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


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Contents:
  Batch Sparging Gravities ("LANCE HARBISON")
  Blacklists vs. Your Daily HBD ("Patrick Babcock")
  Temperature mishap ("Gus Iverson")
  Heatsticks and Popped GFIs ("Pete Calinski")


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Date: Mon, 01 Oct 2007 16:15:06 -0500
From: "LANCE HARBISON" <harbison65 at verizon.net>
Subject: Batch Sparging Gravities

Years ago I accidentally created a 2.5 gallon batch of sour stout.  It
happened when I discovered the day after brewing that I had 2.5 gallons of
1.037 wort still in my mash tun (that which had drained down over night).  I
boiled and fermented this and the resulting beer had a pleasant sour twang.
I would like to re-create the sour beer.  For my next batch I would like to
perform a batch sparge in which the first runnings would be for the creation
of 10 gallons of imperial stout.  I would then allow the mash to sit over
night.  The next day I would perform the second sparge of the soured mash.

Since my fermenter will be busy with the IS I am planning on sparging into
two cornies.  The cornies would then be placed into my fridge.  On the day
that I keg the IS (approximately four weeks later) I will boil and cool the
contents of the two cornies and will pitch the harvested yeast from the IS.

I have never done batch sparging which leads to a couple of questions:
Assuming that my grain bill is consistant with an original gravity of 1100
for 20 gallons what likely would be the OG of the 10 gallons of IS (I
typically get 75-80% efficiency during fly sparging)?  What could I expect
for the OG of the second runnings (that is, should I expect to need to add 
DME
to bring up the gravity)?

Lance Harbison
Pittsburgh




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Date: Tue, 2 Oct 2007 12:21:53 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Patrick Babcock" <pbabcock at hbd.org>
Subject: Blacklists vs. Your Daily HBD

Greetings, Beerlings! Take me to your lager...

Ah! I *LOVE* those people who, instead of following the simple unsubscribe
instructions provided in each HBD, choose to complain that we are SPAMMING
them to their ISP...

The October Probe reveals that if you are on worldnet.att.net (or any
variant thereof), you must contact them to get hbd.org/68.167.120.99 off
their abuse list. They have a form for me to use; however it is screwed
up, and I'm done fighting with it.

Also, if you use one of those antiSPAM services (like eartlink's) that
responds with a request that a link be clicked through, be sure to add
probe at hbd.org to your whitelist. The PROBE system assumes that, if you
aren't receiveing the probe message, you aren't receiving the HBD, either,
and deletes your subscription.

Finally, add probe at hbd.org to your "non-responders" for any vacation
program you may be running. I have written it to recognize any
out-of-office type reponses, but it is not unlikely that you can come up
with one it hasn't "seen". Best strategy is to just prevent your vacation
mail program from reponding to *any* hbd.org addresses.

See ya!
Pat Babcock
Chief of Janitorial Services
Home Brew Digest, Inc.




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Date: Tue, 2 Oct 2007 11:08:56 -0700
From: "Gus Iverson" <gus.iverson at gmail.com>
Subject: Temperature mishap

So, my wife was trying to be helpful while I was at work...

I brewed two beers last weekend, a stout and a lager style which I am
fermenting with the steam beer yeast strain. The stout is using the
dry english ale yeast, both from white labs.

The stout had dropped down to 62 degrees in the garage yesterday which
I noticed on my way out to work. I didn't have time to stop and my
wife offered to help out with it during the day. She put on a neoprene
jacket I got from BB&B and heater and hooked it up to the temperature
controller.

So... the probe wasn't put in the beer, rather it was next to it. And
she put it on the lager, not the stout.

Net result, the lager was up to about 78* yesterday evening. The stout
was at 61.

I rectified the situation and the lager is now down to 65 as of this
morning. Fermentation took off last night after the heat event.

What I'm wondering is what the likely effects of this heat event are.
Certainly off flavors and such but since many people start fermenting
warm and then cool the beer off, is this really a crisis? Krausen did
not form until overnight when the beer had already dropped below 74*
on its way to 65* this AM on a gentle slope (it is probably 58* - 62*
or so in my garage right now).

TIA for any input.


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Date: Tue, 2 Oct 2007 15:15:33 -0400
From: "Pete Calinski" <pjcalinski at adelphia.net>
Subject: Heatsticks and Popped GFIs

Well I brewed the other day and I think I identified one thing that can 
cause a GFI to blow.  It was an accumulation of crud on the plug and it 
bridged across the terminals.

I was about half way into the mash and heating the sparge water when one of 
my GFIs popped.  There had been a recent discussing on the subject and I had 
put forth the theory that perhaps it was moisture condensing in the GFI.

I have had GFIs pop before and when I opened up the heatstick I could find 
no sign of any leakage.  Since usually they popped during the boil, I 
expected to find some caramelized wort inside.  Since I didn't, I concluded 
the heatstick didn't leak so the leakage current must have occurred 
elsewhere.

Well, to test this theory, when the GFI popped I decided to swap GFIs.  I 
removed the failed heatstick from the failing GFI and plugged it into 
another GFI.  That one popped also so obviously the failure was associated 
with the heatstick.

I looked at the plug of the heatstick and there was a collection of "crud" 
(technical term) around the terminals.  I just took a couple of swipes at it 
with a screwdriver and plugged it back in.  Frankly I didn't expect that to 
have any effect; I was just cleaning up a little.  Well, the GFI didn't pop. 
In fact, I continued to use that heatstick in that same GFI for the rest of 
the mash, sparge, and boil.  It never popped again.

Later I inspected it more carefully and couldn't find any evidence of a 
carbon trace or other conductive substance.

I guess what had happened is the crud was there but did not conduct at 
first.  Then, as the moisture in the air accumulated it became wet and 
conducted enough to trip the GFI.

This doesn't refute the fact that heatsticks can leak.  It just says there 
can be other causes also.

Pete Calinski
East Amherst NY
Near Buffalo NY

http://hbd.org/pcalinsk





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