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


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Contents:
  temp with a Hefe (leavitdg)
  Sodium Metabisulphite vs Star San ("Lee Smith")
  Priming (Fred L Johnson)
  CO2, priming, and headspace ("Spencer W. Thomas")


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JANITORs on duty: Pat Babcock (pbabcock at hbd dot org), Jason Henning,
                  and Spencer Thomas



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Date: Sat, 08 Dec 2007 06:30:56 -0500
From: leavitdg at plattsburgh.edu
Subject: temp with a Hefe

Interesting.  I did something similar yesterday.  I brewed a hefe with Whitelabs
wlp300, and left it in a warmer part of the house (northern ny state, just 1.25
hours south of Montreal, Quebec).  I usually leave ales in the back room where
it is warm enough, but not in the 70s.  It was a very fresh yeast, so I guessed
that it might take off rather vigorously, and it did.  This morning it needed a
blow off tube.

I left it in a warmer place in that I am guessing that we'll get more flavors
(bananna and clove) with it warmer.  I think yours may be ok, just lots of zip
to it.

Lets see what others say.

Happy Brewing!
Darrell



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Date: Sun, 9 Dec 2007 19:18:24 -0700
From: "Lee Smith" <smithly at comcast.net>
Subject: Sodium Metabisulphite vs Star San

Hey Y'all,

Getting ready to cork a Belgian and it's my first time using cork.  Is
there a credible argument as to whether or not Star San will perform as
well as Sodium Metabisulphite for soaking the corks?

Thanks,
Lee
[1629.3, 254.2] Apparent Rennerian

Sweet!



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Date: Mon, 10 Dec 2007 07:46:26 -0500
From: Fred L Johnson <FLJohnson52 at nc.rr.com>
Subject: Priming

Fellow brewers:

For many years I have primed my beer by calculating how much dextrose  
to add the produce the desired amount of volumes of CO2. It only  
dawned on me today that this method (which one can find all over the  
internet and in books) ignores the volume of headspace and the  
temperature of the beer. It assumes that ALL of the CO2 produced is  
dissolved in the beer, which we know is not the case unless one the  
beer is in a container with zero headspace.

This explains why one could bottle/keg prime and condition a beer and  
have poor carbonation if the volume of headspace were high (say in a  
half-filled keg).

Shouldn't we be making some adjustments to our priming sugar based  
upon the headspace we intend to have and the temperature at which we  
intend to store and serve the beer? This certainly is used when one  
force carbonates the beer in a keg? Why are these adjustments not in  
the bottle priming formulas?

Fred L Johnson
Apex, North Carolina, USA



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Date: Mon, 10 Dec 2007 10:19:40 -0500
From: "Spencer W. Thomas" <hbd at spencerwthomas.com>
Subject: CO2, priming, and headspace

Fred asks "Why does the temperature not matter when calculating priming
sugar?"

Simply put, because a given amount of sugar produces a given amount of
CO2.  Regardless of the storage temperature, the mass of CO2 remains the
same (assuming complete fermentation of the priming charge).  And
"Volumes" of CO2 is a mass-related measure, because it refers to volume
at a standard temperature and pressure.  Thus, 1 liter of CO2 at STP is
approximately 2 grams of CO2.  4 grams of dextrose produce approximately
2 grams of CO2 if fermented completely, so 4 grams/liter will produce 1
volume of CO2.

You might want adjust for the temperature of the beer into which you are
adding the priming sugar, if you can assume that the beer is fully
saturated with CO2 at the time of priming.  Colder beer will hold more
CO2 in solution. Conveniently, at 60F, the solubility of CO2 at
atmospheric pressure is approximately 1 volume.  Thus, if you were
priming a beer to 2 volumes (English ale) at 60F, you'd want to add
enough sugar to produce an additional volume of CO2 (if you can add the
sugar without driving any significant amount of CO2 out of solution!)

The headspace might be an issue, especially in your example of a
half-filled keg.  In a standard bottle-fill situation, the difference in
carbonation introduced by headspace variation is less than the
uncertainty in the amount of CO2 in the unprimed beer.  For example in a
12 oz bottle, if the headspace was 1/2 oz, the amount of CO2 in the
headspace at 60F would be 1/24 the total in the bottle, or less than
5%.  I don't think you can estimate the pre-priming CO2 that closely. 
At colder temperatures, more of the CO2 will be in the beer and less in
the headspace, because the solubility of CO2 increases as the beer gets
colder.

Why does the temperature matter when you are force carbonating?  Because
you're applying a constant *pressure* of CO2, not supplying a constant
*volume*.  The volume of CO2 absorbed at a particular pressure will vary
significantly as the temperature changes, with more absorbing into cold
beer and less into warm beer.  I take advantage of this when I'm making
sparkling water.  I chill the water as close to freezing as I can, and
apply 40lbs of CO2 for a couple of hours through a carbonating stone. 
If I fill a 2 liter bottle with this solution, cap it, and let it warm
to room temperature, the bottle becomes "rock hard" because of the
increase in pressure with increased temperature.  The dissolved volume
(mass) of CO2 has not changed, only the temperature and pressure.

=Spencer in Ann Arbor



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