and the carboy neck are draped in sanitized foil during the transfer, to protect against "stuff falling in the air," which is really not a common issue in Colorado anyway. We don't transfer to a secondary fermenter, and we bottle directly out of the primary. But what about that chiller? When we made it, we knew that the inner copper tube would require hose barbs to be soldered to the ends (the thermoplastic tubing does not fit tightly enough without them). Because we were concerned that this solder joint would be uncleanable, we made the chiller entirely from copper--the idea being that even if we could not clean it well, it could dry-heat sterilized in the oven. (350F for 1 hour, as directed in John Palmer's table of dry heat sterilization times). And there, I think, was our mistake. Since we have really had enough with these infections, we put brewing on hold to figure them out. The first thing we did then was boil a couple gallons of extract-based wort, and sanitized our entire wort cooling and transfer setup as normal. We collected samples at every point in that setup in sterile disposable test tubes--essentially a wort stability test at each junction. For decent wort stability, samples should show no sign of infection until at least 3 days. By the second day, one of the samples out of the chiller showed obvious infectionand by day three, all samples that had gone through the chiller (and no others) were showing signs of growth. As amazing as it is to me that something can survive 350F for 1 hour, it appears that such is the case (and it's worth noting that we have also had infected batches when we "sanitized" the chiller by submerging in boiling water for 20'). I suppose it is possible that parts of the chiller are not hitting 350F in my oven, or that the solder joint harbors a hunk of dried "infection goo" deep enough that the principles of heat-sterilization are applying as they would to a clean surface. In any case, I'm modifying the chiller so that there is nothing but smooth, uninterrupted copper tube from inlet to outlet. And I have a question: how does one finish the cut end of copper tubing in a sanitary way? I was going to cut it with a dremel tool, and then finish with 600 grit sandpaper. I know this is way smoother than accepted dairy standards for stainless steel, but will things be different with copper? Matt Return to table of contents
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