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


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Contents:
  Re: dry yeast (Robin Griller)
  ball valve sanitization ("Alexandre Carminati")
  Lagers ("A.J deLange")


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Date: Tue, 13 Nov 2007 08:48:52 -0500
From: Robin Griller <rgriller at chass.utoronto.ca>
Subject: Re: dry yeast

For what it's worth, when I use dry yeast I almost never rehydrate and
have always had quick starts and good ferments. I've used a variety of dry
yeasts over the years from most of the Safale/lager yeasts, Danstar
yeasts, Cooper's. If I recall correctly there was one very slow start with
Danstar Windsor about six or seven years ago, other than that I've found
rehydration to be unnecessary. YMMV of course!

Robin




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Date: Tue, 13 Nov 2007 12:33:37 -0200
From: "Alexandre Carminati" <afcarminati at gmail.com>
Subject: ball valve sanitization

Some days ago I have posted an email regarding about "sour bottled
beer". I had so many hints on what to investigate and I came to an
obnoxious cleaning problem:
How to clean efficiently metalic (non SS) ball valves? They seem to be
clean, but when you open and close them, some kind of dirtness
(contamined yeast I supose) comes from inside the teflon around the
ball.
My cleaning process includes a hot 2% NaOH solution bath and a spray
of peracetic acid afterwards.
I am wondering to replace these metal valves for plastic ones and
discard them immediatelly after use. Does anyone knows a cheapest way
to solve this issue?

Cheers

Alex


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Date: Tue, 13 Nov 2007 10:35:31 -0500
From: "A.J deLange" <ajdel at cox.net>
Subject: Lagers

Darrel asked about how the rest of us make lagers. This is a timely 
question for me with respect to the yeast anyway. My local home brew 
supplier finally got caught by the county (he was selling from his 
basement and was able to do this for over five years before the Gestapo 
got him) which caused him to pack up and move away to start a meadery. 
He liked White Labs and while he would get Wyeast for you if you wanted 
it he would always have the White Labs in stock. So I used their yeast 
for the last 3 years and got some nice beers but there were some 
problems with slow starts and, with the Kolsch and Budvar strains, a 
funny phenolic plastic taste which takes months to resolve but finally 
does leaving a really nice beer. Furthermore, the Oktoberfest strain 
starts out OK until it hits 20 - 25% attenuation then slams on the 
brakes and crawls. The batch I made in August will be coming out of the 
fermenter next week. Again, the eventual result is a very nice beer. So, 
you are thinking, he under pitches or under oxygenates. I always 
(because of these problems) pitch a 10% starter and that starter is made 
with 2 tubes of the yeast. Oxygenation is always to over 20mg/L and is 
done in line (i.e. as the wort enters the fermenter).

In my last brewing the starter (London ale) wouldn't start (it was a 
couple months past the use-before date) so I ran off to what is now my 
Local Home Brew Shop (and that is literally it's name) where I requested 
a couple more tubes only to be told that they don't carry White Labs 
because people weren't buying it. When I asked why I was told that 
customers were complaining of slow starts and off flavors - in 
particular phenolic. So he dropped White Labs and sells Wyeast 
exclusively. I feel somewhat vindicated because I've been bellyaching 
about these problems here for a while now and have aked the obvious 
question: "Is anyone else seeing this kind of behavior with White Labs 
yeasts?" a couple of times before and gotten no response. So I'm asking 
it again.

It is probably worth noting that White Labs yeasts don't seem to want to 
start unless they are in warm conditions and the instructions on the 
package indicate that one should start them at high (room) temperatures 
and keep them there until the ferement is under way. I don't do this 
because I don't want the nasty things that yeast produce at higher 
temperatures in my lagers but I do start them at temperatures much 
higher (55 - 60) than I would like to start a lager at.  This may be 
where the funny flavors are coming from. The old ideas of pitching 
(lagers) in the mid 40's (F) and letting the temperature rise to around 
50 for the fermentation wouldn't fly with the White Labs strains.

So with respect to Darrel's questions: I like an 8 - 10% starter made 
with 2 packages of yeast and I like to pitch at whatever temperature I 
can get out of the chiller as I am now pitching in line. This is more 
likely to be 55 than 45 though I would prefer the latter and if I had a 
yeast that would perform at those temperatures and would probably bring 
the fermenter down to the mid 40's after it is filled and then let the 
temp rise to about 50 and hold it there for the duration of the 
fermentation. When fermentation is complete I lower the temperature in 5 
F steps over the course of a few days down to near freezing and keep it 
in the ferementer at those temperatures for a week or 2 before racking 
off to kegs for lagering (at about 35F) and serving. If I have to take 
beer somewhere I'll rack it but if not I don't bother.

WRT distilled water: using it for mashing is likely to result in an 
undesireably high mash pH unless some darker malt is added to the mash 
or an external acid is used. This will cost somewhat in efficiency but 
is an OK way to go if you don't mind spending an extra couple of bucks 
for grain. I use a blend of tap water and RO water for Pils which, given 
the characteristics of my tap water, results in a mix quite similar to 
the water of Pilsen. For other lagers I use my well water (hardness 
about 110 ppm, alkalinity about 80, sulfate about 21, chloride about 7) 
and I'll add a little HCl if the mash pH is too high.

WRT to cold lagering: I think it helps - a lot. My beers go into the 
cooler right out of the fermenter and stay there. I'm drinking a stout 
made new years day and a Kolsch made in April and while neither of these 
is a lager they just keep getting better and better as time progresses. 
Unfortunately they are both almost gone - the next glass may give that 
sickening sigh of foam and CO2 but I'll defend long lagering for any beer.

A.J.


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