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


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Contents:
  Judges needed - Longshot competition Chicago region ("Formanek, Joe")
  re: Hiku, Haiku ("Stevens, Jonathan C")
  re: keg priming vs. oxidation ("steve.alexander")
  Re: Chest Freezer Utilization (Christopher Burian)


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Date: Tue, 8 May 2007 10:04:13 -0500
From: "Formanek, Joe" <Jformanek at griffithlaboratories.com>
Subject: Judges needed - Longshot competition Chicago region

Greetings!
We are still looking for additional judges and folks who would be able
to help out for the Longshot competition in Chicago the weekend of May
18th.
Judging will take place at the Lisle/Naperville Hilton in Lisle, IL
We will conduct judging Friday night starting at 7 PM (1 flight), then 1
on Sat AM and 1 on Sat PM, followed by a train pub crawl.  BOS judging
will take place Sun AM
Sam Adams is quite generous with this competition, offering free room
and board for all judges who are able to help out.
Please let me know if you are up for it.  Thanks!!  My email address is
Jformanek at griffithlaboratories.com

Cheers!
Joe Formanek
Organizer - 1st round 2007 Longshot Homebrew Competition Chicago region



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Date: Tue, 8 May 2007 14:17:00 -0400 
From: "Stevens, Jonathan C" <Jonathan.Stevens at dhs.gov>
Subject: re: Hiku, Haiku

Stevie, yur killin' me!

Hiku...it's something like a plambic: not quite, but close enough for most
homebrewers.  But then you're not most homebrewers are you Steven.

;o)
___________________________________________________
San Diego County Fair Craft Brewers Competition and Festival.  84 taps -
Tons of
hops!  50 breweries from around the world.  Come celebrate with the brewers
as
they're called to the podium to collect their ribbons...and drink their
winning
beers!

June 9th, noon to 5:00 pm.
Del Mar Fair Grounds

Chad Stevens
San Diego County Fair Beer Guru
(yes Steve, your tax dollars very hard at work!)


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Date: Tue, 08 May 2007 20:23:43 -0400
From: "steve.alexander" <-s at adelphia.net>
Subject: re: keg priming vs. oxidation

Brian Miller wrote ...

>I conducted a triangle test today on my latest oktoberfest beer (kegged/
>bottled on 2/16) to determine if bottle conditioning versus careful  
>kegging
>made any difference.  My kegging procedure is now to push out StarSan
>solution with CO2, open the pressure relief valve and run the siphon
>through the liquid out connection.  Totally a**l I know, but I've  
>detected
>oxidation effects in my kegged beers so that's where I'm at.  Before  
>filling the corny I filled 12 bottles from the same siphon.

Nice experiment Brian, but you should describe your bottle conditioning
method to be complete.  What did you prime with, amount, bottle size,
head (neck) space, storage conditions ...  

>My wife set up the tasting for me and the bottle conditioned beer was
>pretty easily detected from the kegged one, and the bottled version
>was much 'better'.  I've about run out of ideas besides keg priming to
>avoid this problem in the future.  Is this common knowledge or am I
>missing something?

It should be "common knowledge" but I suspect that the legion of HBers
who enjoy the convenience of kegging are blind to the reality.

Your side-by-side matches my experience completely.  I've always been
concerned that the corny lids & fittings may not seal perfectly, and
as you describe removing air from a corny before filling requires some
work.  It seems to me that keg damage can sometime accelerate (or
perhaps is noticed when the keg level drops to around 25% full.  It
would be interesting to see if keg fill level does impact rate of
oxidation development.

The other astonishing thing is that bottle conditioned beers seem to
last forever - well at least they taste quite good up to and even
beyond a year of age !  Of course the confounding issue is that the
beers aren't identical - your bottle conditioned beer has perhaps 10%
more fermentables and of course the re-ferment is well known to have a
positive impact on flavor.

I've done just a few keg re-ferments, but  I haven't collected any
side-by-side data - the d*mned thing is that a force carbonated keg
is quick & easy & convenient - but almost certainly suboptimal.

 -S





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Date: Tue, 08 May 2007 21:41:39 -0400
From: Christopher Burian <cburian at burian.net>
Subject: Re: Chest Freezer Utilization

"Tim R" <tim.runnette at gmail.com> wrote:
> Gents a quick question on optimized use of a soon-to-be-inherited chest
> freezer.  I want to start kegging and accurately controlling fermentation
> temps.  If I was to run a temp control to my freezer after modification with
> a collar or tap thru the top, to maintain serving temp, could I still use it
> for ale fermentation if I used a Fermawrap (sp?) or similar mechanism to
> keep a carboy warm inside the freezer along side the keg (maybe a towel or
> something to insulate the carboy from the keg)?  Seems like I could run two
> temp controllers and keep 2-6.5 gal carboys and 2-kegs running at the same
> time easiy.

I've got a chest freezer, and instead of putting in the house or
basement like a normal person, I put it in a shed outdoors.  The
temperature varied radically based on outside ambient temp to the
point where it was unusable.  So, for the next step, I installed a
25 watt heater inside the freezer, combined with a temp controller
on the freezer cord.  The outcome was 1. works great, and 2. cycles
way too often.  So, I expect the compressor is going to die a
premature death.  But after one year it's still going fine.  So, for
hot days cool nights I run the heater continuously on (with a "panic"
thermostat to turn heat off if temp gets too high) so the refrigeration
is dominant and cycles frequently--doesn't fluctuate wildly.  For cold
days and nights (winter) I run the thermostat-controlled heater as
dominant with the freezer unplugged.  If we had consistently hot
days and hot nights, then I'd turn off the heater and run freezer
only, but nights with ambient greater than fermentation temp are
rare in New England.

The POINT being, I think you'd do fine with a thermostat-controlled
ferm-wrap keeping the bucket/carboy warm with a separate thermostat
on the freezer keeping the kegs at serving temp.  The best outer
wrap would be aluminized bubble wrap, I bet.  But even without outer
protection, as long as the ferm-wrap has sufficient wattage, it will
keep the carboy warm.  Make sure that the ferm-wrap temperature is
controlled by a thermostat reading bulk liquid temp.  Either stick
the thermostat sensor down inside the carboy, or else put it directly
against the side of the carboy with insulation (bubble wrap, etc)
between the sensor and the ferm-wrap heater element.

I don't know how big you need to be because I don't keg.  I have a
tiny 7 cu ft freezer that holds one bucket or carboy, plus a second
3-gallon carboy only, plus my "wind tunnel" (tube containing 25W
heater plus Muffin/computer fan).

Running a freezer outdoors below freezing temps freezes up the
elements/condenser etc causing runaway heat (ironically).  Thus
when cold outside it is important to run thermostat-controlled
heat only with no refrigeration.

Regards,
Chris




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